What decides the direction of your family? Today starts a two-part series on defining your family values and how you can make decisions based on the things that are most important to you. 

You’ll Learn:

• How my husband responded when I asked him (out of the blue) about his biggest personal value
• How to figure out your family’s core values
• Some of our family values and what they look like in real life
• An example of a simply family value statement

The goal with this exercise is to find 5-8 core values that you’ll share as a family and as a couple in your parenting. 

🎁As a special gift to my listeners, I’m also giving you a FREE Defining Your Family Values worksheet. Click here to get yours now.

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Parenting can be really, really confusing. 

Maybe you’ve wondered…

What am I supposed to do here? 

Do I let my kid go to this birthday party? 

Do I let them quit the sports team? 

Do I let them not go to our religious service? 

Do I let them blow off steam by swearing?

These are hard questions to figure out, and it’s easy to find yourself making decisions based on what your kids want, how you feel in the moment, or how your children feel in the moment. 

Your family values can serve as a guide when you’re answering the tough questions of parenting. You can look at your values and decide…

Is this aligned with the things that are important to us? 

Is this decision going to help us get our kids closer to our values and where we wanna take our family? 

Or is this decision going to undermine our family values?

Defining Family Values

Values are defined as a person's principles or standards of behavior. So, you're figuring out what is important to you, how you want to show up and act in the world, and then putting words to those values.

This is a very simple thing, AND it requires a lot of thinking and self-reflection. If you don’t have the capacity to dive into this right now, that’s okay. Come back to it when you’re ready. 

Some times that I feel are natural times to talk about values are:

• The beginning of a new calendar year
• The beginning of the school year
• Around a birthday
• Around a day of grieving
• Religious holidays

The change of seasons can also be an invitation to look at your intentions for the coming season, how you want to show up, and what you want your kids to work on.

How To Define Your Values as a Family

The goal with this exercise is to find 5-8 core values that you’ll share as a family and as a couple in your parenting. 

Start with yourself. Before you think about your family as a whole, look at your life as an individual. What is important for you as a person? 

Looking at what's important to you and what bothers you about other people or yourself is going to be a big clue about what you value as a person. When you get angry about a behavior, what value is that rubbing up against?

I give you a ton of examples to get you started in the free Family Values worksheet. 

Discuss values with your co-parent (if you have one). Encourage them to do their own individual reflection, and then come together to talk about it. Take turns talking about your values and asking each other questions about what that means to the other person and how it shows up for them.

Identify shared themes. As you talk, look for some values or themes that you have in common. 

Define the values you chose. This is where you make the idea of your values a little more concrete. Let’s say one of your family values is kindness. What will that look like in your home and your family in a practical sense? 

For example, in our home kindness means speaking gently (even when we’re upset), offering help without being asked, saying “please” and “thank you”, apologizing and forgiving. 

Create a family values statement. This piece is optional, and it can be simple. Turn your core values into a very short paragraph that weaves your values into a shared vision or commitment. You can display it in your home to remind you of your values as you move through the day. 

Call a little family meeting and share the core values with your kids. We used to talk about it as “this is what it means to be a Childress.” 

Revisit your values regularly. Come back to your value statement every 4-6 months. Are you on track? Where are there gaps? What do you want to add more of? Have any of your values shifted?

Living Your Values

Values aren’t something that you figure out once and then do perfectly. We’re all still learning and evolving - especially our kids.

So what happens when your child does something that doesn’t align with your values? It’s going to feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t mean they’re a jerk or that something is wrong with them. They are demonstrating immaturity and emotional dysregulation. 

This is just showing you an area where they still need to grow. There’s a gap between where your child is now and where you want them to be. You can guide your kids toward your values through connection and limits (steps 2 & 3 of the Calm Mama Process). 

Narrate the circumstance and validate their feeling. And set a boundary based on your values. It looks like saying, “I understand why you would act that way. It makes sense. And in this family, we show up differently. This is how we expect you to behave”

For example, “I hear that you don’t want to go to school because you didn’t study for your test. I understand the overwhelm and embarrassment you’re feeling. And in this family, that strategy doesn’t work. In this family, we have integrity, and we do the things that are hard. So you’re still going to school, and you’ll do your best on the test.”

