World Values Day is on the 15th October. This is an annual campaign to increase the awareness and practice of values around the world. It’s an opportunity to think about our most deeply held values and explore and act on them with others. This year’s theme is Values in Action. People are being encouraged to choose a value, act on that value and then share it. What do you or your family value? How could you act on that value this week?
What are values and why are they important?
Values are the things that are important to us as an individual or as a member of a family. What we value guides our choices and behaviours. Values also influence our emotions. Values make us who we are and show us the way.
In a number of courses I’ve done and books I’ve read lately the importance of values keeps coming up. What we value is very much a part of who we are. In fact our habits can show what we value.
Discussing values can guide thinking, decision-making and behaviour in many aspects of everyday life which improves wellbeing and life proficiency. It can also help adults have more supportive relationships with children in their lives.
Focusing on values can help develop good character, which makes you better prepared for life.
What do you value?
I’ve done a number of values exercises recently, similar to some of those linked below. My top 5 values seem to be Spirituality, Connection, Learning, Uniqueness and Well-being. So, do you know what you value?
One simple way to look at what you value is to write out a list of 50 things that you’re proud of. Look at the list, does it give you clues to what you value? (Adapted from Initiation Tool p60-61 , The Right to Write by Julia Cameron.)
If you’d like a tool that gives you words to choose from, you can use this exercise or this one.
What do your children value?
You could ask children what is important to them or what they are proud of as a way of guaging what they might value. Or you could use this Family values exercise which list words for adults or explained phrases for children.
From this you could create a Family Mission Statement.
How are you passing on those values to your children?
Even if you aren’t implicitly teaching values to your children they will be picking up on what you value by what you do and how you act.
One way to talk about specific values is to watch a movie together as a family and talk about it. Many kids movies show good character traits. Here’s a list of 25 with many more in the comments.
How are you going to act on your values?
Now that you have more idea of what you or your family values, how can you act on one of those values this week?
Download a values guide to find out more and to get ideas on how you can act out your values.
As one of my top values is connection, I’m going to reach out to my neighbour who I met a few months ago and arrange to have the coffee & cake we talked about.
So choose a value, act on that value and then share in the comments what you’ve done.
Enjoyed the inclusion of movies and the suggestions for getting Little People involved in movie night. Eg making popcorn holders