The Sooner the Better
Many parents make the mistake of waiting until a child’s later stages in the development process before they take action on the moral standards of their child. This is a big mistake and I will tell you why.
By the time a child is in the later stages of their development they already have a mind of their own. It is much harder to shape a child’s mentality when they are older.
The more they grow the more free will they acquire. They will eventually get to the point that they do not want to listen to what you have to say and would rather make their own decisions and learn their own lessons in life.
This can have very negative consequences because the child will not want to listen to someone who knows things from experience and will likely make foolish decisions. If you start at a very early age your child’s brain is like a sponge, as mentioned previously.
Scientific studies have shown that a large amount of your child’s development begins in the first five years of their life. Now do you see why it is so important to begin teaching your child at a young age.
There are many ways that you can teach your child positive morals and values at an early age. A few examples are provided below:
Give Them Responsibilities:
Provide your child with some responsibilities around the house. Sitting around watching TV or playing video games all day will have no positive influence on their morals.
It is important that your child has duties that they need to do every day, even if they are small responsibilities. A couple examples may be cleaning up their own messes or making their bed in the morning. You will likely be surprised by how much difference these little responsibilities make in your child’s morals.
Hold Them Accountable:
You must hold your child accountable for their actions. You also need to understand that kids will be kids. It is important to find a healthy balance between leniency and being strict. Some parents let their children get away with entirely too much without any sort of discipline.
They try to be the child’s friend and not their parent which leads to the child thinking that there are no real consequences for any of their actions in life. This will have very negative consequences for them and will likely lead to them not reaching their full potential in life.
On the other hand, if you are too strict you will not make a positive impact on your child either. They will likely begin to ignore you because they do not feel close to you and will hide things from you and lie to you because of fear of punishment.
Honesty is the Best Policy:
It is important that your child understands, even from a very early age, that lying is never ok under any circumstances. If your child lies to you there needs to be some sort of discipline. Be careful when selecting your method of discipline though because you do not want to be too stern on your child. Another thing that you may to avoid is entertaining made up stories.
Imagination is one thing but if a child is making stories up to get out of something there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Volunteer Work:
Volunteer work is a great way for a child to learn very important morals for life. Even at a very early age, some volunteer associations will allow children to help them with their volunteer work. An example that you may want to consider would be your child making sandwiches in a food drive for the needy. Another example might be to serve food in a food kitchen on a holiday. This will teach your child to appreciate what they have and to not be greedy with things in life. It will also teach your child to be kind and compassionate In life and provide them with the capability of loving other’s than their self.