My hope is that the process feels simple and like an opportunity to explore within yourself and your family. It doesn’t have to be formal or complicated. It’s more about curiosity. Do it when it feels interesting to you and you have the bandwidth to do it. 

Free Resources:

Grab the free worksheet: Defining Your Family Values - A step-by-step guide for creating a family value statement to guide you on your parenting journey

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlene

Childress, and I am about to start a two part

series all about family values. Essentially,

what I'm teaching is how to be value led instead

of child led in your family. How to make

decisions based on your values and the things that

are important to you, how to set boundaries about the things that are

important to you, instead of making decisions based on

emotion, how you feel in the moment, or how your children

feel in the moment. Parenting can be really, really

confusing, and it can be hard to figure out what am I

supposed to do here? Do I let my kid go to this birthday

party? Do I let them quit the sports team? Do I

let them not go to our religious service? Do I let

them blow off steam by swearing? All

of these are hard questions to answer. So one of the

strategies that I wanna help you with is figuring

out what is important to you as a parent,

and your values as a family. So that when you

have a decision to make or you see a behavior

that is happening in your family, you get to look at your

values and decide, is this aligned with the things

that are important to us? Is this decision going to help us

get our kids closer to our values and where

we wanna take our family? Or is this decision

going to undermine our family

values? I'm hoping to give you some examples of this as

we go forward, but I first wanted to start to just

define what values even mean. Values

are defined as a person's principles or standards

of behavior. So you're kind of figuring out what is

important to you, how do you wanna act in the world,

what are the ways that you wanna show up, and then defining,

giving some words to those values. So for

example, I just asked my husband this. I, like, threw it on him

out of nowhere because he's not sitting around thinking about doing a podcast episode

on family values, but I was. And we were at lunch and I

just said to him, hey. I'm gonna throw a question at you.

How would you define our family values? Like, what are some things that are

important to you as a parent and that you think we did

or wanna establish as a family? And he was quiet for a minute. And he's

like, oh, I don't wanna think about this,

which I understand. I I've been hesitant to even do this

podcast episode because I feel like it's a very simple thing, but it's

also requires a lot of thinking and self reflection. And it's not

something we really wanna even think about that much. But I did press him for

a minute. I was like, just kinda off the top of your head, like, what

is a primary value to you as a person?

And he was quiet and then he said integrity.

And I'm like, what does that mean to you? And he started defining it, like

being honest, doing what you say you're gonna do, doing things

well. And it started to encapsulate a lot

of all of our values around honesty, around our work

habits, around the things that we think are really important,

taking personal responsibility, following through, all of those

things. I'm like, oh, okay. So one of our core family values is integrity.

So that's where to start for you or your

husband or your wife or your partner, whoever you

sort of co parent with is what do you think is important

for you as a person? What are some of the things that you value as

a person? For me, one of my strongest values is

honesty. I am honest to a fault almost. It's

like something that's very very important to me, and it's been something

I've really talked about with my family and my kids. And that

goes alongside with my husband's integrity. But for me, I

wanna be very honest. Also, I value

gratitude. Right? That's a very important thing for me to have perspective

and to look for where things are going well and to cultivate

gratitude in myself. One of my other primary values is being

kind. I think we can all be very kind to each other

and be respectful the way we speak to each other and the

way that we are generous with each other and the way that we

show generosity and show love and appreciation for

others. And that is my value of kindness. So for you,

I want you to start thinking about what are the values that you have for

yourself. That's a good place to start with this

discussion. I created a little worksheet that I am giving to

those people on my email list. So if you did not get it, you're not

on my email list, go and subscribe. You can get the stop yelling cheat sheet.

You can get any of my free resources, and then we'll put you on the

email list. We'll also put it as a link in the show notes. So

defining your family values, the first part is really your own

individual reflection. So in the worksheet, I give you five

steps to defining your family values as a couple. So the first

part is for yourself, kind of figuring out what are my values for

me, what are the top qualities I wanna model to my

kids, What are the values I hope my children

have? What are the non negotiables in our family and how we treat

each other? And what kind of environment do I wanna create for our family?

