Teaching Children about Traditionalism

See also: Teaching Preschoolers about Traditionalism

This article is about teaching children between the ages of 5-12 about Traditionalism. Before the age of 5 it is best in most cases to show rather than tell. Show how family is important by visiting and talking about them, for example. But now you can start to talk about ideas and start asking them questions about how the world works and how it should work.

The three principles of Traditional Conservatism are:

Tradition
Order
Family

Tradition
Of course continue to celebrate the important dates in your families, community and nations life. Now you can start to talk about why they are important and why they should be remembered. Ask them why do we have public holidays? Why do we have special days, like birthdays? If they don't know tell them that it is important that we have our own special days. Days that are important for a person such as a birthday and as a community or nation such as public holidays. At this age you can start to really have fun starting your own traditions. In my family for example we had music nights were we only played music. You could read, or colour in, or talk or daydream, but no electronic devices. It was family time, with no interruptions. This works particularly well with a special meal or snacks. Use this to introduce your children to music they have not heard before, let them know that there is music older than them and even older than you.

Order
Why are parents and teachers in charge instead of children? Why does the dog sleep outside, why doesn't everyone take turns? Why are things this way instead of another way? Because there is order and everything has a rightful and a wrongful place. One activity I did was a goldrush, I did it near Easter and I bought a bag of small chocolates which became golddust and a large egg which became the nugget. I drew a map of a room and I decided where the golddust and where the nugget would be. I then gave the children some string and let them "stake" out their claim. Each child got at least one small chocolate, but then the rest was rewarded by their claim. It's a good way to talk about fairness and how life is not fair. When I asked the children I did it with was it fair that some people got rich and others didn't, they thought it was fair. 

Family
Try and eat together, if not every night at least once a week. Try to read to them at bedtime, it really builds up intimacy and trust. It's like having a secret, that belongs to you and that child and to no one else in the world. What children want is your time, they want to know that you care and doing things with them shows that. Point out the differences between the sexes and why each has their strengths and weaknesses and how together they can get over most of those problems.  Talk about why family is important and how family stretches all the way from the creation to the end of time. How we mortal but in a way family is eternal.

It's not to early to talk about Traditionalism, to lay the groundwork that can be built on in the future. Start early and if you have some more ideas I'd like to see them below in the comments.

Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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