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Creating a Strong Family Culture

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6 Genius Ways to Make Your Family Values Stick

Inside: The importance of family values and how to make them make a lifelong impact on your kids.

Imagine a book that is stitched together with thread. The stronger the stitching, the more durable that book becomes regardless of how many times it has been read, stepped on, or thrown around.

If your family was a book, your family values would be the stitching. The more reinforcement you have and the more intentional you are, the stronger your family becomes.

Every family has values regardless if they are hung in the kitchen on a wooden plaque, written down on a poster or not recorded at all.

Family values are the fundamental beliefs or principles that serve as a guide for all actions made by the members of that family. These values are set by the parents but can be influenced by the values from the generations before them.

Family Values Matter

The Importance of Family Values

A message I find myself repeating is that all humans want to love and be loved. We also have a desire to experience relatedness.

The National Council of Family Relations states, “Values are important also because they provide a foundation as a source of protection, guidance, affection, and support. Instilling family values can protect and guide children against making hurtful decisions in the future as they teach a sense of right and wrong.”

Research also shows that when kids have a strong sense of belonging, this is when they are able to reach their full potential. Being part of a family unit, regardless of how this looks, is the single most important influence on how a child develops. It has been God’s plan for creation from the start.

6 Ways to Make Family Values Stick

Having family values isn’t just something you talk about. Instead, to truly live out these principles, there are five steps that need to take place to embed them into your family culture.

Here are the 6 ways you can pass down your values to your children:

  1. Believe
  2. Define
  3. Talk
  4. Feel
  5. Experience
  6. Model

Taking these steps will prepare your kids for every challenge, situation, and experience they face out in the world.

1. Believe

We must be rooted in a strong belief system. This is going to look different for every family. However, you must believe in something.

Having strong beliefs provides a foundation for how we live our lives.

Now, we can’t will ourselves into believing but we can do certain things that generate belief.

For our family, we believe in God. To cultivate that belief, we attend church, read scripture, pray, and listen to the stirrings in our hearts that come from the Holy Spirit.

Present your beliefs to your children while giving them opportunities to grow those beliefs. As mentioned, you cannot make yourself or others for that matter believe in something. Having something for your kids to aim for gives them a framework and helps them know they’re part of something bigger.

2. Define

If you haven’t done so yet, it’s important to define your family values.

Innately, they exist, but when you acknowledge what values dictate your decisions and how your family navigates life both at home and out in the world, that binding becomes even stronger. The compass that is directing you becomes easier to follow.

A great way to do this is to look at a list of values and pick your top 6-8. Also, during Family Meetings or family meals, discuss the values of other families or historical figures you admire. Have deep conversations about why you value what you do.

list of family values

Lastly, take time to observe how you make decisions, how you treat each other, how you treat others, and the activities you engage in.

3. Talk

With the rise of technology, talking is decreasing more and more. However, it’s an important skill that we must do as a family. It’s that extra glue poured in between those threads.

Have both informal and formal discussions about your family values with your children.

Whenever one of our boys starts to put down his sibling, we’ll simply say, “In our family, we build each other up, instead of tearing each other down.” Without a long dissertation of what our values are, we are planting little seeds to remind our kids what matters most to our family.

family meetings

A parenting tool I can’t emphasize enough that every family should be implementing is a Family Meeting. We typically have one every week, however, if our weekend schedule gets busy, it can sometimes be 1-2 times a month. The amount of meetings doesn’t matter, but instead, you continue to carve time out to discuss rules, celebrate with each other, connect, and reiterate your family values.

BONUS! By signing up for my newsletter, you will receive a free Family Meeting Agenda to help your meetings stay on track and give you something to reflect on as the years go on.

Discussing your values with your children gives them a base as they start to develop what is most important to them and what they will base their decisions on.

4. Feel

Embrace all emotions and encourage your children to feel your family values. This may seem fluffy, but it’s not! Think about it, emotions and strong feelings influence our actions.

Whenever your kids display these kinds of emotions, acknowledge them and link how they feel to your core values. You can even incorporate this into your emotion coaching.

children expressing emotions

For example, whenever my son shows empathy towards another human being, I point that out because that feeling is in line with what we believe and value. Or when another son is fearful about misbehaving in school, we unpack where that feeling is coming from and how it’s related to our value of making good decisions.

For You! Get a free emotion coach printable when you sign up for Raising Kids With Purpose’s newsletter.

sharing family values together

5. Experience

Give your children the opportunity to experience your family’s values. When choosing the activities you do together, think about what values those emulate.

When my husband and son spend hours working on their dirt bikes to go out riding for the day, the values of hard work and enjoying life are both connected to the experience. There are probably a few other family values incorporated into the time they’re having together as well.

There is no need to constantly talk about values, but instead, live them out through the activities you do.

family values that last

6. Model

Lastly, the absolute best way kids are going to learn is through the behaviors and values that are modeled by us, their parents. Hands down. Kids are often referred to as sponges because they literally soak up everything they see.

Everything you say and do will influence how your child perceives your family values.

Have you ever found yourself yelling, “Why are you yelling at me? We don’t yell in this family!”? That has definitely happened in our house. However, once we take a step back and realize that we can’t expect our kids to control an action we don’t even have a good hold on, we can become intentional to stop those behaviors.