So really kind of thinking about, like, what's important to you as a family.

In the little worksheet, I have listed a bunch of

common family value themes like respect,

adventure, gratitude, growth, health, humor,

spirituality, resilience. And as you look at

the list, you're gonna be thinking, oh, yes. That I want that. I want that.

I want that. So I'd rather you start from within and try

to figure out what's important to you as a person. What are the things that

you care about? When you get angry about

something, about a behavior, what value is that kind of rubbing

up against? When you act in a way that you don't

like, what value are you not aligned with within

yourself? Looking at what's important to you and

what bothers you and what bothers you about other people or yourself

is going to be a big clue about what you value as a

person. So the idea, if you're in a co parenting

situation, is that you do this on your own, you ask your partner to do

it, and I give you some questions that you can use from the worksheet. Then

you come together and you just talk about it. You say, hey, why don't you

share with me one of your values that you think is important? And your partner

will share a little bit, necessarily, what the value is and you can ask some

questions like, why is that important or what does that look like? How does that

show up for you? What do you think that means? And you kind of

take turns sort of talking about your values. And over the

conversation, the idea is that you'll identify some shared

themes. So you're trying to come up with maybe five

to eight core values as a family,

as a couple that you would like to work

towards in your parenting. Next week, I'm gonna

help you understand why this is important, but I thought it would be helpful for

the first week is just to have a conversation about family values

in general. How do you come up with them? What are they even? And, like,

how do you make them up? So looking at your core

values as a couple, as a parenting collaboration, if

you are divorced or separated or you never married with your partner,

but you have a partner that also helps raise your kids, If

it's a good relationship, it might be interesting to talk to your

co parent and ask them what their values are. And,

like, see if we're aligned. Right? Looking at each

value, and then you wanna go through a process of sort of defining

it. So, for example, kindness. When you think

about kindness, or my husband was integrity, so

what does that mean to you? What will

it look like in your home, in your family? So, for

example, you would say in our family, kindness means

treating each other with care and respect even when we're upset. We

speak gently, offer help without being asked, and apologize when we

hurt someone's feelings. For example, we say please and thank you every

day. We check-in on each other after tough days and

we do kind things for each other. And if someone makes a mistake, we

forgive them and we respond with understanding.

We are kind even when people make mistakes. That

is a way to cultivate kindness in your family is

defining what does kindness even mean? What does it look like in

practice? What does integrity look like in practice?

So we were talking about this, my husband and I, about, well, what does

integrity mean? And it means committing. If you say you're gonna do

something, then do it. So if that means you're committed to

a sports team, or you're committed to being a participation in a in

a play, or some sort of extracurricular, or on a group

project, and you said you were gonna bring in the

cookies or whatever it is for the group project, that you do the thing you

said you're going to do. If you can't, for

some reason, that you take responsibility and you're honest

with the reason you're not doing it, You make that hard phone call and

you tell the truth. Instead of blaming or lying or white

lying and saying, oh, it's because we got stuck in traffic or

something like that. I'd rather you be honest. So we have cultivated

that with our kids. I think I think so. I mean, we we

might not know everything. Right? That they maybe haven't

had always integrity around. And I and I was saying that

to my husband that one of our strong values is work habits and that

goes in with integrity for us. And I was like, I don't know

if we cultivated that well with our kids. And he's like, but they're

still learning. And that's the other thing you wanna remember

is that you have values that you sometimes

aren't aligned with, that you go outside of your values sometimes

and it feels uncomfortable. That's because of life,

becomes of circumstances or maybe you feel insecure sometimes or

you have your own work to do, your own growth to go

through. That's okay. You are also learning. So when your

children show up in a way that goes outside of your

integrity, that counteracts or contradicts

your values, then you get to think, okay,

this is an area that my child still needs to grow.

This is like a gap in where they are and where

we wanna push them towards, where we wanna guide them towards.

The way we guide our children towards our values in

the comm mama process is through connection, which

means helping our children understand themselves,

connecting our kid to themselves.

