The Importance Of Teaching Values, Morals & Ethics

In this episode, Dr. Gina explains how values, morals and ethics guide our behaviours. These principles used to be taught in schools and in families and it is lacking nowadays. We see its impact in the current state of society, health and the environment. She discusses how values, morals and ethics can impact children and society in a positive way and how it can transform our world for the better.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hello,

Everybody.

Welcome to Living Simply with Dr.

Gina.

Dr.

Gina,

Where are you?

Oh,

There you are.

I was gonna say,

I'm in Ottawa.

Oh,

Yeah.

Just a quick heads up for all of our viewers and listeners.

Ben could not make it today.

So I am here with Dr.

Gina,

Myself.

And today,

We will be talking about why it's important for families to teach values,

Morals and ethics.

Kind of a big topic.

I guess maybe start at the beginning.

Can you explain to us a little bit about the difference between values,

Morals and ethics?

Yeah,

So let's look at it as a funnel.

So start with the big picture values.

So most people know what values are.

So they're very personal.

Things like believing in honesty,

Achievement,

Hard work,

Exercise,

Being spiritual.

There's a whole bunch of categories of values people can decide on what really matters to them.

So values is the foundation of our behavior.

So deciding consciously,

What do I want my life to be about and what really matters to me.

And then from values,

We'll be born certain beliefs,

Which are morals.

So there'll be a system of beliefs that later on will guide our actions.

So ethics will stem from morals,

Which are the actions.

So there are morals translated into actions,

Basically.

So that's a simple version of it.

Probably about as simple as you could get on such a deep topic,

I would imagine.

So maybe to illustrate the point between morals and ethics,

Because I realized in some of the material you sent over,

I probably thought it was the same thing.

It's the age old question,

Do you steal a loaf of bread to feed your family kind of thing?

So the morals and the ethics would guide you about whether or not you could do it and whether it was right.

So the morals would be whether you would do that.

And then the ethics is whether it's right or wrong.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So you maybe let's say your morals are you shouldn't steal because you decided stealing is wrong.

But you decide,

You know,

Your family's dying of hunger and you decide your family matters and you're going to steal food to feed your family.

So ethically,

Your actions might go against your morals and your values.

But you're if you're acting basically unethically to support what matters most to you.

So that's how we get into moral dilemmas and being torn between one choice or another.

And so this is a big example stealing.

But sometimes it's the reason I wanted to talk about this is more on the simpler side of daily decisions that we make every day.

And I find by working with a lot of families that sometimes parents are at a loss with how their kids are behaving.

And it's like they've lost their way.

And in the end,

What we see is they're missing the GPS,

The direction that guides their behaviors,

It's so abstract for kids,

If we tell them don't do this,

Just because I said so,

Something doesn't sit right for them.

But if we raise our kids,

And we really make it clear what our values are,

And how it translates into beliefs and actions,

Then it makes more sense to them.

It's more concrete as opposed to abstract.

So then it's easier for them to think before they behave and not be so much knee jerk reactions because when it's not a one day conversation,

It's a way of life.

For example,

With my daughter,

There's not a day that we don't discuss values,

Moral or ethics.

It's not done formally.

But if I make certain choices,

I'll explain to her,

You know,

Mommy made this choice for this reason.

And underneath that,

It's the guiding principles of our values and our morals that make us decide,

You know,

Technically,

I'd like to do a but I won't do it because it's going to hurt someone.

And so I won't do it even if I feel like doing it.

And then it would make more sense to the child than just saying,

Yeah,

You just don't do that.

It's bad or you do this because it's good.

Like,

If we think like a child,

It's too abstract and too simple to just say,

Yeah,

Don't do it or do this or do that.

I would even say like the,

As we grow older,

A lot of times our world becomes more black and white.

And you know,

If you think back to at least when I was a kid,

I know my niece was the same way.

It's well,

Why?

Why do I have to do that?

Why?

And really what you're doing is you're answering that question without being like,

No,

Just just listen to me and do this.

Right?

Yeah.

And it's many parents get annoyed with the why,

Why they feel like it's confronting their authority.

But kids are wise that way.

It's like,

Well,

It makes sense to want to know why because when we know why,

We're more likely to do it.

So even when I coach clients or therapy clients,

Before I teach them certain strategies,

I explain to them how their brain works.

So the neuroscience behind why they do what they do,

And then they're more likely to follow through with the recommendations I make because then it makes sense.

And I always encourage my clients tell them,

Listen,

I'm,

You can confront me on anything I recommend you to do,

Ask me why you're doing it.

