Building Your Child's Character (continued)

Character feedback:  Most parents, us included, find it natural to give negative character feedback to our children. If a child is easily angered and reactive, we forget that she only sometimes is angry and mean, and so we tend to say things like, "Why do you have to be so mean?"

Unfortunately, when we repeatedly focus on the negative with our children, they may begin believing us. So, the girl who acts angry begins to define herself as "an angry girl." You can see how important it is to notice when your children behave kindly and to give them a positive character building statement such as, "You're the kind of girl who knows how to be nice to her friends."

Dishonesty: Children are often tempted to lie about their misbehavior. This isn't an easy problem, but one strategy that works is to separate the misbehavior from the truth or lie. In other words, when children are honest about the rules they've broken, they can receive "truth bonuses." Or, if they lie about breaking a rule, then they suffer two separate consequences, one for the misbehavior and one for the lie.

Good works: Character development is enhanced by opportunities to do good in the world. Volunteering to help at food banks, helping coach younger children, giving money to a family-chosen charity - all these efforts instill important habits in your children. But don't force them to help at the soup kitchen alone. Join them, and have a talk afterwards. Of course it's hard to find time for such things, hard to interact with people who seem different and tempting to feel judgmental toward people who need help, but the payoffs can be enormous.

Character development begins at home and continues at school. As a parent, consider how you can bring some of your best character-building ideas to your child's school. You can have a voice in having the school choose character-building reading materials, activities and speakers. Talk to your child's school counselor, teachers, coaches or principal about how you can contribute to the challenge of character development in all young people.

Rita and John Sommers-Flanagan are both counselor educators at the University of Montana. Their latest book is "Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice" (John Wiley & Sons, 2004).