How children absorb the world around them — and what this Colorado dad learned the hard way
When we think about teaching our children values, we usually think about the conversations we have: The things we say, the rules we set, the lessons we explain at the dinner table or before bed.
But children are not primarily learning from what we say. They are learning from what we do — and from what we feel. My kids will learn more from what I do than what I say, lecture, or try to teach them.
I saw that in a way I didn’t expect.
We have three people with intellectual disabilities living in our home. My intention has always been that my daughters would learn compassion from that experience. That they would see what it looks like to care for someone vulnerable who needs more patience than most situations require.
But what I’ve actually noticed is this: when I’m frustrated — and I do get frustrated — my daughters pick that up: Not the compassion I intend, but rather the frustration I actually show.
I’ve seen them repeat things I’ve done out of frustration and express the same verbal frustrations I’ve expressed.
That was a humbling realization. I wasn’t teaching them to be cruel. I wasn’t saying anything negative, but my reactions were forming them anyway — quietly, consistently, in a direction I hadn’t chosen.
My wife is much better at showing compassion. She is the host home provider and takes care of these individuals. She demonstrates patience and compassion, which flow from who she naturally is. My kids learn compassion from her.
I want to learn from my wife. I’m praying that I become more like her.
The Furniture We Don’t Notice
Research shows that children as young as three are already forming group preferences and social attitudes — not from explicit teaching, but from what they observe in the adults around them. By the time most parents realize they’ve been communicating something, the children have already received it.
I think of it as furniture. The beliefs and attitudes we absorb in childhood are just there — already arranged in the room when we arrive. We didn’t choose them. We didn’t even notice them being placed. But they shape the space we move through for the rest of our lives.
This is what I tried to capture in my novel Redeeming Rhubarb. Rhubarb’s pups know that rats are dangerous before they have ever met one. They learned not from a lecture but from watching him live out his fear and hatred day after day.
That’s what most of us are doing. Not maliciously. Not even consciously. But consistently.
What Prejudice Actually Looks Like Up Close
I spent three years as an evangelical Christian living in a lesbian community. I didn’t agree with everything I saw. But I got to know my neighbors as people, as individuals with names and histories and kindnesses and struggles that had nothing to do with the label I had assigned them.
And prejudice, I discovered, comes apart in exactly that way.
- Not through argument.
- Not through being convinced.
- Through relationship.
- Through proximity.
- Through the slow accumulation of moments where a person turns out to be more complicated and more human than the category you put them in.
That experience shaped the book — and it shaped the way I think about what we hand to our children.
The question isn’t whether our children will absorb our attitudes. They will. The question is which attitudes, and whether we are paying enough attention to know what we’re actually transmitting.
What to Do When Your Child Says Something That Stops You Cold
Most parents discover what their child has absorbed the hard way — the day their child comes home and repeats something ugly they picked up from a peer, a cousin, a classroom, a screen. Or worse, they are the child who initiated something ugly at school.
That moment is uncomfortable. But it’s also a gift. You found out what was going on in your child’s world before it took root.
Here’s what I’ve found works — and what I wrote into the book:
- Don’t lecture. Ask questions. Not accusations — questions.
- Where did you hear that?
- What do you think it meant?
- Why do you think someone would say that?
- If they are the person who said or did something:
- What prompted you to say or do that?
- What were you feeling?
- Why did you feel that way?
- You’re not excusing the behavior.
- You’re teaching your child to think rather than react. That’s a different and more lasting thing.
- Don’t yell. In the book, when Bart’s nephews are cruel to animals, he doesn’t yell at them. He speaks calmly, asks questions, makes them work, and lets them feel the warmth of doing something good. They change — not because he frightened them into it, but because he led them through it. Yelling might produce compliance in the moment. It doesn’t change the heart.
- Don’t make it a shaming moment. If your child feels attacked for bringing something to you, they’ll stop bringing things to you. And then you’re parenting blind — which is far more dangerous.
- Do make it a conversation. Ask your child what they think about what they heard or did. Ask them what might be going on in the life of the person who said it. If they were the perpetrator, ask them what is going on in their life. How are they hurting?
In my book, Rhubarb’s prejudice is rooted in real grief — he lost his brother. Knowing that doesn’t excuse what he does. But it does make him comprehensible. And comprehension is where compassion begins.
The Harder Question
I find it easy to talk about what Rhubarb is doing wrong. He’s the cautionary tale. He’s the one whose children are absorbing something he didn’t fully intend.
But when I’m honest with myself — really honest — I know that I am Rhubarb in certain moments, when I’m impatient with the people in my home who need more from me than I feel I can give, when my frustration shows before my compassion does, when I react before I think.
My daughters are watching all of it.
That doesn’t mean I need to be perfect. It means I need to be honest — with them and with myself — about what I’m still learning. There is something powerful about a parent saying “I got that wrong, and here’s what I should have done.” It teaches children that character is not something you are born with or without. It’s something you practice and build, one choice at a time.
The Bible speaks of confession and its healing power. James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” This applies not only to confessing to other believers, but also to confession to our children and spouses.
- It heals the relationship.
- It sets an example.
- It shows vulnerability.
That’s ultimately what Redeeming Rhubarb is about. Not a mouse who was always good. A mouse who was broken in a specific way, for a real reason, and who had to decide — at great cost — to become someone different. That story is available to all of us, including the ones telling it.
To continue this conversation with your family: My free Redeeming Rhubarb Complete Companion Guide includes chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, family conversation starters, and KJV Faith Connections for all 46 chapters — available free at bobrichleyauthor.store.