Congratulations on joining this exciting and meaningful program!
Below you will find overall information and tips on how to use this program successfully, links to the introductory discussion, and your materials for the introductory value: Honesty.
Moving forward, you’ll receive an email at the beginning of each month with your children’s adventure, parents’ discussion, and family discussion and activity guide that go with the value of the month. You might want to save those emails in a handy place so you can go back to them whenever you like!
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Parents’ Preparation
Many families have found that it works best for them to calendar a regular time each month to listen to the parent’s discussion for that month (you could add a monthly reminder into your phone).
For example, the last Sunday of each month at 9pm when kids are in bed, parents will
- listen to the parents’ discussion for the value for the upcoming month
- briefly look over the discussion questions and family activities offered
- calendar when they will introduce the value to the kids that month, when they will do the discussion, and when they will do the activities that seem like they’ll work best for their family
Of course, there will be plenty of spontaneous activities that come up during the month when parents and children will want to discuss the value and/or do activities related to the value. But having some specific times for discussion and activities calendared is helpful for many families.
If your family holds a regular family night (or if you’d like to start this practice), you could make your value discussions and activities a focus of that night. Dinner time is another excellent time for discussion and activities about the month’s values.
Most of the monthly values include a book list. You could make a library trip and gather some great books that go with the value of the month. You can read some of the suggested books to your younger children at bedtime or during story time and have them around the house for your older children to pick up and read. Reinforcing the value of the month with books and stories can make a real difference.
Children’s Adventures
The fun “commercials,” stories, and songs in each of the children’s Adventures are captivating and fun for children. You’ll find your kids begging to listen!
The car is an excellent place to listen to the adventures (just put the MP3’s on your phone and plug it into your car – or burn them onto CDs for the car). Many children also enjoy listening at bedtime. (Purchasing an inexpensive CD player and having these adventures burned onto 12 different CDs has worked beautifully for our own children. They listen to them every night!)
It’s great to listen WITH your children at least once so that you’ll be able to refer to the story and understand what’s going on in the adventure as you discuss the month’s value. As your children face situations that are similar to what Alexander experiences, it’s great to be able to say something like “Sounds like what happened to you today was a little bit like what happened to Alexander when. . . . ”
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Introduction for the Entire 12-Month Program
Introduction to the Values by Richard and Linda Eyre – Listen Online OR right-click the link to download.
Initial Value: Honesty
Parent’s Honesty Discussion: Listen Online OR right-click the link to download the file to your computer.
Children’s Honesty Adventure: Listen Online OR right-click to download.
Honesty Discussion and Family Activity Guide
* If the download for the audio doesn’t happen automatically when you click it, right click on the download option and choose “save as,” then save to your computer.