Read Next: 10 Tips for Raising Grateful Kids

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Living Out Your Family Values

Knowing that values provide a map to follow through life and the glue that holds our family together, it’s important that we take time to focus on it. We need to be consistent in our messaging, but not perfect. There are going to be times when you say something that doesn’t fit your values or you may do something out of impulse. You’re HUMAN! Give yourself grace!

Also, you need to give your kids the space to decide what their personal core values are. They’re not always going to be an exact match, and that’s okay.

Dr. Jim Taylor, author of Your Children are Under Attack: How Popular Culture is Destroying Your Kids’ Values, and How You Can Protect Them, explains, “Children who understand values and connect positive emotions with those values have a much better chance of making value-driven decisions, consider their options, weigh the benefits and costs, and make a choice that is consistent with their family value culture rather than ones based on self-interest or in response to the urgings from popular culture”

Kids need to know that they are loved unconditionally. And that it’s because of that love they have limits and boundaries to live inside.

What matters is that we keep the dialog open. Our sons and daughters should see how imperfect we are, while we are striving to be better people every day. We are raising kids to become adults who will work towards those same goals.

This is how we continue to add adhesive and fabric backing to the epic novels God gave us to live.

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Comments

  3. Amen, sister!! 🙂
    I LOVED your example at the beginning of your post, if our family was a book! It is NOT easy raising kids in our society, but it is absolutely worth the effort. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  4. I love this post! Talking is such a huge thing and is something we often don’t due because of the technology around us. I always make sure when the kids get home we talk about how the day went and anything else that is on their mind. I also continuously tell them they can come to me no matter what and talk about anything they want, and they do, which is such a great feeling. Thank you for sharing this.

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  5. These are really great tips! I especially love that you mentioned we can’t force our children, or anyone else for that matter, to believe in something. It’s about choice. 🙂

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  9. I love this post, it’s hard raising positive kids in this negative world. But practicing the tips you have written about can make this process work. I find that talking with my kids, and being open for them to discuss anything with me is so huge. Thanks!

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  11. Thanks for sharing these tips that are so important for the formation of character, personality of children.
    The formation of a human being begins with the values that they receive at home.

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  12. great tips! I think the last one “to model” is probably one of the most critical as our kids love to copy what we do. and are quick to call us out on it too! 🤣

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  13. Hi Adriane,
    I loved this! I never really thought about actually defining our family values, but it makes so much sense. I have always hoped that the values I teach my kids will resonate throughout their life, but how are they supposed to know what those values are unless we talk about them. You give some great tips on how to do that. And I love the idea of a family meeting. I am definitely going to start implementing that. When would be a good age to start family meetings? My kids are 2 and 4. Thank you so much for this post!
    Heather

    Reply

    • Hi! I was the same way. I mean we talk about certain values like being kind but haven’t really made them all clear. Thank you so much! The four-year-old can definitely participate in family meetings. We had them when my little guy was still two but he only participated in us cheering his name. I wouldn’t expect your two-year-old to participate fully but maybe in the game or the fun parts!

      Reply

  15. Od the 6 things you mentioned, number 4 is the one that moved me most for instilling family values. Too often children, especially boys are taught they’re not supposed to feel and as an elementary teacher, I see all the negative that comes from that school of thought. Children need to understand that emotions are meant to be felt and doing so is not weakness. It’s actually the brave and strong thing to do.

    Reply

    • Absolutely! I see that in so many men I know. It’s so hard for them to understand feelings because they weren’t allowed to feel growing up. I know it’s not that way in other cultures but it’s sad to see in ours. Thankfully, there is a paradigm shift happening! Thank you for your thoughtful comment!

      Reply

  16. Instilling a sense of belonging is so important, unconditional love and values that are easy to understand and grow with your child are too! Great post and lots of ideas on intentional parenting!

    Reply

  19. Love this! You laid this information out in an easy to understand and helpful way. I know so many parents will be blessed by this!

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  20. These are all really great ideas. I agree that modeling how we want our kids to behave is probably the most important. And they can even learn when we model how to ask for forgiveness after we mess up!

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  21. Great post and great tips about instilling our family’s core values into our children. I also believe that modeling those values is the most important way that we do this. Thank you for sharing this post!

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  23. Thank you for providing some practical insight into how we can raise our children up in the way they should go. It’s really important that we set the example. Blessings, Joni

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  24. I love how you call family values the stitching. It makes values stronger than glue- it is not something that just sticks families together, it literally bonds them together.

    Reply

  27. You are such a beautiful mama Adriane. I love this! And I love when you helped your son to understand his behavior, you explained to him that in this family, WE do it this or that way. It really helps your kids to have a feeling of belonging and contributing to the family dynamics. Love this … ❤

    Reply

  28. Thank you for these tips for making good family values. It is like making memories with your children. I am sure that when your children become adults that they will implement all that they have learned from their mama! I have a small family and we are in church ministry which has put a lot of pressure on our son. We have regular family meetings and they have brought us very close. Our son is 19 yrs now and he still discusses everything with us!

    Reply

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