Even in this age of cynicism and prejudice, amid greed and injustice, you can still raise a child who values honesty and fairness.
Remember that a child is born into this world like an empty sponge. He absorbs everything that you soak him with. Shower him with love and the right values and he will contain the beauty that you raised him with. Then, wherever he may be, no matter how hard he may be squeezed, it is the same love and proper values that he will give out.
While you cannot possibly guard your child every moment that he steps out into the real world, if the correct values have been planted in a child’s heart and mind, he will adhere to those values wherever he may be, in whatever situation he may find himself to be. Here are ways to implant honesty and fairness to your child:
1. Shower your child with love and affection. Studies show that children who grew up in a harsh and restrictive home, and were not shown affection, are the ones who often grow up to be lawbreakers. Giving money and other luxuries is not the only way to show a child your love. Little acts of affection–touching, embracing–are more heart warming.
2. Teach you child how to trust, how to see the good in people and situations. Make them believe that the world is a beautiful place, even as you want them of dangers that lurk around.
3. Make them realize that honesty yields favorable results such as a peaceful and rewarding life and success. While one may get away with dishonesty, and enjoy a more comfortable life, it is still peace of mind that is important in the end.
4. Even in the midst of financial difficulty, make your child feel that things are not that bad. He still has many comforts in life which many children do not have. He still has you and other people to take care of him. Constantly talking economic hardships in front of the children will turn them into worriers. They will have the wrong idea that life and happiness itself all depends on things like money and material comforts.
5. Teach your child the value of saving for the future. Let him start his own savings, no mater how small the amount he sets aside may be. Make him realize the fulfillment of being able to buy something after exerting effort to save for it.
6. Praise your child when he does something good. Let him feel good about it so that he will always do it, even when you are not around. In the same way, encourage him to admit whatever wrong he has done. Try the positive approach when you correct his mistakes. Bring up a similar situation when he did something correctly instead of humiliating him. Let him feel that he can admit his mistakes to you, such that it comes naturally to him to be honest, as he grows up.
7. Teach your child how to be independent and self-sufficient. Let him feel how nice it is to achieve something through his own efforts. Make him realize that he has his own potentials and capacity. He need not always depend on other people in order to have what he needs and wants.
8. Be fair to your children. Having favorites is the best way to teach your child how to be unfair. If you have to favor one child over another, for one reason or another, then explain the reason to the ‘aggrieved’ child. “Sandra needs a new pair of shoes for her graduation. You will also have one when it is your turn to graduate.”
9. Spend time with your child. Install lessons in your everyday conversations. You do not have to preach to make lessons on honesty and fairness come across. That might even turn the child off. Scaring a child like saying, “your tongue will be cut off when you tell a lie” is not the proper way to teach your child about honesty. When he grows up and discovers that his tongue will not necessarily be cut off even if he tells a lie, then he’ll think that it’s OK to lie. He may even think that you are the one who’s lying after all!
10. Teach by example. No matter how you teach your child the values of honesty and fairness, if you show the opposite example in your daily life, then the child will remember the bad example more. If you keep telling your child to the visitor that I am not around” even though the child sees that you are, and then he will get used to telling ‘little white lies.’ Be honest. Say, “I am really busy that is why I cannot entertain that unexpected visitor.” Some parents think that it is alright to tell petty lies. What they do not realize is that a child cannot distinguish a `petty’ lie from a ‘real’ lie. In effect, they are the ones who are unintentionally teaching their child how to get used to lying.
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