Share which life lessons you feel are important to teach your child about with Day Out With Thomas

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Teaching your child positive values is one of the biggest jobs we have as parents - from working as a team to helping others, it’s important that children learn these lessons early on. With this in mind, Day Out With Thomas wants to hear about the values and life lessons that you feel are essential for your child to learn, and how you help them to apply these in real life.

Here’s what Day Out With Thomas has to say:

“Peep Peep! All aboard for a Day Out With Thomas!
Thomas, the Number 1 blue engine, and The Fat Controller have travelled all the way from the Island of Sodor for a day of family fun at a heritage railway near you. Meet Thomas and The Fat Controller, take a train ride and enjoy so much more!
Thomas & Friends episodes teach children about teamwork, friendship, and problem solving, values that we know are really important to you when letting your child watch their favourite programmes.
Day Out With Thomas™ is an annual event brings these values to life, and gives children and their families the unique opportunity to meet the classic storybook character Thomas the Tank Engine at heritage railways across the UK. Families can ride on a real steam engine, pulled by Thomas, and meet The Fat Controller! There’s also lots more to enjoy at each event. Activities may include children’s rides, soft play, toy play area, a live show, miniature railway, storytime, and meeting other engines and characters from Thomas & Friends.”

Which values are most important for your child to learn? Are there particular values your child has already learnt and implemented from their favourite TV characters? Can you think of a time your child exercised positive values and made you proud?

Whichever values you feel are important to teach your children, share them on the thread below for a chance to win. There will be 5x chances to win, with one poster winning a £300 voucher (from a list), and four posters each winning a family ticket (for a family of 4) to a 2019* Day Out With Thomas event of the winner’s choice – locations can be found here.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ
Standard Insight Terms and Conditions apply

*Events from 15 August 2019 onwards

Good manners, kindness and an appreciation for non-material wealth. It’s hard these days when so many products are pushed on kids, my daughter is a little young to understand but I always try and make sure we get a little family time each day without the use of technology.

good manners, kindness and teamwork

Kindness

Being kind is the most important thing in this life, but it's sometimes hard, especially for children.

I have used Thomas' character in the past to show my children how yes, he does get cross, but in the end kindness wins over.

They see them that by occasionally getting angry and cross, that's natural, it doesn't ruin all the good, the importance is being kind overall

Expressing emotions and talking about your feelings is important a lot of people hold back what they really want to say and are uncomfortable with emotions and feelings they need to realise it is okay to express them.boundaries is another big one to teach kids it is fine to say no if they dont want to do something or go somewhere they do not have to it is their choice they come first put yourself person. I teach my child that e everyone is different if doesn't matter what skin colour ethnicity religion or beliefs they have it's fine everyone is different and everyone deserves to be treated equally. To always say please and thank you manners really matter. Treat people with kindness and respect. That you dont have to stop down to other people's level just because they've done you wrong or treated you badly it takes the bigger person to walk away, if a person treats you horribly it is a reflection of who they are not you. It is important to tell the truth.

Be kind considerate, be tolerant even when there are those who aren’t.

As for so many previous posters, it's kindness. If you can't treat others with kindness, you can't treat yourself with kindness, and that is at the root of so many problems and unhappiness. Believing the you and everyone else deserves kindness is really important.

This is a very difficult question actually as there are so many things that i feel it is important for children to learn but beyond the obvious (kindness, politeness, caring about our neighbours and environment etc)

I most wish to teach my children resilience, to "get up after a fall" or accept that failure doesn't define them. That they shouldn't be afraid to try something because it might go wrong or they may fail, but to take each and every outcome as a learning experience. One from which they can learn more about themselves and how what they could do when they next face a challenge.

Treating others how you want to be treated yourself. Also learning that money doesn’t grow on trees is an important lesson!

Kindness. Tolerance.
Not spending beyond their means.
Budgeting.
Environmental awareness. Listening skills also very important.
What a fab prize

The top on for me is manners. I have taught my dc is always remember their manners and that we should speak to people how we want to be spoken to.
It must be working as dc teacher always comments on how polite he is.

Fabulous prize 🤞🏻😊

Kindness, tolerance and manners. Feel so proud of my little girl when she says please and thank you to people in shops, feel like I have done something right!!

Kindness with boundaries. What other people want is important, but not more important than yourself and your own needs.

