It does not give us the right to ignore violations of our deepest moral principles. It does allow us to reject the offense without rejecting the offender. In general, tolerance is a way of thinking, feeling, and acting that gives us peace in our individuality, respect for those unlike us, the wisdom to discern humane values, and the courage to act upon them. To teach children tolerance, it s not enough to know what tolerance is. Parents must live it.
Children learn by watching their parents.
The journey towards tolerance begins when we recognize and try to heal the intolerance in ourselves. Change begins when we look at ourselves in the mirror and tell the truth about what we see. If our goal is to guide our children towards lives of tolerance, we must first recognize the intolerance that shapes our own lives. Tolerance is the ability to let people be who they are. It sounds simple, but we expect the world to operate as we want it to, people to act as we want them to act, and ourselves to become the people we imagine we are.