Use role models to encourage positive character traits
Although you are the primary role model in your child’s life, you don’t have to be the only one. Here’s how to use other role models to instill positive character traits:- Talk about relatives, friends or celebrities who show respect, responsibility, compassion or other desirable traits. Say how much you admire them and why.
- Share your heroes with your child. Talk about people such as Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa. Discuss the traits you admire in them.
- Together, find or draw pictures of people your child admires. Ask why your child thinks highly of them. Heroes can be fictional—from books or movies—or people in your family, such as an uncle who helps build houses for people in need or a grandmother who worked to put a child through college.
Reprinted with permission from the November 2022 issue of Parents make the difference!® (Elementary School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2022 The Parent Institute®, a division of PaperClip Media, Inc.