Mimeo HE-326
September, 1957
Purdue University
Agricultural Extension Service
TEACH YOUR CHILD VALUES
Leaflet 3

Heroes, Resentments and Children's Values

by
Dorothy V. Mummery
Child Development & Family Life Specialist

"I Want to Be Like---------------”
(Leaflet 2)
In (Part 2) it was brought out that children acquire values through imitating the behavior of adults, and through the approval adults show. Every child has within him a strong urge to be grown-up. This leads him to try to be like the adults he knows. Of course the first grown-ups he knows well are his parents. Thus, parents are a child’s first models. Their ethical relations to each other and to other people, including to the child himself, are a picture of all adult personal relations. If his father boasts of outwitting the government in his income tax return, Johnnie gets his first lesson in the relative value of honesty and dishonesty. If his mother makes derogatory remarks about racial or religious minorities, then years of later teaching may be powerless to unravel the threads of intolerance woven into his character.
But suppose a child does not love his father? Suppose his father never shows love for the boy by being interested in his activities and spending time with him, or by accepting the child as he is, even though he may be very different from his dad? A child loves those who first love him. A child wants to be like those he lover. If Freddie is loved by his father and in turn loves his father, he will want to imitate his father’s honesty. If he fears or dislikes his father, he may in defiance reject all his father’s good traits and become dishonest. He may retaliate for the lack of love he feels in his home by being mean and hurting others, and thus develop many undesirable values. Children who do not feel deeply loved thus lack a model of manhood. A child admires and wants to be like only those he loves. Thus, a child’s actions may be the result of resentment in his heart. This may explain why we can truthfully say of some young people: "I can’t understand. His father has such fine ideals.”

An Unfriendly Community-Influences, Values
In the same way, a community unfriendly to children and young people may breed resentment. And resentment may be one of the causes of vandalism. Thus, insider at ion for other people and for their rights and property does not become an important value to such children. To them, what is important is ”to strike back” at the community and ”get even.”
What are some of the signs of a community unfriendly to children and young people? No provision for children’s activities, such as play grounds, tennis courts, swimming pools, Too many adults who are always blaming young people for acts of vandalism etc. without even investigating. Too much publicity centered around the few who are not law-abiding, giving a ”black name” to all young people.
A Loving Home Gives Moral Courage
There are other ways that being loved influences the values a person lives