For parents who have been following the Meridian Family Value of the Month (or those who may want to start following it), this is an important episode.  In it, we will:

The Value of the Month Approach

For a full year now, we have been presenting, in partnership with Meridian, the Family Value of the Month — complete with methods and ideas for teaching each value to kids of various ages.  What a joy it has been to know that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of parents are working on the same value each month with their children.  In addition to meridian readers, families all over the world tune into these same monthly values at www.valuesparenting.com.
  
The values we teach our children truly will shape the future of the world as well as the future of our own families. Nothing is more important.  But parenting can often seem like a lonely and unsupported proposition — and thankless too, especially in the short term.  So it is kind of comforting and empowering to know that countless other families, across the globe, are working on the same value as you are each month — facing the same challenges and struggles, but working at it as best they can, with children being the beneficiaries! 

What Next?

So now the year is over.  Twelve values have been presented, one each month since last summer.  Each value has come with methods, stories, and teaching ideas for preschoolers, elementary age kids, and adolescents. 

The question is: what about this coming year?  How do we reinforce the values we have taught?  How do we make them stick?  How do we continue to ingrain them into ourselves and into our kids, thus protecting them both physically and spiritually?  Well, here is the answer:  WE REPEAT THEM!

An 8-year-old learns Honesty on a different level than he did when he was 7.  And a 12-year-old grasps the concept of each value differently than she did when she was 11.  So, during the year ahead, the values will be repeated, with some additions and new ideas added in, so that you can continue with the new, improved, Meridian Family Value of the month!  There will always be a click for you to go directly to the month's value and to teqaching methods for preschoolers, elementary agers and teens. Here is the link for this month's value of COURAGE: And if you want the follow-up articles for COURAGE, click here and here.

We Need Your Help

The difference this year is that there will be just two articles each month (or for each value).  The first will be at the beginning of the month (like this article, re-introducing the month's value) and the second will be just after the middle of the month, giving some new methods and ideas for teaching the value to our kids. 

Many of the new ideas will come from you, the readers of Meridian!  After all, that is the beauty of the Internet — being able to instantaneously share with each other! 

We want you to send in anything that has worked for you — any idea that has worked in your family, with your kids that you might want to pass on to other Meridian parents.  Send in your ideas for teaching this month's value by the 15th of the month so that it can be included in this month's follow-up article (which will appear around the 18^th). Indicate whether your idea is for all ages (general) or whether it is for preschoolers, elementary age, or adolescents or teens.  Send your ideas by clicking on familyvaluecourage@meridianmagazine.com

A Monthly Children's CD to help you teach each month's Value

It isn’t just that your children have changed in their ability to assimilate and learn each value. You will have changed in your ability to teach them.  It takes a while to get used to the value of the month concept and to learn how to use your time and opportunities to teach the month's value.  You will be better at it this year than you were last year! 

And if you were not a follower and a participant last year in the Meridian Family Value of the Month, now is the time to start.  And there will be one more important addition — a monthly CD for your children that will teach them, in an entertaining and engaging way, the month's value.  It will also give you a reference point and discussion material for your interactions and teachings during the month. 

We have arranged with www.valuesparenting.com a special agreement whereby Meridian readers can get the first CD (the one on HONESTY) for free and then get a discounted "member" price on the other 11 values that will come automatically to your home at the first of each month, just as the new value and methods appears here at Meridian. Just click on the Alexander's Amazing Adventures on the www.valuesparenting.com home page and follow the instructions to get the free HONESTY CD (which introduces the series).

The August Value: COURAGE.

Think about how powerful a value this is!  Our children need:

What parent would not want this value for his or her children!
    
We invite you to focus and to concentrate on the value of COURAGE throughout the month of August.  Look for examples of it (or the lack of it) in everyday life, on television, and in the actual lives of you and your child.  Find stories on courage — not just the big, heroic kind, but the everyday kind as well. 

Compliment your children for anything they do that takes even a little bit of courage.  Teach them quotes like Shakespeare's, "Our doubts are traitors that make us lose the good we oft might win by failing to attempt."

Or share Teddy Roosevelt's thoughts o the subject: "In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out where the brave man stumbled or where the doer of the deed could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena."
    
Take a minute and review the Meridian definition of the value of COURAGE and to think through some of the methods for teaching it by clicking here: And if you want the follow-up articles for COURAGE, click here and here.


