Honesty, compassion, responsibility, persistence, faith, self-discipline; individuals who possess these traits tend to be respected by others and generally do well in life. Children are not born with these traits. Parents and others, who are a part of the children’s lives, have a responsibility to teach them right from wrong. Assuring that young children learn morals and values are one of the first and most important responsibilities parents face. These values provide the foundation for good character development. Knowing what our own values are and appreciating other people’s values can help us identify the ones we want to teach our children.
With the many demands of today’s society, more and more parents are challenged with the best way to raise their children. There is a constant demand for parenting classes and although our community has these types of classes available, few of them are approaching it from a values-based perspective. Kamalama has been modified using appropriate cultural values, knowledge and practices. It is an integration of Hawaiian values and beliefs. The Hawaiian values and concepts that will be shared will express a universal language of living properly, or as the Hawaiians believed, to be a code of conduct called Pono, to be morally correct.
In a supportive learning environment, parent participants will realize how much of their own values and belief systems contribute to their own style of parenting. Parents will be introduced to a set of traditional Hawaiian values that reflect universal principles of positive parenting.
The class will focus on the premise that par- ents and caregivers are truly their children’s first teachers, which is a true Hawaiian value. It will emphasize the important responsibility we have as parents and caregivers of teaching and role modeling proper values and behaviors to our children that we embrace for our ‘ohana (family) and primarily for ourselves.
Kamalama, literally means, “the light”. It is a designed to be a ten (10) week course that may be conducted weekly in two (2) hour sessions. Each class session will incorporate Hawaiian values and parenting principles together. Lesson plans will also include handouts, stories, illustrations, hands-on activities, reflections and homework. Type your paragraph here.
The Purpose of the Kamalama Curriculum
Kamalama was developed as an instrument to prepare parents in their ability to be more open in receiving and embracing positive parenting tools and techniques utilizing a values-based approach. It is not intended to replace skills-based parenting programs, but instead has been designed to complement them. It is recommended that Kamalama be utilized as a pre-cursor to other curriculum models that offer a deeper knowledge of child development and positive parenting skills and techniques needed to raise their children safe, healthy and successful.
Kamalama is really about facilitating a process in which the individual parent can explore and discover their personal values and belief systems that are driving their behaviors and the way in which they are parenting their children. It is also designed to introduce traditional Hawaiian values in that support positive parenting in a cultural context that they can choose to embrace as their own.