Family Values

Values are everywhere; most of our schools now have them and more and more corporations promote them. They are useful in determining what you stand for and to measure the things you do against. As a family you will hold your own set of values. Sometimes these will be disguised as "just the way we do things in our house", but often these "family rules" reflect what you hold as important in your family.

It makes for an interesting conversation as a family to discuss "What is important to us?" and to sort through these rules and habits to find the underlying value. For example: you might have a rule of "no devices at the table at meal times" - why? because you value communication with each other, you value being present with each other, listening, sharing. You might have a rule of "pick up your own clothes and make your bed" - why? because you value responsibility or teamwork as a family. I would encourage you to have that conversation with your family and try to drill down to the underlying values. 

Sometimes you might agree that a certain value should be your family value and work the other way to decide what that might look like or mean in your house.

Family values are very useful when having conversations around behaviour, making it easier for kids to see the link between what they do and how it might affect others. But be warned family values apply to everyone in the family so expect to be called out on not upholding them yourself from time to time and welcome the chance to role model being held accountable before your family.

A fun follow on activity is to come up with a family Coat of Arms that reflects or depicts your 3-4 family values. (Plenty of blank Coat of Arms templates are available to download on Google images.)