A Brief History of Teaching Children Values and of the Family Value of the Month

To prepare and motivate you for another year, let us get a little personal, and tell you the story of how the Value of the Month Program came to be. (Because it actually does tie in to this month's value of COURAGE).  There are really three parts to the story:

1. We had written two best selling books called Teaching Children Joy and Teaching Children Responsibility for Random House, and their senior editor came to us and suggested we write a third book called Teaching Children Values. We loved the idea and spent a couple of years working with other parents across the country and identifying the 12 values that every parent wants for their kids.

We felt that a "value of the month" concept would motivate parents and kids alike to work on something solid and concrete each month. We finished the manuscript and took it to our editors. Their response was interesting to say the least. They loved the concept and approved of 11 of the 12 values. But the one on "Fidelity and Chastity" bothered them. "Old fashioned" they said, and we certainly don't want to make parents feel guilty or hypocritical. Let's take that chapter out.

"How can we write a book on teaching children values in a day of AIDS and all kinds of problems arising from earlier and earlier sexual promiscuity and make no mention of sexual values?" we asked. It led to a debate, then a fight, ultimately an impasse. We refused to publish the book without that chapter, and they refused to publish it with it. We finally walked out, finding ourselves on the pavement on 6th avenue, having just lost our publisher and perhaps our writing careers.

2. But standing up for what you believe always eventually pays off, and four years later our agent put us with Simon and Schuster. Times had changed. Parents’ perspective had changed. They loved the Fidelity and Chastity chapter and even featured it in some of their promotion. The book became a fast seller, and then Oprah got ahead of it (and had our whole family on her show for a full hour) and suddenly it shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, the first parenting book in 50 years to hit number one. Bookstores couldn't keep it on the shelves, and there were suddenly hundreds of thousands of parents working on the same value each month.

3. Demand for follow-up materials grew. We were approached by people who wanted to make value-of-the month videos, value-of-the-month computer games, etc. What impressed us most though, was a group of songwriters and actors who said "Don't do video or computer stuff; the kids are saturated. Let us do an audio adventure so compelling and exciting that the kids will see it on the monitors of their minds and really internalize each value." We were skeptical, but asked them to do a pilot on one of the 12 values. What they came up with was the beginning of a series called Alexander’s Amazing Adventures, and it absolutely blew us away. More importantly, it blew our kids away. "When do we get the next value?" they said. They were hooked. The other eleven values were produced, and the rest is history.

Hundreds of thousands of kids now listen to the Alexander Adventure for the value of the month and learn and feel that value by vicarious experience. Little four-year-olds love the songs and characters, and kids up to 15 or so get hooked on the ongoing story and the subtle humor involved. Parents suddenly have a support element for what they are teaching each month, and can discuss what happens in the CD stories as a way of getting into the value.

Joy School: A way to prepare smaller children for learning values

Many Meridian Magazine readers will have heard of "Joy Schools."  In fact, many will have participated.  But with the growing, worldwide Meridian readership, many others have never heard of Joy School, so here is a brief overview:
    
We have always believed that the preschool years are a time when children should have a real childhood, not a time to rush them into early academics or highly structured and pressured schools.  After all, they will go off to kindergarten soon enough, and it is more important that they learn the social and emotional "joys" that will make them happy in school than that they already know how to read and do square roots!
    
Many years ago, we put together a curriculum of 12 "Joys" that can enhance the happiness and security of preschoolers (and which are really the forerunners of the values of this column).  They were things like the joy of the body, the joy of the earth, the joy of sharing and service, and the joy of imagination and creativity.  Moms began forming neighborhood play groups and teaching the joys through the games and stories and activities that were part of the Joy curriculum.
    
Before we knew it, there were hundreds, then thousands of do-it-yourself Joy schools in neighborhoods all over the country, and all over the world.  Typically they meet two mornings per week, with the host mom (the one having it in her house that day) being the teacher.  Even moms who had never taught before felt comfortable and confident because the lesson plans tell you exactly what to do every five minutes — and all the stories, games, songs, and activities are right there in the curriculum so little preparation time is needed.
    

One mom listed the benefits of Joy School:

We thought we should give Meridian readers this overview, here in this column, since Joy School is an extraordinary way to prepare preschool children for the Value of the Month.  If you have preschoolers, go to www.joyschools.com or to www.valuesparenting.com and click on Joy School.

Join Us

So here we go on the Meridian Family Value of the Month, Year II.  Enjoy it with us, and, in the process, give your children the only form of real and lasting protection there is:  The internalizing of powerful VALUES! (Remember to send in your ideas for teaching courage to preschoolers, elementary agers or teens by clicking here: familyvaluecourage@meridianmagazine.com.  Your thoughts will then be included in the follow up article later this month.)