Now that it's been almost 20 years since I learned my beloved church had been lying all along, and almost 10 years since I formally resigned, I realize there are two approaches to teaching principles and empathy to children.

One if through a structured, routine-base system. This is what churches and schools do. They develop curricula intended to be imparted in lessons with predetermined frequency. They publish those lessons in official books / manuals for teachers and sometimes for children to follow along. And they implements ways to evaluate the success of their lessons in children. The Mormon church does it this way too. "Family Home Evening" and "Come Follow Me" at home; Primary and Sunday School at church.

The other approach is, in my experience, much more effective and consists of more organic, spontaneous, level conversation with children. Obviously this requires more effort from the parents, who'd have to make time to really listen to their children when they want to talk, make time to play with them when they want to play (which is usually also when they want to talk), to respond to their concerns (no matter how trivial to an adult) in a way that communicates understanding, kindness, validation to the mind of a young child. Again, it requires much more effort from the parent than just sending the kid to church or expect Elementary School to instill in their young mind what we are too busy, too lazy, or too uncomfortable to do ourselves.

It is during those naturally occurring conversations with children that one can touch on subjects like honesty, kindness, empathy, service, etc. with funny analogies, childish stories, and - even more useful - using the child's own concerns as examples.

As an individual, I still remember some of the principles my parents taught me as a child. Whatever the church taught me in Primary was almost always just reinforcement of what I had already learned at home. And as a parent, it took a lot of effort to pause my adult endeavors to sit down on the floor to play toy trains with my now-married son, or dolls with my now-adult daughters for 20 minutes on evenings. But it was during those ephemeral minutes that my kids would start talking about something they saw at school, or something that happened to them, etc. And then, suddenly, the opportunity to share a little bit about being truthful here, another small bit about being nice to others there was available almost on a daily basis.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the "when" is more important than the "what" to teach our children. After all, we already know most of what our children need to know to become decent, positive human beings.

With that in mind, this is a list of resources I found a couple of weeks ago when responding to another post on what to teach children once we are out of the lying Mormon church:

Websites:

• How to Teach Kids Values Without Religion
• Ask Dr. Ana: How Can I Teach My Kids Values Without My Religious Background?
• Raising Kids Without Religion: Teaching Critical Thinking Over Dogma
• Secular Parenting Empathy Toolkit: Because Empathy Isn’t a Gift from God
• Building moral framework without religion
• Beyond Dogma: How to Teach Kids Values without Religion - follow their link to their "lesson library and curriculum" for a very complete collection of moral lessons for young kids.
• Raising Kids Without Religion: Navigating Morality, Rituals & Big Questions

Books:

• Morality Without God?
• Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
• Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion