# Discover How to Instill Values in Your Children by Doing Crafts With Them > The Centre Cultural La Beneficència offers us some keys - **Author:** mireia-navarro-vera · **Category:** Infantil - **Published:** 2017-11-28 · **Updated:** 2018-04-27 - **URL:** https://elteuespai.com/en/discover-how-to-instill-values-in-your-children-through-crafts/ - _Translation pending clinical review._ --- If we say crafts to you, what is the first thing that comes to mind? If you thought of a playful moment or a bit of fun, we encourage you to keep reading and open your mind. Today we reveal to you all the potential of **crafts for boys and girls**. ## What benefits do crafts bring to boys and girls? The [Centre Cultural La Beneficència](http://www.labeneficencia.es/es/article/los-beneficios-de-las-manualidades-para-ninos) offers us some keys: - They allow them to give free rein to their creativity and reflect the world through their eyes, while at the same time **fostering their patience and perseverance**. - They help **improve their capacity for concentration and attention**, by directing their senses toward the development of that specific activity. - They make it possible to **develop their memorization**, as they have to observe the work of adults, retain the procedures to follow, and reproduce them. - **They foster their fine motor skills**, their ability to use their hands and fingers as working tools. - **They increase their self-esteem**, through the challenge of undertaking a task and managing to complete it. ## Instilling values through crafts — is it possible? To transmit **educational values** to the little ones, we as parents, together with the family environment and friends, play a very relevant role, since our daily example becomes the most effective way for our sons and daughters to assimilate them and put them into practice. Thanks to these values, boys and girls will develop on a personal level, and as they grow up, they will gradually become ethical, responsible people who are aware of the world in which they live. To reinforce our teaching, we have very affordable resources within our reach, such as **crafts**. **They are an interesting tool for instilling educational values** in the little ones, because **in an enjoyable and entertaining way**, they learn about this subject. ## Crafts, values, and current issues Some educational values are related to current problems in our society. Through simple crafts, we can make these problems that affect the community more understandable to our sons and daughters and **promote** **that, from childhood,** **they commit to their environment and act in an honest and sensible way**. Let's take a look. ### Gender equality “*No glitter no party”, “Magic swan”, “Princess”,* are some of the phrases that accompany girls' clothing. We also come across backpacks with rainbow drawings, clothes with unicorns, butterflies, dresses in pink tones… However, neither colors, nor animals, nor words are masculine or feminine in gender. **Why keep associating girls with pink and boys with blue?** **Why keep turning girls into princesses and boys into superheroes?** Why link sweetness and naivety with girls, and strength or bravery with boys? It is essential to **educate in gender equality** and avoid perpetuating gender stereotypes, because equality between men and women benefits society as a whole. We suggest you take advantage of the fact that many classic tales perpetuate these stereotypes, **and play with your sons and daughters at reinventing traditional stories and putting an end to the practice of princesses who need to be saved and fearless princes who face a thousand challenges.** To do this, we are going to reuse thin cardboard (a cereal box), used skewer sticks, a pencil, scissors, glue, and colors, and we will create some puppets. Let the little ones develop all their creativity, but forget about stereotypes and gender roles. That is, you cannot use the color blue for boys and pink for girls, nor can there be a prince who saves the princess or a monstrous dragon. Let your imagination fly, because the dragon can be a great friend of the heroine, the knight can fear snakes, and the maiden can devise a great plan to protect the kingdom from pirates. ![Black silhouette of a knight and a dragon](/images/blog/2017/11/Dibujo-dragon.webp) ### Solidarity We live in an unequal and unjust world where solidarity is an essential value. **Through small altruistic actions by each individual, the planet is transformed into a** **better** **space, and we build the path toward a more equitable society**, where every person can live with dignity and with equal rights. Our sons and daughters belong to a privileged group that can access education, healthcare, drinking water, basic food… But there are boys and girls who do not go to school, who are forced to work, who are forced to marry at an early age, who are turned into child soldiers… We can explain this reality to them while we encourage them to help other little ones in vulnerable situations, involving them in solidarity campaigns aimed at children. You can find out about **solidarity initiatives linked to the world of childhood**, such as toy collection, donation of clothes, books, or school supplies, or look into ethical brands that do not allow child labor, and have the little ones take responsibility for drawing up a list of items in good condition that are suitable for donation, or a list of brands that you should not add to your shopping basket. ### Environmental respect The planet is crying out for us to take care of it, but it seems we prefer not to hear it. **Climate change is a reality that is already affecting vulnerable populations.