Mimeo HE-325
September, 1957
Purdue University
Agricultural Extension Service
TEACH YOUR CHILD VALUES
by
Dorothy V. Mummery
Child Development and Family Life Specialist
HoW Children Learn Values
Importance of Teaching Children Values
Why is it important that parents be concerned with how children learn values? The answer is something like this: Values are the building blocks out of which a child's personality is formed (and an adult's, too). It has been said that each individual is the sum of the experiences that have shaped his values. To a large extent, our values (that is, what is important to us) determine what we are. They are reflected in our feelings, our thinking and our actions. For example, suppose one of your values is respect for personality - even of a little child. Then you feel badly if someone treats a child as though he were an object without feelings. And in your own actions, you show the same respect for a child that you show toward adults - if you accidentally bump into a three-year-old, you say "Pardon me” as you would to a grown-up.
Values are the motivating forces which determine what we feel and believe, what we think and say and do. Values, what is important and right to us, determine, then, our actions, our interests, our concerns, our relationships. Are we concerned or not about traffic accidents, about those who are hungry in Indiana or in Russia? All such concerns are a reflection of what is important and right to us. And if the hunger of someone we don't know is important to us, our feeling about it pushes us right into action to do something about it. Thus values have a large part in shaping our lives — our human relations, our participation in worthy social endeavors, the direction in which our personalities are growing. Is it not important, then, that all adults learn all they can about how children learn values?
Little Children Express Their Values
Children begin very early to make value judgements. Alice Keliher, in "Children Express Their Values”,* gives the following illustrations:

1. Asked what she expects to do when 18, a 10-year-old girl replies, "I expect to be a tap dancer. If I can't do that, I'll be a teacher."
2. A 6-year-old boy doubles up his arm proudly, saying, "Boy, feel that muscle!”
3. A 4-year--old climbs to the top of jungle gym calling out, "Look at me! I'm at the top."
*Educational Leadership. Volume 8. October 1950 - May 1951. Children Express Their Values. Alice V. Keliher. Page 466.