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.

Difficult Conversations: Let's Be Honest and Direct

Things are so much less complicated and simpler if you are honest in your relationships. Don't wimp out by avoiding difficult but potentially healing conversations. By going direct, you talk with the right person who can potentially do something different in response to your concern. By being indirect and talking with a third party, you triangulate and make any relationship problem more difficult to solve.

In my counseling practice, I often see relationships get damaged when people break trust by not being brave enough to be honest and direct. All grown ups need to develop their courage enough to have difficult conversations that need to happen. While going direct can seem intimidating or scary, it usually works out with a better ending. Being direct, honest, and transparent with those you love makes you respect yourself more, and ultimately shows more care for the other person. It gives them a chance to do things differently with you and perhaps open up with more of their true feelings.

The poet Mark Nepo writes that when we aren't honest it is as if we put on gloves that separate us from the people and events in our life. There is something unnatural coming between us.

When is honesty and directness needed?

• When we are unhappy in a relationship, or feel our most important needs aren't being met.

• When we are hurt by someone's behavior who matters to us.

• When we feel we are being taken for granted.

• When we need to set a limits.

• When we need to do something different.

• When we feel disrespected or misunderstood.

By being honest, we allow the other person to help in making things better, more fun or upgraded between us. It is a shared responsibility to make a relationship vital, engaging and supportive. While it might be scary to be honest, it gives the other person the respect they deserve, a chance to improve things rather than be blind-sided, or just notice that you fade away. Relationships are dynamic and always changing and without healing conversations, the relationship can't grow.

We need to encourage our children to be brave, direct, and honest as well. Whenever possible, help  empower your child to role-play with you, and handle situations directly at school, with family or with friends as it is age appropriate. If you do it for them, they don't get to build their confidence in relationships.

Having the courage to go direct to the person that you have a problem with makes you grow stronger and more confident. As psychologist and writer Barbara De Angelis wrote, "Living with integrity means: not settling for less than what you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values."

In your relationships, whenever possible, go direct and lead with honesty and your true feelings. Being able to master the ability to have difficult conversations with your partner, your parent, your sibling, your close friend or your child is a key skill for building deep lasting relationships. Avoiding difficult conversations causes relationship atrophy and short circuits your emotional growth. Be brave.

What Do the Children Know?

Children may be the smallest people in the family, but they sure notice a great deal about what is going on in their families.  I am often amazed about the observations that children and teens can make in counseling with me about what's happening with the adults. So, what are some of the things they notice?

They notice if there is substance abuse going on. Children as young as 6 have told me that they worry about mom or dad's drinking. Teens are smart and are savvy enough to know if parents are using pot, prescription pain meds, or something more. They get scared when parents are driving them while intoxicated or high on substances. The worrying about parents' alcohol and drug use can make them depressed, anxious, have difficulty studying or enjoying their time with friends. What kids know about substance abuse in their families can make them feel scared, different, or isolated. These worries about substance-abusing parents can take a child or teen off track developmentally from what they should be focusing on.

Children and teens know many things about how the relationship is between their parents. They notice how you treat each other, and if you are affectionate, kind and relational with each other or not. They notice if you spend the evening together or ignore each other. They notice if you like each other, and have date nights.  Children notice whether you treat each other with respect, or you badmouth each other.You actually give your children a template or script for their future relationship or marriage, whether positive or negative.

Children notice all the little nuances of your parenting style. They know if you have an anger problem, or you don't follow through, or if you can be manipulated. They crave fairness and  reasonable limits and rules that are consistently enforced. Be careful not to play favorites if you have more than one child, because children can tell if you favor the child that looks like you, or has your same birth order, or your gender. It's best to make each child your favorite. Be honest about what you are feeling----if you are mad, sad, hurt, tired, or overwhelmed. Your kids can read your non-verbal cues anyway, so don't bother. You can role model being honest about your emotions, and coping with negative emotions in a healthy way.

Children also take notice on how you deal with money. I've seen a number of children who worry about their parent's finances. If your spending is out of control, or you buy things when you are feeling down, be aware that the children are watching.

The kids are also watching how we eat, manage our weight, and our fitness. Our example is more powerful than anything you can say.

Are you a faithful spouse or are you looking for affairs? Are you able to resolve conflict in a mature way, or do you scream and tantrum? Are you responsible with your choices, or selfish? Do you hold on to resentment and grudges, or are you able to forgive others and apologize when you are wrong? In these areas, and in many others, your life is your lesson for your children, and school is always in session.

