I have been having this conversation a lot with my mom lately. We have been talking about people and the different values that they hold as important to them. My mom couldn’t understand why family was important to us and not to other people. I told her that it is because we each, value the things in our lives differently.

Again I had this conversation while I was babysitting after I had gone to a party. When I told them that very few adults were invited and that it was mostly just going to be friends, they all seemed shocked. They wondered why they didn’t want their family there. It wasn’t that they didn’t want their family there, it was that they wanted to have more friends and feel less obligated to talk to all the family and take away from enjoying their time with their friends.

They still didn’t get it, so I brought up the idea of values. Seeing a teachable moment, I told them that values are things that you hold close to your heart and that for each person they are different. Even though we all may value a good education. We might not all have the same sense of importance for a good education as others.

In true teacher style, I decided to play a game. Now these kids were 16, 12 and almost 9, so they understand a lot of the things that I was saying. I asked them to put these three things in order of importance or value in their own lives, family, friends and dance. All three girls are dancers and that is something that they love. I love how this turned out because even though each of the girls chose family as the thing that they valued the most. The little one chose dance as her second more valued thing because she loves to dance and she said that all her friends are dancer so they go along with dance.

I loved these simple answers but it helped me show them that even if they have grown up together and have the same background. We don’t all value things the same way. I may value something completely differently than you do. I was so happy when the kids understood this because I know that when we understand that we each value different things differently we are able to communicate with each other better. We understand that we all have differences and that it is okay because those difference make that person who they are and that is important.

It is something just that simple. If these girls can understand that we all are different, but that those difference make us unique and that understanding of them helps us to be better people, then they are on the right track to having successful communication with people for the rest of their lives. They will be able to know that someone's opinion is different and validate that the difference between their opinions is okay and that they can still communicate and have a personal relationship with someone despite those differences. Values are an important part of our lives and our culture, so we need to begin to understand them better.