Today, let’s look at what parents can do to help their children develop good character.

How do people develop character? Well, first and most important, by what they are taught and what they see as they grow up. Very simply, placing examples of virtue in front of young people as early as as possible, and as often as possible, forms character.

You don’t build character in your children by trying to control them or telling them what to do. You build it by consistently doing the right thing yourself and not making a big fuss about it. You build it by telling and reading your children stories that reinforce goodness from the time they are very young.

What’s the right thing? Well, honesty, accountability, fairness, tolerance, civility, and kindness, for starters.

Talk to them about hypocrisy, self-deception, cruelty, and selfishness when you see it around you, and avoid delivering a lecture that will turn them off. Just make it clear that there are better ways, and that you expect them to live up to your picture of them as people of fine character.

And you know what? Chances are very good that they will.

Have a wonderful day,
Safe Lockdowns, LLC