Understanding Your Own Values and Patterns of Behavior

Please dialogue the following topics among yourselves. See if you can determine the values that underlie each set of behaviors.  Do you have differing sets of values or different patterns of behavior that reflect common values.

1. Who took care of you when your mother had to go out?  At what age were you left alone?  At what age were children in your family given responsibility to care for the other children in the family?  At what age were you allowed to babysit when your parents weren’t at home?

2. What form of discipline or punishment did your family use most often?  Did this form of discipline affect how you  felt about your parents?  How so?  Were there any kinds of discipline or punishment that your parents wouldn’t use because they felt it was harmful to you?

3. What were the family rules about meals?  Did everyone sit down at the table together?  Did your mother cook regular meals?  Did children cook?  Did the kids feed the other kids?  Could you eat whatever you wanted?  When you chose?  What kinds of foods did you eat a lot of?

4. Did your family have different expectations for different children in the family? Older (or younger) children?  Boys and girls?

5. Did your family have different expectations for different children in the family? Which were made by your mother, which by your father?  Any joint decisions?  Influence from extended family, grandparents, others living in the home?  What decisions were children permitted to make for themselves?

6.  Who did your family turn to for help and support in times of need or trouble?  Did you help yourselves? Turn to immediate, close, extended family?  A wide range of extended family and friends?  A religious group?  A community?  Professional help?

7. Did adults other than your parents care for you for a period of time or have a strong influence on your development?  How did you feel about being cared for by people other than your parents?  What was your relationship with kin?  What part did aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, non-blood family, godparents, etc., play in your life?

8. What were your family’s values and beliefs about the following:

1. Respecting your elders
2. Sex outside marriage
3. Pregnancy outside marriage
4. Parents who neglect their children
5. Formal education
6. Talking to people outside the family about family matters
7. Finances, money, the importance of money and success
8. What your parents wanted for you

9. Which of your family’s values and patterns of behavior do you still adhere to, and which have you changed?

10. Relate your values and patterns of behavior to those of children or adolescents who may be placed in your home.  Will they have similar values?  Do you think they might place similar priorities on values?  For example, education, or respect for elders?

11. Were there any times when you felt strange or different from your peers?  Did you feel like an outcast or like you just didn’t fit in?  What were the circumstances?  At what age did you feel this way?  How did you feel your peers related to you?  Did you overcome these feelings or circumstances?

12. Did your family attend a religious institution?  Did your parents encourage you to attend?  Did you have any choice to attend or not to attend?  What were the family rules about attendance?  How did you feel about attending or not attending a religious institution?

13. At any time did other children come to live with your family?  What were the circumstances?  How did you feel about those children?  How do you think they felt?  How long did they stay?  Under what circumstances did they came or go?

Understanding Behavior: A Key To Discipline | 101 Ways to Praise a Child | Parenting Tips | Understanding Values | Financial Resources | Shaken Baby Syndrome

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