Teaching Children Virtues

Parents of school-aged children get busy, and sometimes focus on their children's negative behaviors. It's important to know that as a parent, you have the power to create teachable moments to introduce your children to developing positive character traits that will serve them well all their lives. Parents don't have to take a passive role, feeling frustrated with the values in movies, society and media that impact their children and teens. Instead, you and your partner can be the choreographers in teaching your children to be virtuous.

Grandparents, aunts and uncles can also make valuable contributions by teaching positive character traits, and discussing them with the young people whose lives you touch.

To get started, you will need to make a list of the character virtues that you admire in people. Here are some to consider, but you can develop a list of your own personal favorites:

Humility/Modesty

Gentleness

Self-control

Patience

Kindness 

Compassion

Self-discipline

Productiveness

Tenacity/ Perseverance

Courage

Integrity

Honesty

Self-care

Independence

Creativity

Resourcefulness

Open-mindedness

Love of learning

Justice

Personal leadership

Forgiveness

Gratitude

Playfulness

Teamwork

Spirituality

Cultivating joy/happiness

Appreciation of beauty

Social responsibility/service

Humanity (caring for others)

You might begin by choosing which trait you want to focus on with the young person/people in your life for the next month. I generally encourage parents to begin with the virtue you believe your children are most needing for their development. For example, if your children argue with each other and annoy each other, you may want to begin with focusing on teamwork.

If you hold weekly family meetings, as I encourage all the families I work with in family counseling to do, the meeting is a great time to introduce this month's virtue. You can have one of the children make a poster to hang up in the kitchen about that value, and have each family member add examples that they see at the next family meeting.

Make a plan for how you can teach the value of each trait. You can discuss it, help the child make an art project/collage demonstrating it, do some volunteer work together to experience it, or go on an outing together to explore it. You can look for examples of a particular character trait in the news or within the people you each know and talk about it. Asking children to watch for an example that they see among their friends of a particular virtue is fun and engages them. If you are teaching about service, perhaps you can do some volunteer work as a family as well as have each family member do random acts of kindness for others and compare notes.

Have some fun and be creative. I can remember being a child and learning about choosing a positive attitude by having a hall table with an empty drawer that we pulled a smile from each day when we left the house. Small children love to use their imaginations to learn things.

Grandparents can share stories about family members and others who demonstrated living the virtue you wish to help develop.

Parents, as well as family therapists, too often focus on negative behaviors. Helping actively develop character virtues and strengths is a healthy way to help create a next generation who are wise, transcend self, humane towards others, self-motivated and wonderful to be in relationship with. I can't think of a better legacy to leave behind us.

Giving Up Complaining: A Challenge

I ran across a fun exercise this week that challenges you to own your own behavior and be a constructive problem solver, not a whiner. Here's how it goes: for a 24 hour period this week, challenge yourself to not verbalize any complaints. Give it up entirely!

The observations you make about yourself may be very useful to you. Do you find yourself judging others? It's almost always best to stay away from judging others if you can. Are you complaining about something that can be changed or you have the power to make different? If so, make a shift that will stop the need for complaining.

I have tried this little homework assignment with several families, and we have really learned some valuable lessons together from it. Sometimes complaining becomes a bad habit. One family member whining can create an atmosphere where others join in, in a bad way.

In our families and in our relationships, we all get deaf to whining and complaining that is relentless. It's important to change what you need to, accept what you can't change, and move forward. Whining and complaining is emotionally exhausting--both for the person doing it, and everyone else who has to put up with it.

After that 24 hour complaint detox, then the next step is to make a list of everything you are grateful for. Keep the list where you can see it daily, perhaps where you get dressed in the morning. Next, hand write a letter to your partner (or the closest relationship you have) and tell them why you are grateful to have them in your life. I like the idea of mailing the letter to them with a stamp through the old-fashioned USPS, even if you live with them, for maximum impact.

Try this little exercise this week to shift your attitude. After all, attitude is everything in life, so pick a good one. The more you can become a powerful positive presence for yourself and others, the more you will enjoy your day to day life and savor the petite happinesses in life. The simple things of everyday life are where much of the joy is; don't let complaining kill the joy that is possible.

Thanksgiving Blessings: Appreciating What You Have

As the calendar turns to Thanksgiving this week, it seems a good time to reflect on the blessings, people, and things we have in our lives, as well as being grateful for the bad stuff we don't have. Thornton Wilder wrote "We are most alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." Too often, I see people take the special people in their lives for granted, not realizing the true value of those closest to them.

In his book,"How to Want What You Have: Discovering the Magic and Grandeur of Ordinary Existence" (Holt and Company,1995), therapist Timothy Miller does a brillant job of illuminating the grass is greener sort of longing that many people have, assuming that some other path taken in life would be more satisfying. Many people make the mistake of thinking, "If I just had this, life would be perfect."

Wanting what you have, and seeing the goodness in it is the surest way to create satisfaction, contentment, and joy. As Miller suggests, daily practice of compassion, attention, and gratitude is the surest way to be content.We all will do better at this some days than others, and that's okay. Contentment and happiness are not steady states of being. It is in cultivating the daily habits of compassion, attention, and gratitude that we become better at creating a receptiveness for appreciating the little joys of daily life.

It is a mistake to tell ourselves that we will be happy when....(we finish college, get married, get our dream job, have a certain amount of money, have children, get the house we want, get divorced, or move someplace else, etc.). It's elusive. Wherever you go, there you are, so we need to be able to enjoy now as an incredible gift, making the most of each day and each interaction. We want to keep a keen awareness of how good it is to love others, to be loved, to feel strong and healthy, to enjoy sunsets and nature, to appreciate art and music, and all the other little things that make life worth living. Loving life is in the details of our ordinary days.

Miller points out, wisely, that the desire for more often does harm. It does indeed. I have worked with a number of individuals in counseling over the years who really regreted losing something precious, like a relationship, because they didn't realize how valuable it was. Sometimes people put what is most important in their lives at risk in order to have something they falsely believe is more or different. Note how many celebrities are successful in their careers, but unsuccessful as partners or parents.

Focusing on identifying non-compassionate thoughts, about yourself and others, and replacing them with compassionate ones is a good start in cultivating more contentment. Next, act compassionately. Move away from the judgement of others. It is not your job, and it will not bring you inner peace. Be as attentive as possible to others, and be observant of yourself. Finally, practice living in reverence and gratitude. Express your gratitude to others.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to refocus ourselves on what is most important. Don't miss an opportunity to tell someone close to you this week what you love or appreciate about them. Contentment has a great deal to do with being here now, and recognizing goodness, beauty, support, and love. If you want to truly prepare your heart for Thanksgiving, and feel really blessed, consider all the gifts that you have in your life that money cannot buy. I have a number of people in my life that I feel blessed to be close to, and then there are those two crazy golden retrievers who are pretty wonderful, too.