Family Virtues & Morals
Family virtues and values play an important role in developing a healthy family life. According to Family IQ, family, in regards to family virtues and values, refers to a family unit which includes children. Family virtues aid in defining a family's morals, the ethical compass which determines right and wrong. Santa Clara University notes that the recognition of family virtues and values as an issue dates back to the days of Aristotle. Overall, family virtues play a significant role in teaching children how to interact with others.
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Building Blocks
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To be able to understand family values and morals, a person will need to possess three essential abilities---conscience, empathy and self-control, according to Family Life Works, a company that facilitates family strength through family-based services and programs. Conscience involves having the ability to decipher between right and wrong. Empathy refers to being able to relate to how other people feel. Self-control entails behaving properly. Family Life Works notes these abilities tend not to develop in children until around 5 or 6 years of age.
Development
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According to Family IQ, having regular family meetings helps to develop family virtues and morals that the whole family can take pride in. Meetings should involve open-minded discussion, allowing all family members to share their thoughts and concerns. Establishing values through open discussion works to ensure nobody feels neglected throughout the development process, increasing the chances of enjoying a happy family life.
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Warning
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According to Family IQ, assuming other family members hold the same virtues and morals as you can lead to misunderstandings. This emphasizes the need for open-minded conversation during family meetings. Family IQ recommends avoiding misunderstandings by writing down feelings. Once written, thoughts and concerns become more difficult to misinterpret.
Strategies
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The ability to successfully establish family values varies depending on the strategies used to establish the values. For example, take a family that maintains honesty as a virtue. The mother of the family becomes concerned that her teenage son might experiment with drugs. To uphold the integrity of the family's value of honesty, the mother might use a direct strategy with her son, sharing her concerns and any personal experience she might have had with drugs as a teenager. This allows her son to learn from his mother's mistakes, and relieves his need to hide his own experiences from his mother. Other strategies you may want to consider include teaching values one at a time, incorporating family traditions which promote the idea of family and recognizing good behavior.
Balance
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An important element to a happy family life includes maintaining a balance between work and family. Family IQ mentions that individuals can become so focused on work and financial incentives that family life may get neglected. Establishing family time as a personal value serves as the first step to prevent family neglect. The next step involves prioritizing time. This may involve designating a certain number of hours a week to family.
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References
- Photo Credit family image by Mat Hayward from Fotolia.com