So we kind of narrate, like, oh, I hear you want to

quit the team or not show up or, you know, you don't wanna go to

school because you didn't study for that test or you're angry with your

brother and you hit him. Like, I understand that

frustration you feel and that overwhelm and that

embarrassment. So we narrate to them the circumstance and

then we validate their feeling. And then we

say, and in this family, that

doesn't work. That strategy that you're using

to deal with your feelings doesn't work. So we go

to limit set. So connect and limit set go together

to help our kids grow, understand themselves,

understand why they behave the way they behave so they don't get stuck in a

shame cycle. We wanna validate their feelings, validate

their strategy, like, yeah, I get it. You don't wanna go to school. You didn't

study for the test. Like, that makes sense. But in this family,

we are we have integrity. We stay committed. We do the things that

are hard. So you're still going to school. So our values

are leading our decision making when it comes

to those sort of game day in the

moment hard parenting choices, look back and go

is this aligned or not aligned? Now when your child

is saying that I don't wanna go, I don't like it, or

their teacher is mean to me, or whatever. That's why I yelled at her, that's

why I hit my brother because he's a jerk. Okay?

They are demonstrating immaturity. They're

demonstrating emotional dysregulation. We don't need

to shame them and say like, what's wrong with you? That's not nice. Don't be

a jerk. You know, instead we want to say, well, okay, I understand why you

would act that way. It makes sense. And in this

family, we show up differently. This is

what is the boundary. This is how we expect you to behave, and we

set limits around that. So I wanted to this to be a short

episode because I don't want you to feel

overwhelmed with the concept of values. I want it to be

simple and something that's accessible to you, that

you scroll down on a piece of paper your values, your things

that are important to you, and you ask your partner to do that the same.

Just be like, what what do you think is the most important things we need

to teach our kids? And then come together and talk about them.

Find some core values together. Define those a little bit. Okay. What

does this even mean? Let's define it. Let's talk about what it looks like in

practice. Then if you want to, you can turn those

core values into a family value statement. So

this can be a very short paragraph that weaves

your values into a vision or commitment. You can put it up if

you want or whatever you want. An example would be, in our

family, we value connection, kindness, and honesty. We

speak respectfully, listen deeply, and prioritize time

together. We grow through challenges, we laugh often, and we treat others

the way we want to be treated. And then that's it. You can have a

little family meeting. You share with your kids your family values.

You see, these are the things that it, we're all about. We oftentimes,

as a couple, we would talk about being a Childress. It's our last

name. And we'd say, this is what it means to be a Childress. And

we just kind of created a narrative around our family

name. You don't have to, but it was just something for us that was kind

of anchoring. Like, we're all Childress' here. This is how we behave.

Now, obviously, if you have a different last name than your partner or your kids

and, you know, if there's multiple stepchildren and things like that,

that might not work for you. So you just kinda define to your children

what it means, what your values are. And then when

life happens and you go along your way, you can

come back, revisit your value statement every four to six months.

Just like, are we aligned here? Are we on track here?

So where are the gaps that we're seeing with our kids? What do we wanna

add more of? You know, where are we kind of off?

So if I have, value for generosity, but

I don't have any places in my life where my kids

have opportunities to demonstrate generosity, to be

generous, to be giving. Well, that maybe

means that I need to add something like that. So maybe we are more

careful about making things for someone's birthday

or they become more part of picking out

birthday presents for family members or going and using their own

money or their own, like, wrapping a toy if they're little and they're giving

it to their friend, just to practice that value of generosity.

So you look at your lifestyle, you'll get your values, and then you can look

at your life and be like, well, are we aligned here? We say that

service is a very important value, but yet we don't have any

opportunities for service. We say spirituality or our religion is very

important, but yet we are not attending services or

reading from our religious text to our children. So just kinda

catching yourself, not a shame y way, not in a gotcha way, but a

little bit more curiosity. A little bit more of like, okay. Well, they we

say this is important, but where are the opportunities for

demonstrating it? Do we need to add some more? If you're off track, have

some more boundaries around it. You guys are welcome to go to your friend's

house on Saturday as long as we have all done a big cleanup in this.

Because in this family, we value cleanliness. Like,

it's fine. If that's your value, great. That's a very good value.

