Values cannot be lectured into a child. Values have to be tried and experienced. This does not mean that a person has to be purposefully bad in order to understand the difference between right and wrong. What it means is that a person has to purposefully make decisions for themselves and then experience the benefit of making that personal choice.

During adolescence children spend time determining their own personal values. We can help our teenagers examine choices, but we cannot make the choices for them. This does not mean that we abandon all parental structure. What this means is that we trust them with small choices, and as they demonstrate maturity, we trust them with larger choices.

The values we present will be presented in our actions, words, and deeds. They will be values that we taught our children when they were preteen. The teenage years is the period of time that our children will be deciding if they are going to incorporate our values as their own. We can help them incorporate the values by listening to our children and being a sounding board as they think things through. We can be kind and structured when they make poor choices. We can be nonjudgmental as they present to us different choices they are struggling with. We can allow them to make age-appropriate decisions, so they can learn from their choices.

In the example below I demonstrated how a parent would help a child gain wisdom in auto mechanics. I used auto mechanics as an example, because the example makes it blatantly obvious how ill prepared a teenager will be when they are taught values, but they are not given the chance to apply them. The mistake often made with moral values is that we teach our children, but we do not create measured contexts where they can learn for themselves.   

 Poor Example

Peter the mechanic loved working on cars. He liked buying cars that have been damaged in wrecks, restoring them, and then selling them for a profit. He loved the before and after pictures of the cars he worked on. He learned his skills through hundreds of hours of hard work and dedication to his craft.

Peter wanted his son to learn about cars. In order to accomplish this, he spent hours upon hours lecturing about how cars work. Ever since his son was little, Peter would spend every night telling his son about how cars could be fixed. Once a week, he would dedicate a full hour to instructions on how cars can be repaired. Peter never had his son physically work on a car, but Peter felt that it wasn’t necessary for his son to work on the car as long as he explained everything in detail.

When his son turned 18 years of age, Peter encouraged his son to get a job as an auto mechanic. His son was unsure of himself. He told his father that he had never physically touched a wrench or a screwdriver. To his son, everything was still theory. Peter, however, was very confident that all of his lectures will pay off. He encouraged his son to apply.

Peter trepidatiously applied to be a mechanic. He loved his father and he didn’t want to disappoint him. All the love and respect in the world did not prepare Peter for his first day on the job. Peter had never put his father’s lectures into practice. He hadn’t gained any wisdom. He wasn’t sure how to start using the knowledge that his father had given him. With sad tears in his eyes, he quite the job. Peter felt like a failure. Peter decided that mechanic work wasn’t for him. He just didn’t have the talent to be one. He wasn’t cut out for it.

 Good Example

Joseph wanted his son to appreciate auto repair. Joseph loved working on cars and he thought it was a valuable skill to have. Joseph knew that learning required hands-on experience.

Joseph started teaching his son mechanics by starting him off on small jobs. He would ask his son to make decisions about the small jobs. When his son became stumped, he asked his son to do his own research. Joseph would make himself available for help. Peter also taught his son where to look for research.

Joseph also allowed his son to make small mistakes. Sometimes he allowed his son to try his own ideas, even though Joseph knew that it wouldn’t work. Joseph knew that trial and error was often the best teacher.

Joseph was careful to not overwhelm his son. He didn’t start his son off on the hardest jobs. He knew that his son needed to practice making decisions about small problems before taking on bigger problems. The experience his son gained from conquering small tasks would be tools he would later use to conquer the more difficult problems.

When Joseph’s son entered the workforce, he had a lot of self-efficacy. He had confidence in his ability to figure out how to solve problems that he had never seen before. Because he learned how to learn, he knew how to access resources and how to draw upon previous experiences of overcoming problems that are new.