Faithfulness - Why Teach Faithfulness

Ever wonder why you should teach faithfulness to your child? Friendships. The most meaningful thing in life is our relationships with each other—our family, friends, neighbours, and, importantly, ourselves.

Friends

You want your child to have a friend who will be there for them in good times and challenging times - and vice versa.

If you have one true friend who has your back, and you have theirs, you've struck gold. Having someone special to share good and bad times is one of life's greatest gifts.

As your child grows older, they will decide on who they befriend. As you teach your child about faithfulness, your child will likely seek friends with similar values.

It's more important than ever to teach children values and to teach them to think for themselves so they don't mindlessly follow those who do not have their, and, or society's, best interests at heart.

Having a friend who will stand by you, stand up for you and stand with you during difficult and hurtful experiences makes those times in life so much easier when you know you have a friend like that.

While faithfulness also means being committed to your own beliefs, it's essential to be flexible and accept beliefs that are different from yours—for them, not you.

Independent thinking

Practising faithfulness in friendship or to a cause builds trust, confidence and loyalty. Teaching values helps your child learn to think for themselves; they see situations and experiences clearer because they have values and morals as a foundation to build on.

Faithfulness is foolish when following a person or cause mindlessly because of rigid thinking, struggling with changing situations or being inflexible.

When you teach your child moral values, and they begin to relate these words to behaviours, they better understand themselves and others.

They become more self-aware of their behaviours and have a firmer foundation on which to stand as they make choices throughout their lives.

Environment

Children are not born racist, cruel, or self-centred. They watch and listen to what happens in their environments. They look to the adults in their lives as role models and assume that all adults behave the same way they observe.

The child could be in a loving, supportive, encouraging environment. Or, the child may be in an atmosphere of yelling, shouting, anger and abuse.

Fortunately, children often have more than one learning environment in the foundational early years. Child-care centres, kindergartens, and primary schools are powerful environments, and acceptance, kindness and boundaries are crucial.

Do you know who your child looks up to and values? Who is in your child's environment who behaves in a way that makes you happy for them to be a role model for your child?

Does your child trust them? Do they feel safe in their company? Are they eager to be around them?

If your child told you the top five people they feel they could go to if they needed help, who would they include?