** There are families and communities that depend on their harvests to live. However, as a consequence of climate change, they now suffer seasons of intense rain, followed by periods of extreme drought. Those times of torrential water or great scarcity that they are experiencing are causing them to lose their livelihood, because their crops no longer produce enough to feed their families. We must be aware that, as consumers, we generate with our purchases a footprint on the environment and contribute to fueling the consequences of climate change. **How can we instill in our little ones that we must shop responsibly or practice the 3R rule?** How can we make them understand that it is the duty of every citizen to preserve nature and protect its biodiversity? We can begin by explaining things that will make them value even more the living beings we coexist with. Two examples: - An insect as small as a bee is essential for our society, since without it there is no pollination, and without this process, food production is in danger. - Trees bring us multiple benefits, as they act against urban pollution, help reduce the use of air conditioning, and lessen the effects of climate change. The next step will be to **invite them to decorate their little universe of play**, their bedroom, **with recycled decoration**. First tell your little ones that with this gesture they are taking care of the environment, helping to reduce the use of new raw materials, and preventing the proliferation of greenhouse gases from industry, and then let them create fun silhouettes with thick cardboard (a cookie box, appliance packaging), a black marker, a pencil, and scissors. ![photo of a bedroom](/images/blog/2017/11/habitacion.webp) ### Non-discrimination The world is full of **different people**, and therefore unique. Of **disparate cultures**, full of peculiarities that define them. Of **family models**, where the affection among their members is the same regardless of whether there is a mom and a dad, or two moms or two dads. All of this enriches the society in which we live. It allows us to learn from one another, to improve, to move forward. However, society prefers to build barriers, to put up obstacles, and we observe that there is discrimination on the grounds of gender, skin color, or religious beliefs. **Stories are an open window to other worlds**, they stimulate the imagination, they reveal new experiences to us, they bring us closer to other behaviors, they allow us to assimilate abstract ideas… And thanks to the stories they tell us, the adventures of the characters, or their conduct, they are also an **educational tool** for our little ones to assimilate values. Moreover, with each moment of reading, we create an emotional bond with our sons and daughters. There are many stories that reflect the diversity of the world we live in. Choose one and read it to your sons and daughters. **Once the reading is finished, suggest that they capture in a drawing what they have just heard. When they finish, join the drawings together with tape, and create a large mural.** ### Teamwork Learning to work as a team is fundamental. We live in a community, and **we must know how to listen, dialogue, or collaborate.** In the adolescent and adult stages, there will be many occasions on which our sons and daughters will have to work in groups, and in their professional cycle, it will be an everyday thing. Working as a team allows us to develop our personal talent, our skills, to create bonds among members, to strengthen relationships, to reach objectives more easily, to be responsible, or to commit. We can put this dynamic of work into practice with our little ones, **making**, for example, **among all the members of the family, a gift for the next birthday where each one develops their own abilities.** With this craft, we are suggesting that you recover the charm of handmade objects, since everything, from the greeting card to the wrapping itself, must be your own work and not bought in a store. ![hands painted in paint drawn on cardstock](/images/blog/2017/11/manos-en-cartulinas.webp) As parents, there are many challenges we must face when educating our sons and daughters. That is why doubts may assail us and we may ask ourselves whether we are doing it right or wrong. *Educar en valores* is a free guide by Oxfam Intermón where you will be able to delve deeper and find various resources that will be useful to you when **transmitting educational values to the little ones** at home. If at home you have made any craft that promotes a value, whatever it may be, and that you also found fun, share it with us. Leave us your comment