Tell me if it makes no sense.

Because if it makes no sense to them,

They won't follow through and kids are the same.

So people always say kids,

They listen to you,

Sure,

But they're really emulating your behavior.

And so,

I mean,

In this case for building the foundation of values,

Is that just not enough?

Well,

Obviously,

You got to walk your talk and kids imitate us.

So we there are things,

Everything we do,

They'll imitate.

But I add for certain things that it is important to give some explanation.

It doesn't have to be a whole two hour lecture.

Just so they're not just imitating,

Because then imitation just becomes unconscious behavior.

And if you want them to develop to become conscious individuals,

They got to understand why they do what they do versus I just do it because mom or dad does it.

So I think it adds a component of awareness when we explain it to them.

It adds a component of empathy.

Because when you guide your life by values in the bigger context of things and why you make the choices that you make,

Then they will do the same.

And because a lot of what we do and what we choose as adults,

We do think about it if we're individuals that are awake and conscious,

But kids can't read our minds.

So it allows them insight our psyche as to why we do what we do,

Because just watching our behaviors doesn't necessarily explain why we do what we do.

So I do think it's an added benefit to explain these things to children.

I mean,

That makes complete sense.

I think I've been trying to do that with my niece,

But maybe not in such awareness.

But if there's something I want her to do,

Or something about her stop doing,

I explained to her why I'm like,

This is why we don't do that.

Or this is why we don't do this.

You know,

It hurts other people or hurts her dog.

Yeah.

And then you open the space for a dialogue,

Right?

Right.

If you say it hurts the dog,

And she goes,

Why does it hurt the dog?

Well,

Then you can explain further.

And then you're teaching them how to think and how to do reasoning.

Jump to conclusions or not how to make choices.

And all that part is such private behavior,

Meaning it's in our mind.

Kids don't understand how to think if we don't teach them how to think.

So the why questions are good questions.

From the part of kids,

As therapists,

You don't want to ask your client,

Why did you do that?

Because there's a lot of judgment behind it.

And I think that's why as parents,

We might be offended by a why question,

But coming from a child,

It's not said with the goal to offend us,

Basically.

Right.

They just want to go a little deeper.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

I'm kind of curious.

I mean,

This is probably an age old example that every parent can relate to.

But say your child is lying,

You know,

And that's a behavior you want to stop.

So how would you start that conversation,

You know,

Using values,

Morals and ethics?

So example,

If you catch your,

You obviously caught your child lying to you.

Usually kids will lie because they're scared of something.

So you want to if you want to keep the dialogue open between you and the child,

You don't want to confront them in a way that they'll close up and they won't open up to you.

So you want to approach it with empathy and validation and say,

You know,

I noticed something,

Whatever it is that they lied.

And you know,

That's it's fear.

You can go,

You know,

You're a good kid.

I assume you're lying because you were scared.

Were you scared of what I would do?

What I would say?

What were you scared of?

And if you approach it with compassion,

Then they'll tell you why they lied.

And then,

Then you can address the value of,

You know,

In our family,

An important value is honesty.

And the reason honesty is important is for X,

Y,

And Z,

Right?

And then you say,

Okay,

Now that we know honesty is important,

You can explain,

You know,

Good lies from bad lies.

So example,

You know,

If we're going to have a surprise for your birthday,

It's going to look like a lie.

But it's a surprise.

So there are good lies and bad lies.

And then when you talk about the bad lies,

You go on the ethics,

Right?

It's you're betraying someone's trust.

And you can say,

You know,

You could choose to lie.

But the consequence of that is you lose a person's trust.

So is trust important for you?

So an example I use often with kids and parents is regarding lying,

Is if you lie to me now for little things,

How am I to trust you with my car when you're going to be 16?

Now is the time you build your trust with me so that when you do have this car,

And you're behind the wheel,

It becomes a weapon.

If I can't trust you're honest with me,

I won't know if I give you the key.

Are you going to come back when I ask you to come back?

Are you not going to let people drink in the car,

Etc,

Etc.

So you show that this whole value of honesty,

How it trickles down into beliefs,

Why we lie,

Why we're honest,

And then ethics,

How we behave in an honest way.

So then you would show example,

Listen,

If you have my car,

And you drank,

I would rather you call me drunk,

And I'll pick you up,

Then you lie to me and you drive drunk because then you go again with the consequence you could kill someone.

So you show how,

Why honesty is important and how does it show up in behaviors and beliefs.

So then it makes sense to them.

And you can use other examples with their little friends.

So how do you confront them?

