FAMILY ISSUES (1B-1)


ATTITUDES AND VALUES


If you think it was difficult dealing with the facts, wait until you take a look at attitudes and values! Yet the truth is, unless we help explore our own attitudes and values, we will be unable to take in the facts we are learning into our own patterns of behavior.
 
Since one of the primary goals of the Young Men as Fathers program is to help students make responsible decisions, you must be aware of how you view yourself and the world around you.

An individual's values grow from his total environment. When the environment is stable and all of the experiences are similar/congruent, there is little conflict. The family, the church, the school and the community all tend to reinforce the same set of values. This situation, which we often refer to with nostalgia as the "good old days," hardly exists for any one today. Instead, young people are literally bombarded by persistent/constant messages from radio, television, motion pictures, magazines, newspapers, books and comic books that often run counter to what they have
learned at home. In addition, the amount of time spent with the family is greatly reduced, since many of the functions performed primarily by the family in the past are being provided by outside agencies. And, of course, the family itself is changing as divorce makes second marriages more common--and multiple parenting a source of additional value conflicts.

Coupled with all these changes is the almost revolutionary phenomenon of the women's
liberation movement, which is beginning to affect both males and females in the way they define their roles and raise their children.

In the face of all this confusion, one of our basic tasks is to develop effective decision making skills that will enable you to cope with your rapidly changing environment.

Most of the decisions you make involve choices, which ultimately reflect your values, even when these values have never been clearly defined. Problems often arise when our decisions in one situation may be at cross purposes with Our Choices at other times. Your own values may be in conflict.

One of the greatest concerns we all have is whether what we do is "normal." This usually means that we not only do not know all of the facts about a given type of behavior, we also have been conditioned to believe that certain things are either all right or all wrong. The purpose of the activities in this section is two fold: to explore the range of behavior that is normal and to examine some of the reasons behind the personal choices that people make. The ultimate objective is to help each student make responsible decisions about what is right for him. It also implies deciding what is not appropriate personal behavior while accepting and understanding that same behavior in others.

There is a tendency in all of us to want ready-made answers for difficult questions; there is a corresponding temptation to comply with such requests. You will need to confront and challenge yourself in helping make your own decisions, rather than falling into the trap of agreeing or disagreeing with an adult viewpoint. The most helpful adult role is to keep the responsibility for decision making squarely where it belongs---on the shoulders of the individual.