Consistency
It’s easy to post a list of core values on the refrigerator. It’s much more difficult for parents to be consistent. Consistency lets children know what to expect and what is expected of them. Of course, children will push boundaries but inconsistency from parents confuses children.
Community
Everyone involved in your child’s development are critical to modeling and upholding core values. Parents need to work with these important role models to foster the importance of doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, and for the right reasons.
Commitment
Parents need to commit to model and reinforce to their children the core values and character strengths that mean the most to them. They also need to be creative and offer meaningful experiences that illuminate how important these character strengths are to the family’s core values.
Conversations
We know “We need to talk” freaks kids out, but too often parents avoid having conversations about character, especially as children get older. While it may not be easy to talk sometimes, we know from the research that parents who avoid talking to their children about serious matters quickly lose trust and connection.
Celebration
Parents need to find ways for their children to be active participants in their own character growth. Optimal character development occurs when children begin to make self-motivated commitments to consistently practice a core value (e.g. “I want to be the kind of person who is always honest and shows up on time.”) Parents need to celebrate these moments to shape and define individual character.
Thank you for sharing and what an interesting bit of history about character strengths! Am thankful humour is on the list and hope we’re all using it and growing in it to share positive energy at this time!
Arthur, Agreed that the proper use of humor is a character strength. Humor could be considered an aspect of the virtue of joyfulness. Humor brings joy to joy-ee and the joy-er. (A weak attempt at humor.) 😊 When we have our virtues in balance, we experience joy. When virtues are out of balance, joy suffers.
The point in humor is to make sure it is not offensive to others, i.e., imbalancing other virtues, such as respect, tolerance, kindness, spirituality and tact. Humor can sometimes reduce situations of tension, but it can also fall flat. That’s the challenge of humor – finding something that is universally funny. Like all virtues, it is in the practice. Self-deprecating humor, such as your chicken-suit photo, is usually a safe bet and expresses humility. . . . But have you offended any of our fine-feathered friends? 😊
Agree with full heart, and I’d add that I can imagine gratitude or thankfulness without humor. And yes, humor as a virtue cannot be offensive to others, at least not intentionally. We cannot, i think, ever be sure what another will or will not take offense at.
Don Rickles and his humor might well be a case in point. Here’s an interview with two of Don’s dear friends — Bob Saget and John Stamos — who suggest that Don Rickles’ humor was always meant with the best of intentions, never meant to offend. And it’s a thin line.