Do you ever find yourself with the thought of making your kid mature enough to make them stand for what’s right? Well, nurturing a solid moral core that works as a guide will help them stand up for their beliefs and will dictate their actions towards the morally right things.
While it may be an obvious desire for most parents to develop a strong character in their kids, it gets more and more difficult as they grow up. It is easier and much more effective if character building is started at an early age. The skills and virtues essential can only be instilled in them effectively when they are toddlers.
However, the first thing that may come to your mind is where to start and how to do so. We understand you and hence, here we have curated a list of 7 such tips that can help you get going.
Know What You Stand For
Often parents convey mixed messages to their kids about certain values and virtues by twisting them accordingly to their own convenience. This isn’t a healthy practice and the kid is likely to reflect the confusion imposed by the parents. This may even show up as lack of confidence due to the confusion that the kid deals with.
On the other hand, parents who have clearly identified intentions and moral convictions are likely to raise kids of strong character build. The kids tend to reflect the confidence of the parent and thus, have the clear agency to stand for the right. Thus, start making a list of the qualities you want in your kid, narrow it down to top three and incorporate them into your personal moral code.
Let your kid identify these virtues in their day-to-day living and slowly adopt them as their own. Make sure to reward them when they do so.
Practice what you preach
Your family members may or may not always model the most desirable behaviour for your child. However, to still continue to do so and ensure that your child is learning, question yourself this – ” If my child had the only example of model behaviour through me, what did he/she learn today by observing me?”. Your honest answer will reveal the progress of yourself as well as your child.
Even though it might not seem evident always, kids pay attention to the slightest things from your everyday choices to your casual comments. Thus, ensure that you follow what you preach. This might demand some serious changes in your otherwise regular habits but this contributes towards a better future for the little one.
Frequently Discuss Your Beliefs
Expecting the young minds to understand everything is also not wise. Sometimes you need to sit with your kid, discuss your beliefs and explain to them how you stood by your beliefs when the situation demanded. This is known as direct moral teaching.
Do the same for characters from TV shows, books and the people around. Explain to them how morals are connected with their actions.
Even though it might not seem evident always, kids pay attention to the slightest things from your everyday choices to your casual comments. Thus, ensure that you follow what you preach. This might demand some serious changes in your otherwise regular habits but this contributes towards a better future for the little one.
Ask Questions To Measure Development
Questioning is one of fundamental tools of checking progress. No wonder why the concept of exams has persisted since eternity! To understand and accordingly improvise your child’s moral character building progress, ask wise questions that pertain to the same.
Critical questioning can evoke virtues that they didn’t know they’ve learned from the surface. Simple questions like, “is it the right thing to do?,” or “how would you feel if they did this to you,” etc. can do wonders.
Promote Empathetic Behaviour
It isn’t easy to teach empathy to another individual. However, since all individuals come with this innate emotion, do the right thing by encouraging them whenever they show empathy. Discouraging or not paying heed to a child’s naturally empathetic behaviour can make him/her neglect that feeling.
It is empathy that motivates kids to be humble, stand for themselves and for the ones in need and halt cruel behaviour. Two key ways to evoke empathy besides storytelling are roleplaying and asking the “how would you feel” question.
Promote Assertiveness And Not Compliance
If you desire to raise a child who stands up for himself/ herself, do not impose compliance on them. Be assertive but allow room for their opinions and let them take a stand for their correct beliefs once in a while.
If you practice compliance instead of being assertive and spoon feed everything to your child, the outcome might be upsetting.
Teach Assertiveness
Being too submissive is a bane, being too pushy can be dictating. Thus, teach your kid the necessary skill of assertiveness to deal best with the situations that he/ she might come across even when you’re not there.
It’s difficult to go against peer pressure sometimes, it is much more difficult to speak for oneself when situations aren’t in favour. Assertiveness is the key to deal with such unforeseen events.
The integral part of being assertive is to convey the right body posture, have the ability to say no when necessary and provide a crisp reason for doing so.
Repeating these minor actions everyday will instill the necessary character building skills in your children and help them emerge as individuals of strong moral characters.
