When explaining what fidelity is to a child, or any other words, you can always check out the dictionary meaning and then have a discussion about it. The Oxford Dictionary states that fidelity is ‘faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.’

3 ways of how to explain fidelity to your child are:

1.     Talk to your child about friendships and how about being faithful means having an agreement that you both stick to about what you want and expect from the relationship. For a child it may mean being able to tell each other secrets and expecting that the other person keeps your secrets. This is an opportunity to talk about exceptions to rules also. A good example to give would be to talk about when going to a doctor they are to keep your personal information confidential except when they have knowledge that includes harm. Harm to someone else or self-harm.

Explaining fidelity to your child can also be an opportunity to talk about personal agreements and making choices about how to behave personally. Like keeping promises and living by your own standards even though others may let you down.

2.     It’s an opportunity to let your child know that your own personal agreement, to yourself as a parent, is to protect them. Without going into details about the dark side of life you can let your child know that there are people who cannot be trusted to protect children and that some people aren’t nice even though they may appear to be. Let your child know they can come to you about anything, anytime even if someone tells them that they will harm you, their parent or a sibling, especially when it’s an adult or older person.

3.     Fidelity can also be explained when talking about people who have a purpose to change things for the better in this world. Let your child know we all go through life and discover things that can be better and sometimes some people commit themselves to improving things in the world so that the world is a better, safer place for others. There are many examples that can be given such as The Daniel Morcombe Foundation, Kiva or Animal Welfare Charities.

Let your child know that some children come up with great ideas – check out Campbell Remess or William Kamkwamba.

Fidelity is an agreement that’s like a personal promise of how to behave whether you’re on your own or with others. That’s the easiest way I can think of how to explain fidelity to a child but you might come up with something different.

Teaching your child about fidelity gives you an opportunity to let them know you’re always there for them, prepare them for any difficult situations that may arise, hoping that they never will, but unfortunately they sometimes do.

If you would like to teach your child more values, please feel free to join my private FB group, ‘Raising Kids With Integrity’, where I share a character trait each week that I encourage you to share with your child so that it helps them gain a better awareness of their thoughts, feelings and goals.

I also share how to have a healthy conversation with your child to build these character traits in them with ease.

Join here.