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This Article is From Our February 2009 Advice & Tips:

Role Modeling, one of our biggest responsibilities to our kids

Children have never been good at listening to their elders,
But they have never failed to imitate them.
–James Baldwin

The family serves as the primary “school” in which our daughters and sons learn about relationships. Parents are the most important teachers and we teach through our actions (behaviors) more than through our words. In families, children learn about relationships by observing their parents.

• Sons learn about being male and being fathers from their fathers (or father figures).
• Daughters learn about being female and mothers from their mothers (or mother figures).
• Sons practice relating to females through interacting with their mothers (or mother figures).
• Daughters practice relating to males through interacting with their fathers (or father figures)
• Both daughters and sons learn about adult male-female relationships by observing how fathers/father-figures and mothers/mother-figures relate and interact. Important social skills are learned through family interactions.


Children learn about relationships from their parents. They learn primarily from our behavior-how we act to them and others.

Role modeling is showing our children, through our behavior, what we want them to learn about relationships. Be the person you want them to become!

What are your children learning from you about relationships?

-From the Marriage and Parenting Program

Asset of the Month

14. Adult Role Models

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For more information on current classes being offered or to learn more about stress, please call the Worcester County Health Department – Office of Prevention @ 410-632-0056

To See Our Archive Of Past Parenting Advice & Tips Click Here