If you're with your kid a lot,

You'll remember a time where a friend lied to them,

And how they felt,

And you connect these things together.

How did you feel when your friend did invite you to a party and lied about it?

You felt left out and then you stopped trusting that friend.

And so if you create a weave of different behaviors like that,

And you connect it to their reality,

Everything starts to make sense because you're connected to how it feels like to live your values,

And what it feels like when you go against your values and ethics and how humans are complicated.

And sometimes we do have ethical dilemmas.

Example,

You could not believe in abortion,

Right?

And be really pro-life and suddenly this girl gets raped and she's pregnant.

She has quite the ethical dilemma,

You know,

If she never believed in abortion and suddenly she's pregnant with the child of the person who raped her,

She's seeing it's not that black or white and might say,

Consider abortion even if in a normal circumstance,

It would go against her morals.

Just like stealing because your family's starving or your child is starving and you steal milk at the corner store.

So yeah,

We're complicated human beings.

We have values and morals,

But sometimes they're contradictory in certain circumstances.

So context is important to be considered.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think that's probably,

Excuse me,

One of the maybe biggest things I learned growing up was the world is not as black and white as people make it out to seem.

So that can really definitely,

Well,

Can't really,

Definitely challenges your values and your morals as you grow older and you just kind of become more wise to the world.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And like when you,

I don't know if we still use that term,

But mercy killing,

There's a better word for that.

I don't remember what it is,

But let's say someone you really love is suffering like from a debilitating disease and you know how they go to court to end their life early.

Right.

Euthanasia,

We say that for animals.

Do we say that for humans?

I don't think so.

It's another word and I can't think of it either.

But I'm sure people understand what we're talking about.

And so you see your loved one,

Like I think Lou Gehrig's disease or even MS,

They're suffering.

They can't end their own life and wants a doctor to assist them.

In some areas,

It's illegal to do that.

They would never kill anybody,

But when they see their loved ones suffering and they just want it to end,

It's not killing in their minds.

It's not killing like murdering someone off the street.

It's relieving someone from their suffering.

So yeah,

We can be really caught up in certain dilemmas.

And little kids,

It happens the same,

You know,

When they have two best friends and you're fine with both friends and then the two best friends hate each other and they're caught between the two.

And then you have to help guide them how to manage that triangle and that friendship.

And if you connect them to values,

Then it'll help them a little bit to decide,

You know,

Like instead of you'll see that with little kids.

If you're my friend,

I won't,

If you're her friend,

If you talk to her,

I'm not going to talk to you anymore.

And how to teach the child to not gossip about the other and go,

Listen,

I love both of you.

This is between you two.

I'm not going to speak bad about so and so.

And I'm not going to speak bad about the other one.

That's grounded in values and morals.

And then it guides that child's behavior and it takes away that pressure of having to choose because then either both will agree or the one will eliminate themselves from that friendship.

And the onus is off them,

Off that child to fix everybody.

You stick to your values,

Basically your values,

Morals and ethics become your inner GPS,

Your inner compass,

If you're not on tech.

And yes,

It starts at an early age where kids are caught in moral or ethical dilemmas.

But right,

The complexity is different,

But it's the same.

Right.

I'm kind of curious.

We've talked a lot about like younger children,

But how would you approach this conversation with say a teenager?

Same thing.

Because you can use more elaborate language,

More abstract because developmentally they have abstract reasoning.

And I would approach it the same way when I work with my adult clients who've kind of lost their ways,

They're burned out and stressed is they've lost sight of their values and their lives have been guided by external metrics.

Whether it's climbing up the success ladder,

But it goes against their values.

So there's a disconnect there.

They get stressed.

So I bring them back to their values and we break it down.

Okay,

What are your values?

What matters to you?

And then what are the beliefs that tie into that?

And okay,

Now how does that look when you put these values into action and then they live more authentically?

And it makes sense because they come back to what matters inside instead of looking at outside.

You know,

What other people think,

What society says you should do.

It can get really,

Really confusing,

Especially if you're very dependent on what other people think.

So you do what they want,

But really you're unhappy and miserable.

There's quite a disconnect.

Yeah.

I mean,

That makes sense.

I've definitely seen that in family members and friends and stuff.

I'm kind of curious to say you've had a large life changing event.

Maybe a spouse gets cancer or you get cancer or something and you've realized that you've kind of been living by values that maybe aren't in tune with who you want to be now after that event and you've had those realizations.

So what can we do kind of to evaluate and change our own values if that happens?

Yeah,

Well,

Usually our values evolve with us.

