Parents and families play a key role in character development.

Parents who create positive home learning environments know that communicating about academics and homework is important.  They also understand that family values get passed from one generation to the next.  But how we instill values and character strengths in kids often seems mysterious.  Is it through discipline, living our own values, treating kids with respect, or a combination of the many ways we interact with our children?

Maria Rose Reifler, a fifth grade teacher in East Los Angeles, recently asked, “Where are the parents?” And for good reason.  Children are losing hope, giving up on life, and feeling insecure about themselves at alarmingly young ages.

Parents can help reverse this trend by building character strengths in children. In Part I of this series, we defined character strengths and introduced the VIA Survey of Character. This article describes ways to talk about and reinforce character strengths from preschool through adolescence.

Communicate Meaningful Praise

I often hear parents of young children say “Good job!” when a child does something noteworthy. But do children understand the message behind this general statement?

As children get older, they get more and more generalized praise. Perhaps they receive a trophy for being on the winning team. They might receive congratulatory remarks on good grades or for participating in a performance or special event.  In fact, many children get praised for everything, in the mistaken belief it will increase their self-esteem.

Praise becomes meaningless to kids unless they learn from it.  Just as they learn from constructive feedback on academics and homework, they learn from well-communicated praise.

Parents have a great opportunity to help kids identify and build on their character strengths by changing the way they give praise.  I’m not suggested that all generalized comments be eliminated. Rather, whenever more specific praise can be given, the more valuable it is for a child.  Here are some suggestions.

• Familiarize yourself with the character strengths listed at the VIA Institute on Character.
• When your children act in ways that exemplify one of these strengths, praise them for it. Be specific.  Praise their enthusiasm, honesty, kindness, teamwork, fairness, humility, etc.
• By making your praise more specific, you help kids learn that character strengths matter. And you communicate appreciation for who they are, not just for what they do.

Help Children Recognize Character Strengths in Others

As children learn to become aware of their own character strengths, they also learn to identify character strengths in others.  And when they do, they eventually develop role models who inspire them.  One way to teach kids to recognize strengths in others is through books and movies, where they are well exemplified.

Whether geared for very young children or adolescents, there is rich opportunity to talk about character strengths as parents and children reflect on movies and books together.  Even cartoon characters exemplify character strengths!

Dr. Ryan Niemiec is a psychologist, movie critic, and author of Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Films to Build Virtues and Character Strengths. In his book, he lists a myriad of movies for older children that focus on different character strengths and virtues. Some of his favorites, organized by the same categories as the VIA Institute’s are:

Wisdom

Life Is Beautiful (Creativity)
Mongolian Ping-Pong (Curiosity)
The Terminal (Judgment/Open-Mindedness)
Akeelah and the Bee (Love of Learning)
Life as a House (Perspective)

Courage

Hotel Rwanda (Bravery)
Dead Poets Society (Integrity)
The Pursuit of Happyness (Perseverance)
Cool Hand Luke (Zest)

Humanity

Away from Her (Love)
Amelie (Kindness)
Don’t Come Knocking (Social Intelligence)

Justice

Paperclips (Citizenship/Teamwork)
12 Angry Men (Fairness)
Gandhi (Leadership)

Temperance

The Straight Story (Forgiveness)
10 Questions for the Dalai Lama (Humility/Modesty)
Driving Miss Daisy (Prudence)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Self-Regulation)

Transcendence

American Beauty (Appreciation of Beauty)
It’s a Wonderful Life (Gratitude)
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (Hope/Optimism)
Zorba the Greek (Humor)
The Wizard of Oz (Spirituality/Meaning)

Engage in Family Conversations that Matter

There are lots of fun and interesting discussions that families can have around character strengths.  It doesn’t matter if they are the same as the ones outlined in the VIA model.  You and your children might adopt different words and phrases that describe them.  The important point is to engage in conversations that help kids understand character strengths and recognize them in others.  Questions that help facilitate these discussions after reading books or watching movies might include:

• What strengths and virtues did characters exhibit?
• What challenges and obstacles did characters have to overcome? How did their character strengths help them?
• What characters are most like you?  Or least like you?

The next article in this series shows how one teacher is building a classroom environment based on character strengths. And the last article examines how character strengths can be instilled by community leaders.

Related Articles

• Developing Character Strengths: A Vital Goal of Education- Part 1
• Developing Character Strengths: A Vital Goal of Education- Part 3
• Developing Character Strengths: A Vital Goal of Education- Part 4
  

Photo Credits babasteve; Geomangio

Tags: character strengths, parenting, positive youth development, praise

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Character, Citizenship, Compassion, Education & Learning, Elementary School, For Parents, High School, Internal Strengths, Middle School, Positive Values, Positive Youth Development, Pre-School, Research to Practice, Spotlight on Age Groups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.