As I continue to learn from my patients who are children, teens, and families, being someone's parent is a huge job that should remind all of us to keep working on our own growth and maturing. The children are definitely watching. All children and teens deserve parents who are stable, can be counted on, kind, loving, and interested in what the children are doing. Being an adult who your children can respect is a wonderful goal that can keep us in touch with becoming our best self.

Setting Your Intentions for 2013

We’re beginning a brand new year, and it seems like a good time to set intentions for what you want to work towards as your goals this year. I have set a couple, and shared them with someone close to me. I'm encouraging the individuals I counsel and coach to do the same.

If we don't set goals and readjust our life course from time to time, or add in a new personal challenge, we can get stale. One year can roll into the next without the conscious intention to chart our course.  It's taking personal leadership in your own life.

Intentions are different than resolutions. New Year's resolutions often involve giving up something, or losing weight. Some people make the same resolutions every year, and experience a burnout factor with making or keeping them.

Setting intentions has more to do with looking at your life more broadly, with its different facets, and identifying a couple of areas that could be developed. While common New Year's resolutions could be to drink less alcohol, exercise more, eat better, or save money, intentions could expand the focus to consider improving your career situation, personal relationships, emotional health, travel goals, relocating or changing your living situation, or other areas of your life.

While setting goals to increase your physical fitness, or your finances, many people don't consider setting some goals for emotional growth over the next year. Don't overlook this very important part of your life. Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

·         Becoming more patient

·         Expressing my feelings more openly to my partner

·         Taking more responsibility for managing my moods, depression, or anxiety

·         Asking for the support I want

·         Empathizing more with others, realizing my perspective is not the only right one

·         Doing more self-care

·         Being a better, calmer parent

·         Not taking out my anger on others, learning to do something constructive with my anger

·         Honoring my commitments, keeping promises

·         Being on time

·         Being honest and truthful, even when it's hard to do so

·         Expressing my affection, using loving touch

·         Overreacting less

·         Managing my own stress, not taking it out on others

·         Listening from the heart

·         Putting away electronics  to better connect with loved ones

·         Playing more

·         Making time to teach my children/grandchildren life skills

·         Having more fun with my partner

·         Being a better husband/wife/partner

·         Begin dating

·         Make more friends

·         Not doing destructive or secretive behavior that is bad for me and/or dishonors those I love

·         Transcend self more/volunteer for a cause I care about

·         Develop my spiritual beliefs

·         Learn how to resolve conflicts respectfully, fight fairly

·         Express my appreciation to others

·         Apologizing when I am wrong, making repairs

·         Saying "I love you" often

·         Spending time with the small children and seniors in my life

·         Making family dinners at home, with candles and conversation, as often as possible to stay connected

·         Decide not to email or text about personal things, some things are only for person-to person conversation

·         Stop yelling, bullying, threatening to leave

·         Invite a family member to go to counseling with me to make things better

·         Court my partner, not take them for granted

·         Go on a weekly date night (no children)

·         Make your home a sanctuary: quiet, peaceful, organized, and a place to recharge

·         Be more supportive of other family members

·         Ask for feedback about how you are doing in your closest relationships

·         Initiate affection with your partner, don't make men make all the effort

·         Set healthy boundaries

·         Go direct to speak with the person you are upset with

·         Create some downtime

·         Create positive surprises

Hopefully this list will inspire you to set an emotional health or relationship intentions of your own for 2013.

Pick a couple, and write down the steps of how you will work towards your goal. What support will you need to reach your goal? Who can you ask for ideas on what steps to take? For my clients, I am an accountability partner and we can follow up on their path to each goal, but you can pick an accountability partner in your life if you like. Having someone else know our goals and check in with us about our progress helps our intentions get traction.

You can also create a vision board on a piece of posterboard to keep your goals front and center all year. Put it at the front of your closet or where you get ready in the morning for your day. Create conscious awareness of your goals. Check in monthly to determine if you are making progress.

Have an emotionally healthy and relationally close 2013. Set your intention to grow a little!

Trusting

Trust is an important component in close relationships. We learn how to trust initially as infants and small children who learn to have confidence that mom, dad, or the primary caregiver will respond to our needs and be there as we need them. If we aren't fortunate enough to get this platform as we grow up, then we have to try to create it as we go with others.

When we become parents ourselves, we are giving our children a platform for trusting others. Are we calm, reasonable, warm, available, and supportive? It means a great deal to have a parent who can be counted on. Children need parents who are predictable, present, involved, and providing meals, love, and attention. When parents are unpredictable, absent, hostile and volatile, it blows apart the empathic envelope of trust that parents should have around their growing children. For our children to trust us, we must be trustworthy as parents.