If it's not your value, drop it. Who cares? Right? You

don't have to have all the values be all of yours. So pick

yours, define them, make a statement if you want, and

then align your values with your lifestyle. And then

if you notice that there's a behavior or there's some place in your life that

you feel off track, you can look back at your values and say, oh, okay.

This is why I don't like this behavior. This is why this lifestyle choice

isn't working for me, and I'm gonna make some different decisions about

it. So hopefully, it doesn't feel that complicated. I don't want

this to be this big dragged out, oh, we

have to have a big Sunday meeting with my partner. I want it

to be a little more interesting and kind of a opportunity for

exploring within yourself. I don't want this to be a to do list

thing. So if this isn't something that you're interested in right now,

it's okay. You don't have to like, oh, darling said we have to do

family values, so let's do it this week. Like, if you don't have the

capacity or bandwidth to think about this right now, it's okay.

Just earmark this podcast episode and come back to it. Sometimes the

beginning of the year is a good time to talk about values. Sometimes

the beginning of the school year, sometimes around a birthday

or a day of grieving can be good days to take a look at

it. I also like to look at seasons in my

life. So going into the summer, what are my

intentions? What are the things that I wanted to make sure

I do this summer? Like, what are our values this summer? Where how do

I wanna show up? Do I wanna have my kids still be

working on, like, work ethic and work habits? Okay.

Great. So I'm gonna bring in, you know, some type of schoolwork

or maybe they stick to the swim team or something like that

over the course of the summer. So looking at your values and

then looking at your summer plans and being like, was there any opportunity for me

to align with that value in this

season of my life that can look like, you know, during winter

breaks or other religious holidays? Like, oh,

let this could be a good opportunity to take a look at our values and

maybe bring some more of those things in. So I want it to be

interesting. I want it to not feel heavy. I want it to be light,

and I want you to do it when it feels like you have the bandwidth

to do it. It's a good exercise. I enjoy doing it myself. And like I

said, I we do have a downloadable called defining your family values,

a step by step guide for creating a family value statement to guide

you on your parenting journey. And it's kind of the prompts that I

offered to you in this episode. You can download that

on the show notes or if you're not on my newsletter, be

sure to be on there because I send all sorts of resources

when I release the podcast episode. There's a blog

post and an email that goes out letting you know what the topic is,

and there's also kind of an overview of what the topic

is all about. So if you don't get to the podcast, you can't listen to

it, it's fine. You can just skim it. You're like, oh, okay. I'm gonna that's

like my next one. Right? Be sure you're on the podcast email list. If you're

not, get on there. You can do that by signing up

on the blog page or whenever you sign up for any of those

free resources I have on my website, which there's a lot by

the way. I was just looking at these. Let me get a look at them

real quick while I'm talking to you guys. Okay. So there's the stress free

summer with kids, the stop yelling cheat sheet, the overview of the

calm mama process, one called managing meltdowns and

misbehavior, the stress reset guide for moms,

easy morning with kids, and then, of course, the defining your family

values. So there's, like, a ton of free resources on there.

You sign up, you get the free downloadable, you get on the

newsletter, and you get the email to tell you about the

podcast and any resources. So it's pretty cool. Highly

recommend you being on the newsletter, email list, and

also taking advantage of these free resources that are on the website.

So you can go to

callmamacoaching.com/tools,

and you'll be able to find all of those free resources.

Callmamaisspelledcom,mama,coaching.com.

Alright, mamas. I hope you have a great week and dads because I

think that there might be some dads listening to this episode. So shout out

dads and don't make it too complicated. Just

think for yourself, what are my values? What do I care about?

And make a little list. You can do it in your phone. You can

do it on the worksheet that I provide or on a piece of paper.

Doesn't matter. Just think about it, make a note, and then talk about it with

your partner. Okay. Next week, I'm gonna talk to you about how to use

these values to be value centered, value

led instead of child led or

feelings centered. So good episode on trying to help you

get out of permissive parenting and into leadership

parenting more around your family values and what

is important to you and helping your children thrive.

Alright. I can't wait. I will talk to you next week.