Gift of Character: Strength – The Definition

Each month we will discuss one virtue. This month’s virtue is Strength.

Strength means:  “I have the power to endure my tests.”

Balanced Life Skills is about working with parents and teachers to empower them to bring out the best in our children and ourselves. We believe that each of us have all the virtues within us and the job of parents and teachers is to see their child as the unique individual they are, perfect in potential to be their best selves.  Their virtues only need to be developed and grown so they can use them in their life. Balanced Life Skills serves parents, teachers, and students to reach that goal.

Download a complete List of Virtues and the Five Strategies of the Virtues Project FREE.

Trustworthiness: not cheating or stealing

Being trustworthy is one of those qualities that we expect and want in our children.  As a parent we want our children to do what is right, to tell the truth and to be fair by not cheating or stealing.  Due to the busy schedule everyone has today though, we sometimes overlook the idea of deliberately teaching the virtues that we would like to see in our child.
If we wait to discuss with our children the character trait that leads to not cheating or stealing until there is an incident, we will find that the emotions are too high to make any inroads on that subject.   It is the reason that we at Balanced Life Skills are committed to discussing these with our students when there are no obvious reason to do so.
Cheating and stealing is what we will be discussing this week and the affect it has on our ability to be trusted by others.  As many times in the past, we will be emphasizing that the consequence of cheating or stealing is the loss of trust and we practice trustworthiness because it is the right thing to do.
This would be a great time for parents to tie into our discussions at home by asking your child what they would do if they saw one of their friends cheating in a game, or copying off of someone’s paper.  Or what would they do if they saw someone taking something that did not belong to them?  These type of short conversations where we listen deeply and express our family’s belief on this subject will have a great impact on their conduct later in their life.