What are the most important moral principles that parents should teach their children?

Question

Do you teach these things to your children or do you depend mostly on school/church/religious programs to teach them?

Answer 1

If you teach them to do to others as they would want others to do them, they will do well.

That moral teaching transcends all religion.

Answer 2

To apply reason to all areas of life. The worst of atrocities occur when people are basing their information on something other than reason and evidence.

I don't trust most human beings to be capable of doing so to my children, as they can't or won't live a life of reason themselves. As a result, I'll do it myself.

Answer 3

We teach our children to not hurt another person and treat all people the same.

I teach my son that he needs to take responsibility for his actions and to think before he acts.

I teach my son that bigotry towards homosexuals is wrong and bigots are despicable people.

I teach my son that he can be whatever he wants to be in life, it just takes hard work and determination.

I teach my son to use common sense and logic when it comes to any man made religion.

My son is a believer in God, but not a fundie.

Answer 4

I depend on the church to teach my son about religion.  I depend on the school to teach him how to read, write, spell, do math plus other information that will help him in life.

In my opinion, the most important moral principles are:

1) Being honest

2) Being kind and respectful to others

3) Developing  good work ethics.

4)The basic principles of freedom.

5)The right of all human beings to follow a life of their choosing as long as others are not harmed.

6) The principle of the inherent equal dignity of all human beings, which includes the right of all human beings to equal justice.

7) The importance of being a good steward of the earth.

My husband and I do our best to teach our son what we consider to be the most important moral principles in life.

Answer 5

The Golden Rule comes to mind. "Do to others as you would have them do to you" basic and parents need to teach this to their children.

Acceptance

Love for all

Respect all life

Answer 6

Sanctity of life.

Empathy.

Golden rule.

No, I did not rely on anyone else to teach my children. I used every teaching opportunity that came along and I led by example.  

Answer 7

I teach my children to :

1.accept people the way they are and not to judge a book by its cover

2. Never judge another person unless you are perfect which is impossible

3. to not steal, kill..be jealous etc

4. to treat people the way they want to be treated

5. honesty is always the best policy

6. abstinence is safe, but if you cant make it....practice safety

7. to be polite and respectful of the most ignorant people

8. To overlook ignorance

9.  (you might fall over buddy)  but I have always taught them that there are only twto things that matter in this life...God and Family and everything else is S.H.I.T.!

but our definition of God is varied.  mine embraces loving nature and being good to all of creation.

Answer 8

Firstly, honesty and the value of family and friendship.  With these things come compassion, kindness, and self-respect.  This is my contribution to the world - raising decent people.  

Secondly, to think critically, to question, to seek understanding.  This is the greatest gift I can give my children.  

Answer 9

No religion until they have learned to think for themselves.  After that, it's their choice.

Answer 10

The ability to reason and think clearly.

I taught them myself.

Once a child is taught to think through issues, morality becomes an inevitable consequence.  With reason, one can see that lying is not wise and that stealing is bad for all of us.  Murder and rape become unacceptable because they are detrimental to humanity.

Answer 11

The golden rule - treat other people how you'd like to be treated. More to that, there's plenty of evidence that people who do harm are less likely to have been told that those things were wrong when they were kids so this is an important consideration in providing moral guidance.

Answer 12

Stay off my back! Clean your room! Eat the rest of your food! Drop that attitude!

Answer 13

The Ten Commandments

You shall have no other Gods before the Almighty

You shall not worship any graven image

Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy

You shall not take the Lord's name in vain

Honor your father and mother

You shall not steal

You shall not kill

You shall not bear false witness.  (lie)

You shall not covet

You shall not commit adultery

The N.T. Commandments

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

These should be taught at home first.

Answer 14

The primary rule in my household was respect. When you respect others you do not lie, cheat, steal, from them. It worked well. I raised 3 children to adulthood that have been productive members of society and have never gotten into any societal trouble.

rift: religion was not a part of my children's upbringing. They were allowed to make their own decisions with regard to religion but it was in no way a foundation for their sense of morality. None of them are amoral anti-social people because of it.

