Flavour of the Day With Noora

Setting Values For Your Kids

"Determining the values I want for my children is crucial for identifying the kind of parent I want to be," says my life coach. You would think that listing a set of values is easy, but when you think of backing up these values with actions, parenting gets a bit more complicated.

I sat and stared, then stared some more to really think of what I want for my children: religion, honesty, determination, unselfishness, consideration of others and surroundings, appreciation, to know that they need to work hard to be entitled to stuff, compassion with the less fortunate, and compassion with each other and towards their parents. I'm not sure if I am done.

Looking at my list made me realise just how hard raising kids is. Now, all I see most of the time is the difficulty of feeding, bathing, putting to sleep, midnight wake up calls, and a number of other exhausting but somewhat routine actions. Yet, all this and I still haven't reached the values, not the way they deserve to be reached anyways.

The idea is: once you know your values, it will become easier to say: yes, no, let's look into it, this was amazing, this is unacceptable, the consequence of your actions are as follows etc. because you know your end goal. And, it is ok for values to change with time such as when kids grow up.

Try it, it takes a lot of effort and concentration, but it will make you feel empowered in the end.