And the more you're flexible as you navigate this thing we call life,

The more likely you are to be happy as opposed to if you live a life with highly rigid beliefs.

So many people,

When they experience trauma or life changing events,

Do reevaluate their values because it's like a rude awakening.

So it's coming back to that.

Some people do it with the help of a coach,

A psychologist.

Some people do it on their own by reading books or podcasts.

I think it naturally happens because people who you think would show up don't show up and people you never thought would show up,

Show up.

And so naturally it shakes you up and you're like,

Wow,

Okay.

And when you're on the verge of dying or losing someone that you really care for,

Suddenly a bit like now in the pandemic,

We realize what really matters.

Right now people are realizing,

It doesn't matter if I have a big car,

Big house,

I can't see anybody.

So they're seeing that maybe people matter more than things.

So sometimes the awakening just comes on its own.

I don't know if I answered your question.

No,

I think I did.

I think that was kind of a black and white question and there was a lot more nuance to it than I had considered.

Not everyone,

Like I said,

If you're rigid,

Not everyone will have a big diagnosis and wake up.

Some people never wake up and they're miserable too.

You know how you can meet some people that are always angry,

They're always gossiping or always noticing the bad things in the world.

Sometimes that's just how they are and they're not ready to evolve.

And some people are.

So we have all kinds of people,

Right?

Oh yeah.

I mean,

I can think of a variety of people that I have in my life from those who may never change to those who are in the midst of change.

Even stages of life,

Right?

Makes you reevaluate your values.

We often see it at midlife.

People call it midlife crisis,

But it's not necessarily a crisis.

It's a developmental stage.

We suddenly realize,

Okay,

Half my life has gone by.

I'm going to die one day.

So you're no longer in denial of your own death and that puts things in perspective as well.

People get divorced often at midlife and midlife varies.

You know,

It doesn't have to be in the forties.

Some people,

Their midlife starts in their late thirties and some people in their late fifties.

It's a developmental phase and everyone's a bit different as well.

Right.

Well,

I think it's kind of interesting.

The classic midlife crisis in popular culture,

You know,

It's getting the car,

Buying the house,

But that's not really what happens during your midlife crisis.

Well,

If you're not looking within,

You know the dis-ease that you're feeling.

You're not comfortable anymore.

If you're not used to looking within,

You're going to try and patch it up with things to make you feel better.

So you know,

You get the car,

So temporarily you feel better.

It looks like,

Okay,

That's what it was.

You're patching it with things.

But some people also get the car at midlife because they make more money.

They can afford it,

Get the Porsche that they always wanted to get.

Yeah,

So sometimes you think the answer is outside of you,

But really it's inside.

There's something that's disconnected and you're trying to connect the dots.

And that answer is always inside of you.

I don't think it's ever outside of you.

Right.

We're just not taught really to look within.

That was something I had to learn on my own.

Yeah.

And that's how I like to start working with values,

Morals,

And ethics in parenting because it forces you to go within and it forces you to look why you make the choices that you make.

And that answer is inside.

And if you notice that what you do,

What you choose to do is dependent on externals,

Well,

You realize,

Okay,

I'm not looking within and that could be the reason why it doesn't feel right.

Yeah,

That makes sense.

I think that's probably a good stopping point on this,

You know,

Looking within,

Evaluating your morals and ethics.

You have a class out right now with Glynn Ambrose,

A piece in the pandemic.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah.

I created that,

I think,

In April to help people cope with the pandemic.

It's coping with uncertainty,

How to live this new normal.

There's a component on parenting.

There's a component on trust and having faith that things will be okay.

How to cope with the stress and the anxiety.

And every strategy in there is,

Like I say,

Evergreen.

So even when you will be through this pandemic,

The strategies Glynn and I talk about apply to any situation in our life.

It's not unique to pandemics.

So we wanted it to be a course that would help people now,

But will also help people any other time of their life.

Because life is uncertainty.

I mean,

Really.

It's just when everybody's doing it,

You know.

We always will have challenges.

And that's just a fact of life.

So it's nice to be equipped to cope with life challenges.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And then if people want to work with you personally,

Where can they find you?

Yes,

They can find me on drmadrigreno.

Com.

My name is pretty unique.

So if you don't remember the website,

Just type my name and you'll find me.

You are the first that I have met.

So yes.

And then if anyone out there is interested,

I am helping businesses move online,

Do social things.

You can find me at braveandboldwriter.

Com.

But I think that's about it for today.

It was so great talking with you.

I think this was such a great topic.

We probably could have talked for hours on it.

I know.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Bye,

Everybody.

Bye.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmadrigreno.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.