As a teen or an adult, it takes courage to let your guard down and be vulnerable with significant others ---to trust a few people to be there for you, to support you, and not to betray that trust. Some people have difficulty trusting others because they know that they can't be trustworthy themselves.

Trust is built over time, like depositing coins in a bank, or marbles in a jar. Every repeated experience where your trust is maintained, and the loved one is a person of their word, helps to keep that bank account balance up or that jar filled. If trust is broken, it is a much harder thing to rebuild later. Sometimes trust can't be rebuilt at all.

How is trust built or maintained at a high level?

1.      Being honest with others.

2.      Having difficult conversations when they need to happen. For example, you might begin resenting the other person, or needing to do something different, or wanting to change or upgrade the communication and quality of relationship between you. Sharing what you are thinking may be difficult, but keeps the other person in the loop and honors the relationship between the two of you. It gives the other person the opportunity to grow. I often see people in counseling who wish their former partner gave them a heads up right away about problems, rather than storing them up until there was nothing beautiful left.

3.      Be aware of the danger of side conversations. Talking with an objective person, like a trained therapist, can very helpful in getting clarity about what you are wanting, and how to best approach the other person. You can trust that the therapist has no hidden agenda. You can get insight as to how to change your own dance steps in any relationship so that you are operating from your best self. Side conversations with friends, extended family, etc. about an important relationship are potentially problematic, build outside alliances, and dishonor the other person.

Teens, in particular, tell me they shut down when they share something personal with a parent, and the parent shares that sacred trust with others.

4.      Be impeccable with your word. Keep your promises. Doing this also develops your own character and integrity.

5.      Ask for what you want. Be direct. Be brave. There are no bonus points for passivity or silent suffering.

6.      Don't keep destructive secrets. These are secrets that you know would hurt or damage the trust between you if the other person knew.

7.      Avoid passive aggressive behavior. If you are upset, hurt, or angry, own up to it with your loved one.

I like to think of it this way: in order to establish the feeling of safety with another person, you must be able to trust them. To build feelings of intimacy, you have to feel safe. These are the building blocks of close and caring relationships, whether between partners, between parent and child, or close friends. Safety, trust, openness, intimacy, and vulnerability are best when they travel as a team. A relationship can only be as strong and as deep as your commitment to these hallmarks of conscious relationships, and the similar commitment of the other person you are in relationship with.

So there are two parts to trust: being a trustworthy person yourself, and choosing intimate others who are deserving of your trust, and can give you that gift in return.

Strong Enough To Be Vulnerable

Writer Louise Hay, the godmother of affirmations, wrote this one about vulnerability that I love:

"It is healing for me to show emotions. It is safe for me to be vulnerable."

One of the most beautiful things about people to me is when they have been through loss or difficulty, but it has not broken them. Life's challenges can break you open instead. It's been said that when your heart breaks, that's where the light can get in. I admire tremendously when people cultivate both their strength and vulnerability. It's an unstoppable combination of traits which will serve as a standard for others.

It takes a strong person to be honest about who you truly are, and what you are needing in your closest relationships. Many people do intimacy dances where they hide parts of themselves, and are fearful to really be known by the intimate other, or let the other person see your fears, hurts from childhood wounds, or your biggest hopes and dreams for your life and for the relationship.

I find people can't act forever. In your closest relationships, one will begin to resent and detach from the other person if you aren't brave about talking through your needs, your hopes, and your hurts, and listening from the heart to your partner's side on each of these concerns.

In relationships, we are always in motion, either getting closer, or drifting further away. It takes a brave and vulnerable individual to talk with your partner honestly about what is working well, and where you would like to do things differently with each other. Many people are starving emotionally in their relationship, and you can begin to correct the trajectory by talking about what you need and want, not in anger, but with love and vulnerability.

Being strong with your children may mean being a responsible parent who provides structure, consistency and predictability. (Think paying the bills, serving dinner at 6, helping them with homework, having household rules). Being vulnerable may mean being willing to apologize freely from the heart when you overreact or misstep. Sorry,but nobody's perfect, parents included. Being vulnerable might be hugging, tucking in, making plans to hang out together, or letting them know when you feel close to them, or what they mean to you. You can't imagine the number of adults I've seen in therapy over the last 20 years who never felt like they got the love, attention, tenderness, or approval from their parents that they needed. Good news! You can break the cycle and give your children that emotional tenderness they are needing. Start today by telling them, or writing them a personal letter about what they mean to you.

