Week 2 of June:  The Value of Justice and Mercy
In Connection with Richard and Linda Eyre

Editor's note: This month of June the Meridian Family Value of the month is Justice and Mercy. Click here to read this month's overview article). Each week during the month we will post an update in Meridian, illustrating a couple of the Eyres' favorite methods for teaching This important value to each age group. Remember that you can also go to http://www.valuesparenting.com/ for still more ideas and teaching methods. Thanks for your interest and participation. There are tens of thousands of parents concentrating on this value this month. It is a way of saving this somewhat unkind and unfriendly society of ours ? one family at a time! Send us your feedback, and if you want a free children's CD on the value of Honesty, see the instructions at the bottom of this article.

Methods for Preschoolers

Turn-Taking

Begin to establish the idea of fairness by teaching small children the word "turn."  Two-year-olds (and even many pre-twos) can understand this most basic form of sharing.  Help them to take a short turn with a toy and then say, "Jamie's turn," as they pass it to the other child.  Give big time praise. Then help them to watch and wait for a moment until it is their turn again.

Some sort of timing device makes turns work better.  Use an oven clock or egg timer to help small children take turns.

Playing Together     

Help your children see that they can have more fun and play longer with the toy they want if they learn to be friendlier and play together with it.  As older preschoolers learn to share and take turns, you can explain to them that sometimes instead of taking individual turns with something, they can share by playing together with the same toy.  Illustrate this to children in as many ways as you can think of.  For example, in the case of a ball, each can bounce it and throw it individually, but both together could play catch!  Or take a doll:  Each could hold it and play independently, but both could play house as a fun game with the doll as the family baby.

Methods for Elementary School Age

Plant a Crop     

This time of year may be the time to teach the law of the harvest (which is the key to understanding the basic principle of justice).  Planting and growing something will establish a metaphor and example with which you can reiterate principles of justice and of cause and effect.  Plant a small garden.  If this is not possible, a single plant will do.  Let a child be in charge of one particular crop or one particular plant.  Teach him that with watering and weeding, the plant will grow tall and with neglect it will wilt or die.  Remind and assist, but let the initiative be with the child and let the law of the harvest and of cause and effect and of natural consequences take its course.     

Then use the experience to show that there is a natural justice in the world and to explain other things.  For example, if we're kind, others grow and give things to us.  If we care for our things, they last longer.  If we neglect things — or people — they don't do well and don't give us any return of joy or happiness.

Add a Challenge to the Rhyming Words

Motivate and challenge your children to be fair with each other by telling them that you have a challenge for them and that the challenge contains four words that rhyme:  " I dare you to share and to care and to be fair."  Have them memorize the challenge.  Tell them it is a hard challenge — harder by far (and much wiser) than some of the "dares" their friends might give them.  Talk about what each word means.  Give examples.  Make it a catch-phrase in your conversations during this month.

The W.W.J.D. Award

Reward and praise elementary age children for fairness and for being forgiving — and in order to present the perfect example of both qualities, add to your Sunday awards the W.W.J.D. award (What Would Jesus Do?) 

As with each of the other Sunday Awards we have discussed in past months, say, "Who is in the running for the W.W.J.D. award?"  Have children think through the week just passed and call to mind any instance when they shared, let another child go first, took turns, and so on — or when they asked to be forgiven of something or forgave another person.  Give the award accordingly. (Remember that the award can just be a piece of construction paper with the letters W.W.J.D. printed on it.  The winner can hang the "prize" on his bedroom door)

Explain that the best way to earn this award or to keep its concept in mind is to be in the habit of asking yourself (several times a day), “What would Jesus do?"

Methods for Adolescents

Narnia

If you have not already done so, introduce your young adolescents to C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia.  The relatively new movie The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is terrific, but get them into reading the books too (there are seven in the series).  No one has ever been better at teaching the concept of Justice and Mercy to children (or to adults for that matter) than Lewis, ant the Wardrobe book is essentially a metaphor for the true principles of the Atonement. Twelve- or thirteen-year-olds will get hooked on the whole series once they read Wardrobe.

The Story of the Mote and the Beam

Remind adolescents that we are usually not in a position to judge others — and thus better off to try to understand and forgive rather than to condemn.  Read or paraphrase the Bible story of the mote and the beam. (In brief, one person cannot remove a small speck or sliver from the eye of another person when there is a large sliver, or beam, in his own eye.)  Also use the Biblical admonition that only one without sin should throw the first stone (or condemn the sin of another).  Tie this to the old phrase "People who live in glass houses should not throw rocks."  Point out that since none of us is perfect, we should always be ready to understand and forgive imperfections in others.

More methods for each age group next week.....see you then.

Closing Note: Many have asked if there are actual teaching tools to assist parents in teaching the Meridian family value of the month to their children. The Eyres have been involved with a series of values-teaching CDs called Alexander's Amazing Adventures, which give 5-14 year old children a vicarious (and dramatic) experience with each month's value. By special arrangement, Meridian readers who have been following this column and participating in the value of the month can now receive, as a free gift, the HONESTY CD from this series. Simply send a self-addressed, stamped 5 X 7 or 8 X 10 envelope (the padded ones are best) to the Eyres at 1098 Augusta Way, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84108 and they will send you the gift CD. (You will need to put $0.87 [87cents] in stamps or postage on your return envelope.) Please respond only if you have been reading and following the column, and please do not ask for more than one copy of the CD. We hope this gift will help make the value-of-the-month concept even more effective within your family.