Humans are hardwired to strive towards progress and parents are no exception here. With a new year just around the corner, we feel like we’re blessed with a fresh start and a chance to do better this time.

We all want to raise our children with a solid moral foundation, teach them important skills and values, and support them in becoming responsible, caring, and healthy adults.

The question is: how do you actually do that?

For starters, accept the trial and error method. Parenting is a tough job, especially because it is a whole new role in one’s life and no one is bringing up a child on their own. Today’s kids are exposed to numerous influences: from media and the internet to peers, school, and even random strangers. Children soak in everything and process it in their own unique way.

For a parent, it can be challenging to isolate the bad influences.

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Here are a few ways you can teach your kids the art of respect, responsibility, kindness, and caring for others.

Use Fairy Tales to Teach Children about Morals

The method of storytelling has been around for thousands of years: it’s one of the great things that make us humans. Science says fairy tales help your kids understand great messages but in an easy-consumable way, even though an unconscious process. Literary heroes are just another form of role model your child can rely on. They provide a good moral compass.

The structure of fairy tales includes an archetype of a hero’s journey that usually consists of three stages: separation, initiation and return. A certain hero leaves his home, pushes himself out of the comfort zone, faces the world and many challenges, learns a lot about himself and others, and then returns back. This pattern is nicely wrapped in a vivid and exciting adventure story.

Even defining a moral lesson after a story could be beneficial. Dozens of different variations of famous storylines (e.g. Cinderella or Snow White) exist all around the globe, adapting to the cultural surroundings and specific values of a certain community. This means we are all connected through similar narratives our children can learn from.

If your kids are a bit older, you can turn to inspirational biographies and encourage them to seek role models outside of the circle of modern pop stars and celebrities who don’t really set good examples.

See our page: Reading with Children for more.

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Encourage Them to Help Around

According to the Piagetian Developmental Theory, children go through a phase of egocentrism that means they are unable to understand other perspectives and positions outside their own. They’re focused on their personal needs without making a difference between the inner psychological world and the outer physical world. They expect full attention without giving any.

The best way to raise a compassionate child is to show them good practice and encourage them to help. Depending on your child’s age, you can assign him or her appropriate chores.

Participating in chores helps with increasing independency. Children love feeling capable even if it’s the simplest of tasks we’re talking about, such as feeding the dog, fluffing the pillows, or setting the table. According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, taking part in home care is one of the ways to become happier and healthier: humans have an inborn instinct for helping others and the study showed that building close relationships is the key to happiness.

By letting your children help, you are actually letting them learn the importance of providing support to a person in need and you are giving them a chance to feel good about themselves in the process. The feelings of self-pride and usefulness are positive ones that can induce future good deeds.

Some parents like to reward the beginning efforts with pennies, but think twice before resorting to this method: if money or a certain prize is introduced, your child may get the wrong idea and expect material benefits for every good deed in the future.

However, you can turn this around and use it for teaching your children two additional lessons: the value of money and importance of helping less fortunate. Award them with pennies for work that they have done and encourage them to give the money to charity.

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Teach Children Respect for the Elderly and Authorities

Nurturing respect for others is one of the greatest things your child has to learn. Here, it is crucial to be a great role model and help your child pick up a few things from your own personal behavior. This includes how you treat your spouse and parents, as well as other family members.

As a parent, you have to be fully aware that your child listens and observes everything you do. This is why you need to control your behaviour: don’t let your anger and frustration show through yelling or violent actions, and nurture healthy and assertive communication. It is essential to help your child develop interpersonal skills.

Start a conversation about it. When it comes to respecting authorities (be it a teacher or a police officer), explain to your child that they should not feel oppressed in these relationships but must respect those who have more experience and wisdom.

By doing so, your child learns that the world has some sort of a system and that there are some hierarchies that need to be respected.

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Honesty is the Best Policy (but not every time)

The differences between white lies and horrible deceits are one of the most complex things your child needs to comprehend. Lying or embellishing the truth is a part of adulthood: it is what helps us maintain good relationships with others and avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Of course, this is not to advocate lying as a good way to live. Rather, it’s a realistic point of view. According to a psychology expert from Lancaster University, lying is an important social skill children need to learn as they slowly step into adulthood. This doesn’t mean we should encourage our kids to lie but teach them the difference between pointing something obvious that might hurt somebody’s feelings (such as calling someone fat) and being genuine with people, honest with one’s thoughts and emotions.

The world we live in is filled with inconsistencies which makes it even harder to explain the importance of empathy to your child. Unfortunately, today’s acts of kindness are treated as exceptions, instead of default behaviors that we should all strive towards.

Kids can be incredibly bright as they are observational learners: this is why it is difficult to show them how crucial it is to be good and do well, despite the world proving bad guys do win sometimes (perhaps more often than they should).

Follow these tips, ask for additional support from your surroundings and, most importantly, have faith in your parenting.

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