Character Building And Values

"Character Building And Values" 

"Teaching Character Building And Values In The Home" 

When teaching our children about character building and values, it's our actions that deliver the clearest messages. Children discover parents'/guardians' values by observing how the parents/guardians spend their most precious resources - time and money. Are the hours in your day filled with work, TV, shopping and home maintenance? Because these activities require so much time and energy, they come across to children as "what our family values most". Make sure that how you spend your time is balanced with what you hold dear. 

If it's important to you that your children read, made sure they see you with reading material in your hands more often than the remote control. 

If you want your children to be physically fit, get out and get moving yourself and invite them to come along.

 If organized religion is important, attend worship services regularly and insist they do too. 

If you place a high value on education, be a lifelong learner yourself. 

Do you want your kids to respect the environment,  if so be a faithful to recycling.  

Do you want them to be a Law abiding citizen; obey the speed limit.

Don't be afraid to set rules that reflect your values as well.

Children take cues from how you spend your money. After the basics, where does your money go? The way you spend your dollars should reflect your values. Each purchase sends a message.

Every parent/guardian stresses some character traits more than others. One parent might teach kindness above bravery, independence over politeness. It's tricky. We want our children to be assertive but not aggressive. We emphasize politeness but don't want our kids to be used as doormats.

When you see a child display a trait you admire, point it out. If you walk into your kitchen and find your older son placing a bandage on his brother's bloody knee, seize the opportunity to define compassion. “How compassionate you are helping your brother who's hurt".

Don't hesitate to underline your own virtuous actions with words: "I'm taking Mrs. Cunningham a casserole because she had surgery last week. This is a kind thing I'm doing for her".

And when you see your children display vices, take the same approach but in the negative. "I saw you steal a dollar from your sister's purse. We don't steal. Put the money back".

To help reinforce your values, create positive habits with preschool children, and then engage their intellect with information during the elementary years. Don't be shocked when your teenager rebels against your values. It's natural and usually only temporary.

Keep you’re parenting antenna alert for stories in the newspaper, on TV and in your everyday life that illustrate the virtues you admire of the vices you abhor. Don't go overboard lecturing. Your approach should be low-key yet intentional, insistent but subtle. It's a difficult balance. It takes practice, but you can do it. Without values to guide them, children flounder; they are left to soak up the values of pop culture. If you spend your valuable time and energy instilling values in your children, they will know that they are valued too.

Preschool friendships will give a child their first lesson in give-and-take, of equality and the rhythms of reciprocity - when to give in and when to take the lead. As they become aware of these important signals they learn how to relate to others.

Your child’s intellectual, emotional and social intelligence has grown by leaps and bounds. Now they can truly see things through another person’s eye and know actions have consequences.

The focus is to provide tools and life skills children need, so they are equipped to make the important decisions that face them when they enter society at a young age. The material introduces children to the concepts of accountability, perception of self, perception of others, actions and their consequences, critical thinking and decision making.

Teaching about behavior, conflict resolution and values bring teachers face to face with the societal issues of personal identification and culture. Because the subject matter lends itself to personal interpretation, it requires teachers to be objective, yet sensitive to students, parents, schools and communities.

Each child is an individual with needs for privacy. The child has ties to an autonomous family structure which is subjective in its view of behavior; conflict resolution; and values. In addition the students' school has its own customized policies and rules which are an extension of the needs and wishes of the child's parents/guardians and the community. These policies and rules represent another set of standards with which students are required to comply.

Through stories, songs, learning activities and games we can work together to teach your child to be kind, friendly, gentle, thoughtful, compassionate and respectful. You will reap a joyous bonus.  Not only will you raise a child with good manners, you will wind up with a child who has a good heart.

Teaching values is controversial. Teachers must know students, their parents and community expectations well before teaching about the values of; honesty, respect, responsibility, compassion, gentleness, self-discipline, perseverance, giving, helpfulness, courage, peace making, and thankfulness. Also included is the all-important virtue of friendship.

HONESTY:

Children learn to recognize HONESTY  in stories where someone “carries out his/her responsibility carefully and with integrity, never claiming credit for someone else’s work”. In addition, people are willing to acknowledge their own wrongdoing. Children see other children deciding that honesty is the best policy in books like Too Many Tamales (Gary Soto) and The Empty Pot (Demi). 

RESPECT:

To help children learn about RESPECT  (each person responding “sensitively to the ideas and needs of others without dismissing or degrading them”) try stories like Frederick (Leo Leonni) and  The Great  Kapok Tree (Lynne Cherry). These books and others show that “differences among people are celebrated” and “all members of the community are able to accept both praise and constructive suggestions from others. While affirming individual freedom, the rights of the group are also fully honored”.

RESPONSIBILITY:

In books like Sachiko Means Happiness (Kimiko Sakai) and Swimmy (Leo Lionni), the child has a sense of duty (RESPONSIBILITY) to willingly fulfill the tasks he/she has accepted or has been assigned. Work is conscientiously performed. “Members of the community feel comfortable asking for help and agree that they must be held accountable for their behavior”.

COMPASSION:

Children learn that people should be considerate and caring in Mean Soup (Betsy Everitt) and Jamaica Tag-Along (Juanita Havill).  In addition, they see that “everyone, from time to time, feels hurt, confused, angry, or sad”. Instead of ignoring such conditions they learn that “people reach out to one another”. In dealing with conflict, “people seek reconciliation and try to understand each other, even forgive”.

SELF-DISCIPLINE:

Everyone has limits that are mutually agreed upon and established personally. SELF-DISCIPLINE should be exercised in relationships with others, “especially in the way people speak to one another. SELF-DISCIPLINE also applies to the use of time . . . It reflects habits of good living”. Children’s books such as Apple Picking Time (Michelle Slawson) and Baby Rattlesnake (Te Ata) demonstrate the making of personal decisions and seeing the consequences of those decisions on others.

PERSEVERANCE:

Setting and accomplishing goals are important qualities for children. The goals can be individual, group or class goals. PERSEVERANCE  involves the diligence with which people use the “inner strength and determination to pursue well-defined goals. It does matter that a task be completed once it is begun, and to persevere not only teaches discipline, but brings rewards as well”. Read How Many Days to America (Eve Bunting) and Pancakes for Breakfast (Tomie de Paola) to help children define the value of sticking to a task until it is complete.

GIVING:

Young children will discover that “one of life’s greatest satisfactions comes from GIVING to others, and will recognize that talents should be shared, through services”. The Legend of the Bluebonnet (Tomie de Paola) tells of a young girl’s gift to her tribe. The Rainbow fish (Marcus Pfister) tells of fish giving shiny scales away. “Rather than waiting to be asked . . . children look for opportunities to respond positively to the needs of others, without expectation of reward”.

FRIENDSHIP:

Genuine friendships take time. Young children see FRIENDSHIP differently than adults. Friends are people who happen to be in the same place that they are in, at the same time. Young children don’t usually understand the deep and binding affects of friendship. True friendship “usually rises out of mutual interests and common aims. The demands of friendship-for frankness, for self-revelation, for takings friends’ criticisms as seriously as their expressions of admiration or praise, for stand-by-me loyalty, and for assistance to the point of self-sacrifice” are all part of friendship. Children can examine the qualities of friendship in Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams) and Jamaica and Brianna (Juanita Havill). 

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously.

This is how character is built...

Eleanor Roosevelt