Each one of us has to take some personal responsibility for the change in the attitudes of young people today. We have to stop blaming universities for putting radical ideas into their heads.

What we need to do is to teach our children to be independent thinkers long before they ever get to a college campus.

And, we have to teach them about liberty, the ideals of our founding fathers, and the values we hold dear.

Teaching values to children from toddler age to young adult isn't as easy as having them memorize a set of ideal characteristics.

In this section, you'll find some practical, interesting, and fun ways to help you instill traditional values in your kids that can last a lifetime.

On the right, are a set of pages for you and your children. We've included song lyrics, coloring pages, a little history, and more. All pages are pro-American in nature and style.

Below are two (2) articles we've condensed with sources and links. We aren't trying to tell you how to raise your children ... we're just offering some brief information that may be helpful to 912 parents.

If you have older children, you can point them to our American Pride pages where they will find interesting and fun facts about our country, and about the people who inspired its founding.

What Do You Stand For

What does your family stand for? I'm asking about what character traits define who your family is. What values do you embrace? What principles guide your behavior? Do your children know them -- and more importantly, do they see them in action -- on a regular basis. Do they know how you feel about integrity, compassion, tolerance, equality, and forgiveness?

When asked to describe your family, would your children mention proudly that you stood for honesty, courage, and faith? Do they know your religious beliefs? They also need to know what you won't stand for and why, like dishonesty or bigotry.

Why not make it crystal clear by writing a Family Value Statement.

There's family values—that's a political agenda—and then there's your family's values. What are your family's personal beliefs and behavior guidelines.

Most parents have a vague sense of their values and how they want their kids to be, believe, and behave. However, far fewer have crystallized them into words. That's what we're going to do now: write a family value statement.

What's a family value statement? It's a set of guidelines based on your beliefs about how your family members should behave. It has little to do with specific instructions (it's not, “The guys need to put the toilet seat down”—that's a family rule).

The statement you are creating is more like a company's mission statement. Your family value statement applies to everybody—not just the parents, not just the kids.

Source: Family Education

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Moral Education

It's not easy being a kid these days — the lines between right and wrong can get fuzzy. How can we help children see the difference? What does it takes to raise and educate "good kids?" Here are some answers to these questions:

Question: What is good character?
Character is who you are — your essential person, not just how you behave or how you appear. The simple definition of a person with "good" character is someone who knows the good, loves the good, and does the good — habitually.

Question: Do you have to learn to be a person of good character?
Sure. We're all born with different tendencies and temperaments. Some of us might be more melancholy, some might be more cheerful, some more social. But character is definitely something we can build through good habits. It's very easy to fall into bad habits, but it takes a lot of effort to be generous or hardworking all the time. You need to teach children to share, to put their toys away, to smile, to say please. Otherwise they'd be habitually self-centered.

Question: Whose job is it to instill good character in kids?
Parents are the primary moral educators of their children. There is no question about that. Even working parents have the moral and civic responsibility. But schools take up a lot of children's time, and unfortunately some children spend more time with their teachers and their classmates than they do with their parents and siblings. School is also a little world unto itself. Kids can learn on the playground the rules of survival and cruelty, or they can learn how to play fair and have fun.

Question: Is it harder to raise kids with good character today?
We currently have a real decline of moral literacy in children. Kids don't know what courage means. They don't know the difference between right and wrong. I recently read a powerful story in the American School Board Journal. After a series of murders in Baltimore, a school principal got on the PA system. He called on his students to examine their consciences and tell the police who they thought was responsible. After hearing this, one student asked his teacher, "What's a conscience?" This is in high school! In the adolescent community we find depression, suicide, and increased abortion, not because kids are bad, but because they're lacking guidance, friendship, direction, and I would add inspiration, from adults.

Kids need to hear from adults that it's worthwhile to take certain principles seriously. And that it's worthwhile to become a person others can respect and trust.

Source: Building Character in Schools: Practical Ways to Bring Moral Instruction to Life, by Karen Bohlin.