The time we have with our children passes so quickly. Our babies are soon riding bikes—and then driving cars—and before we know it, leaving home. And all the while we influence them; we set an example; we communicate values; we establish patterns for them to follow. As one expert observed: “Virtues are not taught by force-feeding. In fact, just the opposite is true. The teaching of values is undertaken in the everyday interactions with children.”1
Recently, a 12-year-old girl went to visit her cousins who live across the country. After the girl helped clean the kitchen one evening, her aunt commented on her good work and asked, “How did you get to be such a good cleaner?” Without a moment’s pause, she responded, “It runs in my family.”
To be sure, physical characteristics and health profiles tend to run in families. But so do attitudes and values. One generation passes to the next a method of living, a way of relating, a desire for learning, a model of faith. Of course children can adopt or adjust those patterns in their own adult lives. Oftentimes they improve upon family patterns. Yet sometimes they choose a path filled with hard knocks as they reject virtues their parents hold dear. But even then, when good patterns are in place from their youth, they have a map to bring them home.
Our responsibility as parents is to lovingly share what is sacred to us with our children. Anciently, Moses taught the Israelites to teach their posterity “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up”2—in other words, all the time. Live your beliefs. By precept and by example, let your children know what you believe. Let them feel of your love for them and for the God who made them.
Program #3911
1. Barbara C. Unell and Jerry L. Wyckoff, 20 Teachable Virtues (1995), xx.
2. Deuteronomy 6:7.