Nurturing Your Child to be a Positive Role Model
By Ms. Janice Nass, LCSW
How can we as parents help our children become positive
role models? As parents we may feel that although we continually work on
instilling positive values in our children and hope that they internalize
these values we are losing the battle. Other influences in their lives, such
as peers, social media, and even world events can sear values and priorities
into young people’s consciousness. These influence often work to conspire
against our efforts and result in our children adopting values and
perspectives that we may not share. Don’t despair. Here are some tips to
help you be a positive role model in your child’s life.
• Nurture a warm relationship. Children tend to be more willing to accept
and internalize parental values when they feel close to their parents. And
close families usually have many shared interests and values that reinforce
each other.
• Show and tell what matters. A key to your influence on your child’s values
is that they understand what really matters to you. The best way to do that
is both to show and tell—help them see the values in action in your own
life, then talk about why you do what you do.
• Cultivate open communication. Teens are more likely to internalize their
parents’ values when they have open, frequent, and honest communication with
each other—when teens feel comfortable talking with their parents about
tough issues and about things that matter to them. Show interest in the
things that matter to your child and show them that you care about their
choices and activities. That attentiveness, in turn, motivates your child to
pay attention to and accept your values.
• Give your child choices and appropriate independence. Helping children see
that they have power in their own lives and can influence others helps them
be aware of and internalize their own values. If parents don’t give choices
or don’t see their children as unique individuals, the children may end up
pushing away in order to develop their own sense of who they are.
• Provide appropriate information, guidelines, and structures. In addition
to giving children opportunities to make their own choices, it is just as
important to set clear and fair expectations and consequences, then follow
through with the consequences when needed. There is, however, a careful
balance. If the rules and consequences lead to feelings of being pressured
or controlled, they can become counterproductive, with teens rebelling
against them.
• Align values with the other parent (when applicable). Shared values
between parents or parenting adults increase the likelihood that their
children will accept their value priorities. If values are not shared, the
child may feel conflicting loyalties in picking which values to adopt as her
or his own.
• Cultivate skills to put values into practice. In order to internalize
values, help your teen practice skills that will help them be confident in
standing up for what they believe and to take actions based on their values.
Building assertiveness and resistance skills, as well as skills of empathy,
caring, and compassion, all help to reinforce positive values.
• Provide experiences that reinforce positive values and commitments. If
caring for others is important, give young people opportunities to care for
others. If being honest is important, give them opportunities to be honest.
If being generous is important, give them opportunities to share. If being
responsible is important, give responsibilities to the child where others
are depending on her or him. When you do, also be sure to talk about or
reflect on the experience, so they become more articulate about why they do
what they do.
• View mistakes as teachable moments. Your child is going to make mistakes
and not live up to your values or his or her own. Sometimes those mistakes
are fairly trivial; sometimes they have momentous consequences. In each
case, remember to keep your relationship with your child as a priority, and
seek to find ways to learn from the mistakes. Think together through
appropriate consequences as well as alternate strategies for dealing with
the issue in the future. That may take time, but it can pay off in the long
run.
• Recognize the limits. Even though you can (and do) influence your child's
values, you don’t control them. There’s nothing parents can or should do
that simply “copies” their own values onto their kids. Indeed, they may
choose to reject some values that are really important to you. That doesn’t
mean you have failed; it means they are becoming their own person.