The New York Times Motherlode recently carried a post titled What Children Really Need for ‘Back to School.’ It a sentence, what children really need is character, because their character shapes how they will manage all of the challenges they face: at home, in the classroom, and in their vocations. Character is the primary factor that determines the joy or pain that they will bring to parents, teachers, colleagues and neighbors.
Children (and adults) build character by forming habits. Bad habits form bad character. Good habits form good character. Arthur Levine and Diane Dean highlight the bad habits of parents bailing out their children, overpraising them, and failing to teach them responsibility. Bad habits bear bad fruit in parents and children alike.
The beginning of a school year is a great time to ask hard questions:
- What are my bad habits that are forming bad character in myself and my children?
- What are the habits that we need to focus on and form in the next week, month, and year?
- What are the virtues that I most want to form in my children? What family routines and habit can help them to form those virtues?