INSTILL POSITIVE CHARACTER TRAITS EARLY

Image credit: *RAJESH RAJPUT* on Unsplash.

By DR VICKI BISMILLA

Over the years, we have read so much about character-building. When I was a superintendent of schools, the whole province was engaged in pursuing good character goals for students.

Schools would adopt a different positive character trait each month and dedicate huge efforts in teaching students about the importance of such traits like altruism, honesty, respect and kindness.

As we age and look at our remaining road, we reflect on our journeys and how we have developed our own characters and what we hope we have taught our children about good character and citizenship. But we also look at the scratches and scrapes we have had when we have had to deal with people whose characters have made us shake our heads in disbelief.

Whether good or bad, a person is entirely responsible for their own character.

You can’t change an adult’s character. As a caveat to my statement, I know that there are organizations like The John Howard Society that faithfully believe in rehabilitation of people who have had negative experiences with the law.

These efforts certainly help people, especially those with mental issues who have been treated unfairly, like being put in jail instead of receiving the care they need.

The John Howard Society helps people develop life skills, learn how to understand and negotiate the justice system, try to repair their life trajectories and live productive lives. These efforts are commendable, but pertain to specific vulnerable people with specific needs.

However, in the larger general population, character is something that an adult develops and works away at throughout their lives and stamps on to themselves like a tattoo. It doesn’t all come directly from their parents, it is of their own making from personal strengths, good hearts, altruism or respect for loved ones.

Unfortunately, in some cases character comes from negatives like jealousy, cynicism, pessimism, self aggrandizing thought processes or their own shortcomings. And once they have stamped that negative tattoo on themselves it will always show itself. There is nothing you can say that will change them. In fact, exactly because of their character trait, they will turn your input against you.

We have seen in Canada in the past year frightening examples of negative character traits. Just a trip to the local mall becomes scary when one sees shouting between one adult and another or worse, adults shouting at children.

Extreme anger is being displayed in incidents of road rage, xenophobic outbursts, racist nooses hanging on construction sites and alarmingly, death threats directly aimed at specific politicians and journalists who speak out against bigots.

There appears to be no fear of the law as violently-inclined people threaten journalists with promises of brutality and death. There were email threats that were chilling to the bone of readers, threatening rape and lynching of female reporters like the one directed at a female journalist promising that AR-15s held by “men dressed in purple” would be rammed against the heads of female journalists while “white civilized Canadian males roar at the justice served” (Toronto Star, September 4, 2022).

Clearly racist, clearly misogynistic, clearly gender-based violence.

Right wing politicians are joining the ranks of these criminally-minded people by openly supporting convoys and angry mobs. One politician who did not succeed in getting a single seat took to Twitter in anger as a sore loser to egg on his mobs by writing, “They want to play dirty, we will play dirty too,” and his mobs responded with acts of rabble rage.

How are characters like these forged? They were not born bad people. As educators we know that toddlers in kindergarten are gentle, friendly and kind little people.

Parents lay the foundation to build a baby’s character. If babies are nurtured, loved and taught respect for humanity, chances are those foundations will hold. As they grow into toddlers, children and students, their parents, caregivers, babysitters, teachers, camp counsellors and trusted adults add positive lessons and so, brick by brick, their characters start to be built.

Schools and peers continue to shape young people’s characters. We encourage classmates to see positives in one another and in themselves.

I remember I used to focus on one child a day, print that child’s first name on the top of a class list of first names, send the list around the class and have each student beside their own name write something positive about the headline student by name and then send that sheet home with that student so parents could see the nice things said about their child by their peers and hopefully hang it up on their wall at home.

I also had each student make a positives booklet about themselves. Many teachers have many different ways to encourage good citizenship but this work can be derailed by so many other influences.

Sometimes teasing and bullying can turn an otherwise normal youth into an angry person warped by needs for revenge. Peer-on-peer conflicts, frustration with one’s own inabilities, struggles with narcotics, abuse at home or from other sources can turn a young person inward and that anger can ferment within and result in lashing out behaviour.

As teachers, we kept a lookout for children who became quiet, isolated loners or those who started displaying angry behaviour and we counselled them, helped them build their self-esteem, talked to their parents and where abuse was seen as a cause, we called in help.

Negative experiences certainly leave their mark on young people and depending how they received help those traits can stamp themselves into and become the negative parts of their character.

As young folks grow into adults, their adult peers begin to influence their characters.

This is where hate groups look for opportunities to cultivate their venom. Conspiracy theories and twisted logic are fed into disgruntled folks and they are egged on to lash out against groups who they are told are taking their jobs, or changing the colour of their population, or forgetting their roles of obedience to superior genders and so the flames of hatred are fanned.

All is not lost though. There are shining examples of people who volunteer countless hours helping others.

Charities like Learning for Sustainable Futures (LSF) teach children about respecting the earth and trying to combat climate change which is a global threat to humanity.

The Canadian Helen Keller Centre continues to help not only blind and deaf people but also to build supportive, accessible housing.

There are conservationists teaching about healthy hikes.

There are wellness and emotional support groups for teenagers and young adults experiencing stress with peers and families.

Temples, churches, mosques, gurdwaras, synagogues and other altruistic community groups are helping refugees settle, thrive and become contributing citizens of Canada.

Municipal community centres offer exercise and general interest groups for youth and adult citizens and their culturally integrative approaches help to build understanding and hence safe communities.

Volunteers at distress and crisis centres are literally saving lives every day.

On the global front there are organizations like War Child that are saving children whose lives have been horrendously impacted by political conflict and war; while Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) is providing medical support alongside. The people who volunteer to do this profound work are examples of wondrous people with shining characters.

But our present danger in Canada is the hate that is bleeding into our societies and on the internet and we know from past history that hate-filled politicians can cause horrendous calamities and genocides.

The time for peaceful interventions and positive behaviour-change is now.

TRUTH BE TOLD

INSTILL POSITIVE CHARACTER TRAITS EARLY