Values in Children
Several values were stressed to Maya children. Not only was a strong work ethics desirable, but working for the betterment of the community was necessary.
Families were extremely important to the Maya culture, and respecting the leaders in one’s family was imperative. "A sense of responsibility is another important quality which children have to learn. This includes independence, self-confidence and the ability to make decisions." It is believed that the most important quality for children to have was common sense, and they received this by shadowing their parents.
Among Yucatec Maya parents, the ceremony called hetsmekʻ is still practiced even among professionals living in Mérida, the capital of Yucatán.
Read more about this topic: Childhood In Maya Society
Famous quotes containing the words values in, values and/or children:
“Today so much rebellion is aimless and demoralizing precisely because children have no values to challenge. Teenage rebellion is a testing process in which young people try out various values in order to make them their own. But during those years of trial, error, embarrassment, a child needs family standards to fall back on, reliable habits of thought and feeling that provide security and protection.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“Parents ought, through their own behavior and the values by which they live, to provide direction for their children. But they need to rid themselves of the idea that there are surefire methods which, when well applied, will produce certain predictable results. Whatever we do with and for our children ought to flow from our understanding of and our feelings for the particular situation and the relation we wish to exist between us and our child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Children from humble families must be taught how to command just as other children must be taught how to obey.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)