What Can You Do? Let me suggest a handful of action steps you can take with your kids:
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Make a list of values. One of the two greatest goals you can model and teach to your children is to help them create a list of 4-6 words that describe the person they hope to become as adults. Call it a list of personal core values. Then, help them find ways to live up to those values weekly. Challenge them to add value to others daily. In addition to living by values, give them perspective on adding value to others. Help them to perform one act every day that adds value to someone else. Try doing it yourself. Living by values and adding value are what will make your kids one day valuable to their teams at work. Make it a game to do what you disdain. Challenge each member of the family to choose something every week that they don’t like to do, but agree to do it daily anyway. It may be a chore around the house, like taking out the garbage. Keep score on both parents and kids. This creates a habit of doing what’s right—even when it’s not fun. Do dinner check ups on integrity. At dinner, talk about a weekly opportunity each family member had to practice something that displayed integrity — when no one was watching. Celebrate anonymous acts of character. Affirm any growth in each person. These simple acts can begin to cultivate a robust character in kids — they begin to grow below the surface. Solid. Stable. Steady. Like an iceberg. Interestingly, there is such a thing as an iceberg that has very little substance below the surface. Those icebergs are called “whistlers.” They have nothing more underwater than what you see above the water. They’re like a floating ice cube. Do you know how you can identify a “whistler?” They consistently make noise as they drift. Let’s raise our kids to have substance below the surface. 11