How to Begin Building Virtuous Character in Children
A Starter Guide for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers
Parents and caregivers strive to foster healthy living through the practice of academic and physical skillsets within their children. But are we meeting the social-emotional needs of children which will help them manage their daily life? How do we do that? Start with nurturing the virtues that foster joy and goodwill. The practice of forgiveness, gratitude, and generosity is instrumental in supporting children in managing the challenges of everyday life.
Character strength development helps children lead healthy, positive, and productive lives well into adulthood. If virtuous character can be learned then it can most definitely be taught. Professor of Ethics and Education David Carr describes virtuous character as “good qualities of character” which can be gained over time (Carr). To develop and foster these good qualities, kids need to be provided with all the necessary knowledge, tools, examples, and practice. For example, if kids are given the opportunity to exercise their empathy muscle when they are young, there is a good chance they will tend to display empathetic behaviors as they grow older! This article serves as an introduction on how to begin thinking about building virtuous character in children while providing general methods to do so.
1. Reflect on your own character. Model virtuous character.
To begin reflecting on your own character, ask yourself these questions: Do I practice the virtues that I want my children to learn? Every day, do I hold myself to a moral standard? Do I lead by example? If you are not familiar with your own moral identity, it is difficult to assist children in developing their own. Begin thinking about which virtues are most important to you and which you openly practice most often. Upon self-reflection, if you realize your own character requires development, prioritize working on yourself so you can best support others. For example, if you tend to focus more on the problems around you rather than the positive, you may realize you gravitate towards a negative outlook. To work towards adopting a more positive outlook, try practicing gratitude. Think about 3 good things that happened to you each day. You can model this healthy habit by doing this activity with your family at dinner. Modeling virtuous behavior is proven to be highly effective in developing virtuous character within young children.
2. Provide children the space to develop.
Building virtuous character cannot be forced. Rather, character can be fostered through a series of activities, conversations, and experiences. Be mindful that to build individual character, it’s important that children are provided with choices and stories which they can use to form their own judgments rather than being told what is right and what is wrong. To develop morals within children, they must be given the room and opportunity to do so.
3. Experiential learning as a path to character development.
Experiential learning is becoming more recognized in the academic world as a beneficial method for teaching children. However, this method does not have to only be utilized in academics. Organizations such as Camp Kindness Countshave found great success in strengthening children’s character development using experiential learning in the context of virtuous character building. Children perform activities that often include making observations, interaction, discussion, following with self-reflection. Experiential learning in the context of character development centers around kids being given the opportunity to practice building their character through experiences. For example, kids can practice empathy and forgiveness while playing games or collaborating on a project. Generosity can also be practiced by facilitating kids to share something they consider special with someone else.
4. Reflection.
What leads to the learning and growth that experiential learning often generates is the reflection that follows the activities. Camp Kindness Counts has found that after performing activities that seek to practice a specific virtue, reflection creates a lasting impression of the positive benefits of practicing that virtue. This lasting impression allows children to have a positive association with that virtue which causes them to practice it more often. With experimental learning, children not only learn a new virtue but also become empowered as they begin experiencing how they can teach themselves through experiences and reflection. Reflection allows for children to deepen their thinking about how they want to live and specifically how they want to treat themselves and others.
5. On-going opportunities to practice.
The way we develop academic, social, and physical skills have something in common with the way we develop virtues. Practice. To improve your skills in a sport such as swimming or basketball practice is key. It would be very difficult to learn how to swim or get better at swimming if we simply read and talked about how to swim. To strengthen our ability to forgive, love, and express gratitude, children need to have ongoing opportunities to practice too! Creating opportunities for children to build awareness of and express virtues will help them in their daily life as they grow into adults. These strengths and the positive feelings associated with them will be remembered and we feel it could even become a habit! Wouldn’t it be great to make kindness a habit?
6. Positive reinforcement.
As a parent, teacher, or individual who interacts with children, positive reinforcement is key. Celebrating the good actions children perform demonstrate to them the value of that action. Furthermore, it helps children feel noticed and appreciated, which encourages them to continue these types of actions.
Written By: Meghan Weber | Camp Kindness Counts Volunteer
Sources
Carr, David. “Developing Moral Character and Virtue.” Singteach, 2017, singteach.nie.edu.sg/issue61-people02/.