The Tribune

By Sgt Nathalie Ranger

Raising your children to be law abiding citizens is one of your biggest responsibilities as a parent. This will help you make sure your children do not follow the wrong path in life.

As parents, we all want our children to grow up to be responsible citizens and good people. We want them to learn, feel, think and act with respect for themselves and for other people. We want them to pursue their own well-being, while also being considerate of the needs and feelings of others. We want them to recognise and honour the principles upon which our country was founded. We want them to develop strong character.

Research has shown children who grow up with strong, positive values are happier and do better in school. They are also better able to balance their personal wants and needs against those of others and to make positive contributions to society. On the other hand, if children do not learn proper values and behaviour when they are very young, problems can develop. These problems can mushroom with serious consequences as children grow older. Such as dropping out of school, drug use, teenage pregnancy, violent crime, the list goes on.

The most important thing we can do for our children is to help them acquire values and skills they can rely on throughout their lives. In doing so, they will have the best chance to live good lives as individuals and as citizens of their communities and in our Country.

Be an example to your children

Kids naturally imitate what they see their parents doing on a day to day basis. By following not just the laws, but rules wherever you go, your children will follow suit. Make sure you don’t talk negatively about the police, or any other law enforcing person in front of them. You want them to have complete respect for our law enforcement.

Don’t bend the rules

Those kids are watching you more than you think. They pick up on the smallest things. Don’t ever eat or drink something in a store without paying for it first. Always obey the traffic laws, especially speeding or using your cell phone while driving. Keep in mind you will one day be watching them drive off and they will have stored away all this information.

Show respect

Law-abiding citizens respect authority as well as their elders. Teach your children that respect towards teachers, parents and all others in leadership roles are required at all times. Show them they can disagree with a situation, but they still need to treat others kindly.

Self-respect

Teaching children to gain self-respect improves their skills to learn, love and be creative. Self-respect is closely related to happiness and success in life. Self-respect is a combination of both good education and the love they get from their parents.

Having a high degree of self-confidence makes children creative and loving individuals. Children need to believe they are valued. They also need to be happy in their own environment and with themselves. The way you develop your child’s skills/talents will directly affect their future.

Community respect

Along with respecting authority figures, your children need to learn how to respect their surroundings. Start small with showing them how to pick up trash and not litter themselves. Demonstrate how to be kind to others.

Discipline

Make it clear to your children that not following the rules will result in discipline. Children will undoubtedly make mistakes. As a parent, you need to enforce the rules. Teach them they will be punished for bad behaviour. As adults, they will then make intelligent decisions and choices. They will know crime result in punishment, while doing well is always rewarded in the end.

Good judgment

Children develop strong character by learning to think about and make sound judgments about what is right or wrong, good or bad. These are not always easy distinctions for adults to make, much less children. For example, it can be difficult for a child to recognise the difference between acting bravely and acting recklessly. As parents, we can help by showing, through what we do as well as what we say, that it is important in such situations to think carefully and honestly about what should be done, carefully weighing how others will be affected by what we do.

Sometimes we get into trouble because we “just didn’t think”. We let our emotions lead us to actions that we regret later. Making good judgments requires skills in monitoring impulses, using reasoning to sort through feelings and facts and thinking about the consequences of our actions.

Your child’s ability to think and make sound judgments will improve as they mature. With age, however, it also may become easier for them to try to justify and make excuses for selfish or reckless behaviour. However, if you have helped them develop strong habits of honesty, courage, responsibility and self-respect, your child will have the ability to see the flaws in their reasoning and be able to come to the right conclusion about what to do.

Coach

Remember how you learned to drive or cook? You practised while someone coached you, reminding you what to do until you were able to coach yourself and then, eventually, do it automatically. Children learn values much the same way. They practice different kinds of behaviour, while, you, as coach, help focus their attention on what is important and on fine-tuning important skills. You support them with your praise, encouragement and gentle reminders.

If you don’t coach your child, they will find coaches elsewhere and be guided by the values of the media, peers and anyone else who captures their interest. So, step up to the plate, do not be afraid and help your child learn how to be a good person, step by step.

Media pressure

Without doubt, media messages influence the values that make up our character. The media: TV, radio, newspapers, social media, movies, songs, video games and advertising uses powerful techniques to get our attention and to get their messages across in the most effective way. Taking charge of our use of the media requires learning to say “no” to media images and messages. It takes practice for children to learn to do this.

To help your child deal with media pressures, you should talk with your child about media pressures. Explain the media can use subtle or clever messages about whom they should be, how they should look, how they should act, what should be the focus of their life, what they should do with their time, what kind of people they should value, what they should think of adults, and so on. Help your child identify the different kinds of pressure they face every day.

Conclusion

Raising your child to be a law abiding citizen isn’t that hard. All it takes is watching your step in front of them, and make sure they have been shown right from wrong.