How to Set Family Values

How to Set Your Family Values

Does your family have a motto or family values that you repeat? Something you say as your kids go out the door, or to remind them to be good people?

We are going to explore how to set your family values based on what matters most in your home.

Let’s start with some basics.
Family values are things that are important to your family. Sometimes this is put in a motto, or you can buy a generic sign that has some traditional basic values that most people would agree with (be kind, love, etc). You can go a little more deep and choose your own and have some cool person on Etsy make a sign with your personal family name and values. I have even heard of one family putting it into a song that they sing about their family.

The point of setting family values is to connect people around a unifying set of values that are important. I find it helpful with our kids to have something we consistently repeat and help them learn about and remember.

Growing up our family saying was “Remember Who You Are and Act Accordingly”. It called us to remember we were a part of the Hanks family and what we did represented our family. Also we were disciples of Christ and the way we act should align with that. It’s a phrase that was put on signs, cross stitched into pillows and said often. And it stuck with me and still does. I have one of those signs in our home because that phrase is important to me and to my kids.

Each family will have different things that they want to emphasize with their kids and it can be hard to narrow down to a few things that you want to focus on. My husband and I really struggled to know how to condense all the important things we wanted our kids to know until i realized that values are really about what we choose to prioritize. That one shift changed how we created our own family values and has helped us teach our kids about it as well.

There are so many good things to value! And anyone who wants to be a good person will have a long list of things that are valuable to them. But discovering the most important values can be easier when you ask a simple question: what would I prioritize first? What would I want my kids to prioritize over anything else? If they had to choose between being right and being kind what would I want them to automatically choose?

When we view values in this light, of what would you choose or want your kids to choose when given a choice I think it becomes easier to narrow down what is most important and valuable.

So let me share with you want our family chose as values and why they made the list. Also instead of titling it family values we titled it "Orr’s choose".

Here is our first version that has pictures for our kids who can't read:

We chose God First as our first one because we want our kids to choose to follow God above anything else. We have had so many blessings in our life when we have put god first. We know so many blessings come from follow God and want that to be something we choose daily. So we choose to put god first on Sunday and go to church and make Sunday a special day dedicated to the lord by not doing some of the things we do on a normal day of the week. We choose to put god first by saying prayers before we eat, we choose to put him first by following promptings. We want our kids to know that we will prioritize God and his ways in our home and family.

Now, I don’t want to discount the thought of what if my kid decides they don’t want to choose God, Because that is a real possibility. Forcing a choice from anyone is not an effective way to teach and love so we will never force our older kids to believe in God. And if they choose not to then we will still love them, but we want to make it clear that in our home we will be putting god first by still living our faith while respecting the beliefs of others who believe differently. We also may require our young children to come to church with us even when they don’t want to, so there are boundaries that each family will find work for their family.

Our second value is Family. We choose family because there will be times when the kids or us will have to decide between friends and family. We want our kids to develop a connection to our family so they will choose family. There will be times when they should support a sibling or come to a family function instead of doing what they want. We want family to be an important part of our home and want to prioritize teaching that and helping our kids understand that.

Kindness is a pretty easy one to understand. We want our kids to choose kindness always! There is really no reason to be mean and that can cover so many parts of life.

The next two are Service and Learning and these are things that my husband and I really value. There is so much good that can come from them and we really want our kids to become life long servers and learners. We want them to see a need and be willing to jump in and help. We want our kids to have open minds and be willing to learn and work hard. These are more unique to our family and what we want to focus on with our kids.

The last one we added was Safety…and to be honest this is kind of a given but I feel like with three boys it honestly will come in handy often haha. There are lots of aspects to safety…physical safety like don’t jump out of that tall tree you just climbed or don’t listen to your friends when they ask you to do something unsafe. But it is also about mental and emotional and spiritual safety, Safety around electronics, and just a good way to help prepare our kids to learn to navigate the big wide world.

So we chose our family values but deciding what we want our kids to choose above all else. The choices we make end up really defining who we are and the experiences we have and we want to teach our kids starting young how to prioritize what matters and what we think matters for our family to thrive and do good in the world.

So what do you want your family values to be?

What do you want your kids to choose and prioritize above all else? Spend some time and make a big list of values or check out my free one and circle any that stick out to you, and then narrow it down by thinking “what would I want our family to prioritize over anything else?” And luckily you don’t have to choose just one thing, pick a couple and write up a family choose statement that is easy to repeat and learn from.