Remind yourself this week, by repeating Louise Hay's insightful affirmation to yourself ten times a day: "It is healing for me to show emotions. It is safe for me to be vulnerable today." Imagine not only an individual who cultivates strength and vulnerability, but also you and your partner, your family, your community, and all whose lives you touch. It's a wonderful, hopeful picture.

Making Repairs

When you buy a new home,everything seems perfect. If you live there a few years,however,inevitably it will occur to you that some changes and repairs are needed.It might be a leak in the plumbing,or fresh paint,or a desire to redo the backyard more to suit you. Relationships also need repairs and renovation.

How do we repair relationships?

When there are hurt feelings,tension, or distance between you and the other person,
you acknowledge it.You pick a good approach and time and have the difficult,emotionally brave conversation that is needed. You take responsibility for your part of the situation.You apologize for hurt you have caused. You ask the other person about what they are feeling and experiencing.Then you listen. You take any feedback to heart, and are non-defensive.

All relationships have arguments,misunderstandings,and conficts between each person's core needs.What matters is that in more satisfying relationships,people work through the issues and differences and seek to understand each other.When there is hurt or distance,healthy people make attempts to repair the relationship quickly,and healthy partners participate willingly in the repair. Relationship repair takes two.A healthy working through of conflict almost always makes each person feel more known and held in the relationship.

Psychology researcher John Gottman and his team at the University of Washington found that couples who begin difficult conversations with a good start,as opposed to a harsh set-up, are more likely to stay happily married.A harsh set-up includes blame and attack, and probably yelling. This is a sure-fire way to shut down communication with your child, partner,co-worker,or anyone else.Gottman's research suggests that in good relationships,people see the best in each other and accept repair attempts.

Why have difficult conversations at all? High-quality relationships require authenticity,genuineness,and honesty. They need both people to be all in.I love to see people develop their voice in therapy and become emotionally strong and courageous enough to say the truth about what they are experiencing in their relationships. Relationships cannot be great when the people in them don't feel safe enough to say the truth about what they need and want, and be open to the needs and wants of the other person.You don't need the other person to be just like you.They also don't have to be perfect.We just need to be able to acknowledge distance,conflict and hurt between ourselves and those we care about, and be able to talk about it and repair it in non-defensive and open ways.

When bones break in the human body and are set and healed properly,the bone actually can become stronger at that broken place than it was before.In close relationships, we want to acknowledge hurt and pain, and attempt to repair it with a desire to understand both ourself and the other person better.This is the stuff great lives and meaningful relationships are made of.See if you can make or accept a repair in one of your relationships this week,or be brave and start that difficult conversation that is needed.You're worth it.

Living With Integrity

The older I get, the more important I think it is to demonstrate your strong character and integrity in the way you live life every day. It has been said that character is how you act when you think noone is watching. Much is revealed about each of us in whether our word means something ,if we keep our promises, if we are honest with people, if we follow through, and how we treat others. For those of us those of us who have children, what we actually DO means so much more than what we SAY.

What does your word mean? Those close to you will trust you deeply and you will have unshakeable credibility if you are honest and trustworthy, even when it takes emotional bravery. If you lie to loved ones to avoid conflict, or because you feel you don't owe them honesty, because you are so special( narcissist alert!), you will lose credibility and trust. To grow stronger in your personal character, decide today to be forthcoming, honest, and direct in your relationships, and see how much more real and intimate your relationships become. Your partner and your children can feel dishonesty. Your loved ones will intuitively know the difference.

How do you treat people who are serving you? Much is revealed about your character and integrity by how you treat wait staff, retail clerks, and other drivers. I personally feel everyone should have at least one job growing up where you serve others and we will all be more sensitized to the value of treating others with dignity and respect. Remember, your children are imprinting on the way in which you treat others------strangers, your spouse, your parents----and building a template for what they will do later in life.

Do you keep your promises and commitments? It can be as simple as arriving on time and demonstrating respect for other people's time. Avoid the temptation to make a habit of calling from your cell phone to explain your delays, and believing that makes it okay. Living life with integrity means you keep your word and plan ahead to do so without excuses.

Living life with character and integrity means you don't only think of yourself and what's in it for you. Instead, you can transcend self, and look at a situation fom another persons' perspective. How might this situation look from my spouse's or my son's perspective? People with integrity aren't self-absorbed. They realize that real happiness comes from doing for others, not just grabbing all the goodies for yourself. I have been so impressed to see how loving my dad is to my mom these last several years as she faces a life-threatening illness. People with character, like my parents, don't cut and run when things are challenging. These are the situations in each of our lives that reveal what we are made of.

Each week we get a fresh slate, and can begin again in a new and healthier way. What stuff are you made of?