Kindness and also resilience 100% I think being a kind person is the key to being happy I feel happy when I do a favour for someone or help someone

Kindness is very important and I would love to hear someone comment that my son is kind. I am a teacher and I try to make a point of telling parents when their child has been kind.
Some children seem to be naturally kind and empathetic, which is a joy. My own will need plenty of teaching, and, hopefully modelling!
I also think that modesty is important. No one likes a boaster.

My daughter bawled her eyes out when Thomas left Nia behind in the film. There are so many ways to model positive behaviour but the one I think is most important (and struggle with myself!) is how to deal with things when it's negative. Keeping a cool head and having resilience would get most people through most things.

Feelings are important, I like my child to watch and learn about reactions, emotions and being able to tell how a person feels, I think these are childhood experiences and part of growing up, reassuring them it's ok to tell someone if they feel uncomfortable or sad and able to talk about it, I remember my child watching bing bunny on CBeebies the one where Bing accidentally squished the butterfly and killed it, my son was glued to the tv in amaze, you could see how he took everything in, then we talked about it afterwards, he understood well and even got a bit sad for bing because he knew he didn't mean to hurt the butterfly, it was an accident. My son doesn't watch a show for the character he doesn't have a favourite but he does enjoy learning shows more, in fact he watches YouTube videos more he finds them more interesting !

I've always said I want my son to be compassionate, curious, kind, confident and of course healthy. I hope these five basics will help him to grow as a good, resilient person.
I want him to be stronger than I am.

I try to encourage sharing, and not strictly just in terms of possessions. Share successes with others, little victories as part of a team are much more rewarding than celebrating solo. Share a smile. Share happiness. (And share your sweets )

An important one for me is managing without mommy or daddy as one day we dont be here this is somthing that you can adapt throughout age so right now with the younger ones being 10 months and 2years old that will be things like independence..... eating by themselves, getting dressed, putting shoes on decision making, value of money (even at 2 he will have a pound when going shop and only spend that pound no more) work ethic ( adapted for 2 year old -tidying away his toys ) cooking little thing he will help with at this age like mixing rolling pouring . Standing up for himself so if another child takes a toy off him he will say no please wait I'm playing with that.
As they grow they same core things will be thaugt just adapted age appropriately. X

So, so many! When my older one was small Shows like Thomas and friends was a good as a starter moral compass. Now he's older, it gets more complex.

The one I think will serve him best is tenacity. Even if things are tough, often it's worth sticking out. That should serve him throughout life.

Also, it's ok to be assertive and say in a polite way without upsetting people. Again, a good skill to have to avoid being resentful yourself

Being kind to others which means not always putting yourself first. Thinking about someone else might feel, empathy.

@TuesdaySunshine This is so true and really articulates what I've been thinking about for my 17 month old dc. I cannot stand this culture of needing to win and needing to be the best at whatever cost. When did it become such a problem to just have fun doing something???

@j3mz I agree with this - are you an older parent like my husband and I??? We are in our 40s so the thought that I won't always be there for our dc is very much more present in my mind than I wish it was

I am very aware of the need to encourage them to try new things and to realize that they can't always do things immediately but that if they try they will usually work it out eventually. I have been horrified by the number of parents who literally sit in the sandpit or inside the play area of the soft play with their perfectly mobile children hovering over them or correcting their play because it wasn't perfect the first time they did it - how are they ever going to learn to be creative - or ensuring that they won't be hurt of in any kind of situation with another child - as a teacher I see the poor social skills of these fellas a few years down the line!!! My dc is young but isn't stupid, really can work things out independently and is getting to be a really brave and resourceful little thing. Wherever possible I prefer if my dc learns from doing which is definitely helping dh and I busy

Thanks @Thistly and @WelshMammaofaSlovak. tbh I expected someone on the thread to give me a telling off for not being enough of a tiger mum.

Some great advice here. I particularly like the thoughts about resilience/perseverence. And budgeting!

Kindness, empathy, sharing...if we all had these values ingrained from an early age then the world would be sorted. Sharing food and toys was the earliest and easiest way to start and how to compromise...I am still playing with this toy, but you can have it in 5 minutes. Talking about/naming feelings taught empathy. I think kindness grows kindness, doing nice things just because it's nice to be nice, it starts in the home.