If you want your kids to grow up to be wonderful human beings in every sense of the word, choose to teach them essential values, moral principles, and the fundamentals of living in a society. The following are six ways you could start.
Knowing Your Legal Rights
In most cases, most people will not be involved in a criminal case throughout their lives. But if you ever do, your best bet is to hire the services of a reputable defense attorney to represent you. An individual with knowledge and expertise will guide you on the best possible course of action to take and fight for your rights and help you navigate the many legalities involved in such matters.
Still, as parents, we shouldn’t wait for this to happen. Instead, we should educate our kids on the rights granted to them by the constitution and how they can properly use them to maneuver most situations in their adult lives.
Understanding Your Responsibilities
Depending on the environment you are born in and your parents’ beliefs, you will have one or several responsibilities as a child. Some of the most common ones include doing your homework every day, making your bed when you get up in the morning, cleaning yourself after coming home from school, and helping out with family chores whenever possible.
The purpose of this is not to make children work at the earliest age possible. Rather, it is about building a sense of discipline, diligence, and hard work, all essential values to success later on in life.
Compassion and Respect
We are all different. Even siblings born of the same mother and father are dissimilar to each other, both physically and concerning personal opinions and beliefs. If that is the case, imagine how unalike we must be with those of other races, creeds, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds.
Nevertheless, we are still all human, and if we want to survive and thrive in our modern societies, we need to embrace our differences and treat those that are not the same as us with compassion and respect. If we do this, we will slowly begin to understand why they think the way they do and even find similarities leading to mutual benefits and worthwhile relationships.
Environmental Protection
Whether you are American, Chinese, Italian, South African, or Brazilian, we all share the same planet, warm ourselves with the same sun, bathe our bodies and clean our belongings with the same water. It is perhaps the most important aspect of globalization, the realization that we are neither dependent on others nor independent but rather interdependent. I need you as much as you need me and vice versa.
As parents, our job is to be models of good behavior to our children about the environment. We should teach them how to segregate the garbage, maximize water and electricity usage, and be conscious about not littering the streets and places we visit.
Strength of Character and Resilience
Human beings are not perfect. We are all flawed in one way or another. We have all been tempted to take the wrong path and do something that is not morally right. Whether we choose to engage in this behavior or stick to our guns and follow our principles is a different story.
Throughout life, we will all face challenges, many of which will seem insurmountable. But if our parents have built within us the proper foundation, one based on moral fiber, inner strength, and resilience, we will not falter. We will stay the ship on course, make the tough decisions that need to be made, and move forward with firmness and courage.
Paying It Forward
If your child knows both his legal rights and responsibilities, is compassionate and respectful towards others, understands the importance of environmental protection, and has resilience and strength of character, the best thing he can do is help others be the same.
It is not enough to be a great person and a good citizen. People who are exceptional assist those who are not and guide them along the way to greatness. They serve as community leaders and inspire the other members of society to excel and always give their best.
So talk to your children about paying it forward. Tell them the true purpose of life is leaving this world better than you found it.
The biggest source of pride for any good parent is his children. He lives vicariously through their victories and their defeats and cherishes their accomplishments wholeheartedly.
To achieve this amazing feeling, parents can do plenty of things, six of which we have seen. So get to it, and help your kids become the best citizens they can be.