Answer 15

1.  Think clearly, and for yourself.

2.  Treat other people in the same way you want to be treated.

That's about all you need to know to be a moral person, isn't it?  I don't have children, but I do have a nephew.  His parents are also atheists.  We teach him these things ourselves, because by the time a child is old enough to go to school it's already too late to instill good morals and logic in him.

"Rift3r is very wrong with his statement. I attended Sunday school and learned that God would forgive me of my bad behavior. Morality only came about as reason took hold."

Amen!  I also attended sunday school throughout my entire childhood.  Like you, all I learned was that God would forgive me whenever I did anything wrong.

Answer 16

The first place that morals should be instilled is from home.

Being good to others, not hurting, being fair, listening, etc,..Are all common morals that I try to instill in my son everyday at home. At school, this is reinforced.

Answer 17

Morality is different from just doing the right thing.  Morality is doing the right thing for the right reason.  One answerer said:

" honesty is always the best policy"

What is the reason it  is the best policy?  We can either frame the answer to that question in terms of rewards and punishments (including the rewards and punishments of good and bad feelings), or we can frame it in terms of honesty being the way the universe was created.  

If we want them to be honest without regard to rewards and punishments, then we're forced to think about a Creator and the world as a creation.  

Answer 18

Show them the ugly problems in the world - people dying of AIDS, pregnant teenagers living in poverty and with disease, drugged and drunk  kids ruined for life-  and tell them the reason.  Disobedience to moral principles invites evil into one's life.  Every bad situation is an opportunity to teach kids the virtues of morality, unfortunately, at someone's expense.

Answer 19

Critical thought

Love

Kindness

Acceptance of others no matter what their differences.

They learned this at home long before they went to school, and when in preschool, they got to meet people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds (college town preschool) without ever knowing that people are biased against others based on skin color, ethnicity, and religion.

They had a strong foundation for becoming the teenagers and adults they are now - and they did it with exposure to several religions, not just one.

Answer 20

The Montessori Method of raising children pioneered by an Italian creates strong, disciplined self thing independent minded children. The child is taught responsibility both moral and environmental.

Teaching children as many skills as possible, instilling a good work ethos in that the child embraces great challenges and chores with a strong can do attitude. The child assumes certain tasks to teach them adherence to a disciple.

The children are encouraged to maintain their own rooms, be responsible for their own schedule and to clear up after themselves to teach the cause and consequence principle.

Talking to children from the first trimester creates strong language and articulation skills and instils sense and integrity and the ability to communicate effectively with minimal noise and interaction.

Needy parents nurture dependency, strong parents create strong independent free spirited children. Having children is a true blessing, love them absolutely, instil form values and self discipline and your task as a parent will be a happy and light one.

Answer 21

I don't have kids, but i do have small cousins who i think i'm raising because their parents aren't doing anything!!

I rely on the school to teach them about academic matters, morals come from family. It's very lazy and irresponsible for a parent to rely on schools to teach about moralities.

what do i teach my cousins?

1- do to others what you would want done to you

2- respect everyone, even those you dislike

3- Keep your word. This part is very important for me. Keep their promises/word to everyone on whatever they promise, if they can't keep that promise instead of breaking it, go talk to that person first. The men in my family are known adulterers, I'm trying to show them that they don't keep their words to their wives and especially God about being faithful and loving their wives. if they break their promises on one thing, it might let them to do it in other areas and then it's just a chain reaction.

4- Do not rely on forgiveness. What does that mean? it means that if you do something wrong you apologize, it's up to that person to forgive you, he/she doesn't have to. But always apologize. Also either you forgive or you don't. if you do, then start clean with that person, if you don't let it be but do not hate that person.

5- there is a difference between hate and dislike. hating is wishing harm to that person, disliking is jsut not liking that person.

6- Be as good as you can. You see life is not always easy, but when you are in the right, no one can ever accuse you without a guilty conscience of being in the wrong.