I was able to attend the GFI National Conference in KY this past weekend.  It was a wonderful time of fellowship and teaching.  I'm sooooo glad I was able to go.  I was encouraged and challenged. 

One of the workshop sessions I went to was on building character in our children.  I'll share some highlights from that session. 

Of course, it always starts with us, the parents.  We must know the truth.  If we don't know God's Word, we can't teach it to our children.  Not only must we know but we must be imitators of it.  It does no good if we know it and teach it and then never actually do it.  The children pick up on that very quickly. 

I was reminded how easy it is to let attitude go when the child does what has been asked.  You know how it goes.  You ask a child to put away a laundry basket.  They do it but they either stomp their feet, sigh, roll their eyes, bang it on something as they carry it etc......  We often don't take on this attitude but we really must take on the attitude.  Attitude reflects the condition of the heart.  Why don't we take it on?  There are many reasons but just a few are because the job got done. 

The job did get done so why bother dealing with the attitude.   The laundry basket IS now where it belongs so why deal with the attitude?

We don't want to deal with it.  Yep, that's a big one.  We know it will take time to deal with it and we don't want to take that time right now so we put it off and it ends up never happening.

We make excuses.  The child is tired or hungry or young ... and the list can go on and on and on.  Hmmm I wonder how their bosses will react if they yell and scream about doing their job?  Will their employer say "John must be tired today"?  

We must train the virtue.  It's not any fun always being told what not to do.  We want and need to be told what to do.  Be pro-active -- have a plan.  Character training isn't going to just happen.  Sure we might get in something here and there w/out planning but it's not of lasting value.  We must make a plan and carry out that plan.  Work on one thing at a time.  We don't want to overwhelm our children with a list of character traits/issues that need to be worked on.  Work on one thing at a time and be certain to praise them when they are doing well in that area. 

Having a plan means planning a time in your day for character instruction.  The speakers of this workshop recommended one hour per child per week (depending on the child's age)   Planning the time that this will be worked on brings up outside activities.  We need to evaluate our activities out of the home.  There are countless good activities... countless.  In fact, we could be gone all day most every day with good activities.  Good isn't good enough.  We need to save our outside activities for best.   What are the best activities for our child in this season of his/her life?  This will look different in every family and often for each child.  The bottom line is that we can't train character if we aren't home to work on it. 

The Links have a great CD set titled Understanding Character Training.  One of my favorite resources is For Instruction in Righteousness.  I use this book ALL THE TIME.   It is a must in every home, in my opinion.  :-) 

We also want to be careful of what we are putting in our children by what they read and watch.  We don't want what they read and watch to go against the very virtues we are trying to instill.