How do you teach values to your children?

[tostaky]

And also do you know of good book for an avid 7 years old reader (boy) that give the right messages?
DS can be very unpleasant sometimes and i would like to supplement us talking to him and school talking to him with good books.
My problem is that we dont go to church and i feel we are missing some educational opporunities about values and how to behave properly in society.
Call me crypto-catholic (as my DH calls me!) but i feel i learnt a lot about rights and wrongs when i went thru catholic school (although i always considered my an atheist
Does anyone feel like me? How do you compensate the lack of religious education?
Thanks
we are missing a whole lot of education about values

What values do you want to teach? Remember that right now you are the biggest influence on your ds. In our house we are polite and have manners. We don't go to church but we do voluntary work as a family (help out at food bank, visit elderly shelters etc) and my dcs donate unwanted clothes and toys to charity every so often. We try to be kind and respectful in our home and I think this carries through to elsewhere.

I think children learn values from what they see you do, how you behave and how you treat people. Also what you say, but if the two don't match up it can be confusing for them and they are just as likely to learn things you don't want them to! But remember children develop through the years, and go through phases of demonstrating sometimes admirable values, sometimes foolish or even trecherous ones. There is often a natural cause and effect and they can learn a lot from the consequences of holding values based on dodgy or wrong thinking from school and wider society.

We talk. They ask things about what we believe and our values and we give honest answers, and we ask them...sometimes they ask about something I don't know much about and then I can learn a lot from them.

Sometimes they push the boundaries and they learn by me being kind and firm and repeating my reasons or choices. Living by the rules I set. Again though, I've learned from them and sometimes I change. They have a swifter effect on me if they can talk about it and persuade me or we discuss and come to a compromise (rather than them just playing up).

By living them and actively talking about what you believe in.

In my work I sometimes facilitate meetings where we ask people to give a value by which they live as a starting point - kind of what does it mean to be a leader. Some people give their own thoughts, some give quotations from great leaders/inspirational people but many many people start with "my father/mother always said ..." often these were people in their 50s but some nugget about life/values etc from their parents had stayed with them all these years. After the second one of these I went back to dh and said as well as living what we believe, we should actively articulate it to the children too.

I read a book once where a father says to his son, who is working on wall street "why do so many of these people cheat?" and the son replies "maybe because their parents never told them it was wrong". I firmly believe you have to walk the walk AND talk the talk.

Rather than a book explicitly about values, I would give him books with strong characters who have to face difficult decisions and ideally read along with him and comment/discuss. Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (not so sure about that one actually), Heidi, The Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Little House novels, biographies at his age level about inspirational people - Jackie Robinson, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, etc. There must be loads of modern novels for children with similar interesting conflicts and good strong messages. I find the Rick Riordan books great.

I think by how you live your life and the things that you do and say and how you treat people.

I used to work in a bank and I remember a man coming in with his DS, the cashier couldn't give him what he wanted (for what ever reason, I cannot remember what it was), the tirade of very well articulated, very well spoken abuse that came from him was awful. The DS was about 10. I just thought, wow, what are you teaching that kid?

I probably do get my values from my parents, they are really patient, fair and non judgmental (the latter used to annoy me, they would often be like, well, you don't know all the facts, so you can't judge.) They always see the good and the value in someone and treat people equally. I think part of it is picking the values that really matter and living them.

Not sure of any books though...

Thank you all for your input.
My problem is that DS1's behaviour is very challenging and he has been a grumpy boy since day 1. So I am not sure why my patience isnt rubbing on him! Or you know, the nasty comments that show no empathy whatsoever to other people even if they are next to him... I would like to think DH and myself do not talk about people like this.
Hence me wanting to supplement our teaching/parenting with books , short of religious education.

We are church goers but for me that is quite recent and one thig i am finding from hanging out with churchy people is that like mided people raise your game. if noone else is swearing it seems a bit off to start effing and blinding, or if other people arent spending their time slagging off other people it seems a little rude to start.

so have yoou got some nice people / children you can hang out with?