Teaching Values Through Oblivion: Activities for Parents and Children

For Parents: Teaching Values Through Oblivion

Children do not learn ethics only by hearing what is right and wrong.

They also learn through questions, stories, play, mistakes, consequences, and conversations with adults they trust.

The ideas behind Oblivion can be transformed into simple exercises that help children explore empathy, responsibility, justice, emotional regulation, curiosity, and moral reasoning.

The objective is not to provide children with complicated theology.

It is to help them ask better questions.

Activity 1 — The Two Sides of an Emotion

Goal

Teach children that emotions are not automatically good or bad.

Choose an emotion such as:

  • anger;
  • fear;
  • sadness;
  • pride;
  • jealousy.

Ask:

“When can this feeling cause harm?”

Then ask:

“Can this feeling ever help us?”

For example:

Anger can cause shouting or aggression.

But anger can also tell us that something feels unfair.

Finish by asking:

“What can we do when we feel this emotion so that it helps rather than hurts?”

Value Developed

Emotional regulation and self-awareness.

Activity 2 — The Missing Information Game

Goal

Teach children not to judge people too quickly.

Create a simple situation:

“A girl did not share her lunch with another student.”

Ask the child whether the girl behaved badly.

Then slowly reveal more information.

Perhaps she had forgotten her lunch.

Perhaps the food belonged to another student.

Perhaps she had a medical restriction.

Discuss how each new piece of information changes the interpretation.

Oblivion Connection

Human beings often judge situations without knowing the whole story.

Value Developed

Empathy and intellectual humility.

Activity 3 — Justice or Revenge?

Present a fictional conflict between two characters.

One child breaks another child’s toy deliberately.

Ask:

What should happen next?

Explore different possibilities:

punishment, apology, replacement, forgiveness, consequences, or revenge.

Then discuss the difference between:

wanting someone to suffer

and

wanting someone to repair the harm they caused.

Value Developed

Justice, accountability, and forgiveness.

Activity 4 — The Invisible Spectrum

Use a rainbow, flashlight, or picture of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Explain that our eyes cannot see every type of light that exists.

Then ask:

“Could there also be things about people or situations that we cannot immediately see?”

Examples include fear, sadness, intentions, memories, or worries.

Value Developed

Curiosity and empathy.

Activity 5 — The Decision Tree

Choose a simple moral problem.

For example:

“You find a lost wallet.”

Draw different choices.

Keep it → What happens?

Ignore it → What happens?

Return it → What happens?

Add second- and third-level consequences.

The goal is to show children that decisions create chains of consequences.

Value Developed

Responsibility and foresight.

Activity 6 — Light and Shadow Journal

Once a week, ask the child to identify:

One Light: something kind, brave, generous, or helpful they did.

One Shadow: something difficult they felt or experienced.

Then ask:

“What did your Shadow teach you?”

The activity should never be used to shame children.

The purpose is reflection.

Value Developed

Self-awareness and personal growth.

Activity 7 — The Family Virtue and Blessing Challenge

Choose one virtue and one difficult emotion each week.

Example:

Virtue: patience
Difficult emotion: anger

Throughout the week, family members look for situations where patience can help control anger.

At the end of the week, discuss what everyone learned.

Value Developed

Ethical integration.