Teaching Children to be Caring, Authentic, Responsible, and Determined
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As parents, there are many characteristics and morals we want to teach our kids. But sometimes it can be hard to explain and reiterate those virtues through the years. To help your family out, just remember to Play Your CARDs Right!
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C is for Caring
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Fostering a caring attitude is to encourage your child to be loving, empathetic, understanding, and thoughtful. For most kids, this is learned from watching how you interact with them. To further help kids see it in action outside of the house, try being conscientious of when strangers are kind to each other, and point it out to your children. For example, when you see someone offer their place in line to a pregnant mommy, you might try telling your child, “Wow, did you see how that nice man offered his place in line to that mommy? That was so kind of him.”
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A is for Authentic
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Authenticity is about being honest and truthful, without being rude and inconsiderate. It’s important that your children learn to express their thoughts and feelings, but not at the expense of someone else’s hurt feelings. It’s also about letting your kids express themselves, and we know that can be in a variety of ways! If your daughter wants to wear cowgirl boots with her tutu, maybe just let her do it! Remember, childhood is all about discovering the world around you and how you fit into that world!
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R is for Responsible
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Responsibility – it’s one of the hardest things to teach kids! It’s so easy to take care of everything around the house instead of delegating tasks to the kiddos, because, let’s face it, we’re just faster/better at it! But doing so deters your kids from learning to be responsible for themselves, their belongings, and their surroundings. Responsibility stems from respect and pride in ownership. Here are several great age-appropriate chore lists to help your family get started with delegating responsibilities.
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D is for Determined
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If you’ve ever played sports or a musical instrument, you know that this is key to success. But it’s more than just learning to be good at something. It’s more about being perseverant and steadfast, even when facing defeat and setbacks. This is an extremely valuable lesson for kids to learn as it is a lesson learned well into adulthood.
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As you might have guessed, the best way to teach these characteristics to your kids is to demonstrate them yourself. Sometimes that’s easier said than done. So get your kids on board with this new “game” and you’ll all help keep each other accountable for playing your CARDs right!