Tag Archives: character development

Seeing Red

Yesterday I saw red… in more ways than one. In honor of Read Across America Day, March 2, the birthday of the beloved children’s book author Dr. Seuss, my kindergartner’s school encouraged all students to dress in red and white. My daughter attends a Catholic school that requires students dress in uniform, so having a “free day” to wear red and white garb is a big deal for the kids. The night before the big Dr. Seuss birthday celebration (which included cooking green eggs and ham in the classroom) my daughter and I went through her closet to find a … Continue reading →

Modeling Generosity

Generosity is not just about charity and giving money–we can be generous with our time, our love, our positive attitudes and energy and we can even tie generosity in with forgiveness and having a magnanimous approach to how we deal with other people. As parents, we can model generosity in various aspects of our lives and share with our children an unselfish, humanitarian and broad-minded approach to life. I know there are many of you who would not think of generosity and broad-mindedness as being cousins. If you look up the word “generous” in the dictionary, however, you get some … Continue reading →

Opportunities for Skill Development

As parents, most of us know the basics–we know that we teach our children to read and dress themselves, we may even know that we need to work with them on things like social development, teaching them how to throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball, or even help them learn how to clean and organize their rooms. There are so many other “life skills,” however, that parents can have a hand in teaching their children. We just have to be aware and look for those natural opportunities to help our children develop important life skills. Who knew that … Continue reading →

Are You Passing on Negativity and Criticism?

We want our children to take on our values and we might even be secretly hoping that they might inherit some of our “better points”–but children also have a way of showing us the less savory sides of ourselves. We can pass on all sorts of things–values, personality traits, and belief systems without really intending too. If we tend to be critical and negative about people and things that happen–we could be ensuring that our children will also be negative and critical. It can take some hard self-evaluation to identify if we are being openly critical and negative. Do you … Continue reading →

Values Shouldn’t Be a Secret

You may feel pretty secure in knowing what you value and what you are trying to pass on to your child—but does your child know? Often, we just assume that our children will absorb our values and learn to see the world the way we want them too. Of course, our children do develop into people of their own with their own minds and values, but how will they know what WE value, unless we share that with them? Recently, I reacted to something one my children said by saying, “We’re not that sort of a family!” and she answered … Continue reading →

Can You Help Your Child Get a Conscience?

There have been times over the years when I’ve been downright worried about whether one of my children would ever develop a conscience about his or her behavior. It’s happened with all of my three children at one time or another and I can assure you that while we still have a few bumps, overall, they do have a conscience about their behavior and how they interact with others. BUT, it hasn’t been a linear path and there have been days when I was mighty worried… Maybe there are some children who are born with a well-developed conscience, but it … Continue reading →