As a mother, one of my strong desires – as it may be with you also, is to build good and godly character into my boys. Alongside raising children who not only succeed academically or in their area of strength and choice, it is so important to me that they possess strong character and moral values.

Building character into our children is a lifelong journey that requires a lot patience, consistency, grace and intentionality! I am always thinking about the men that my boys will one day become. In the day to day of cleaning up messes, laundry, and talking so much that I start mixing up my words it can feel like childhood will never end! However, I know all to well that even though the days can sometimes feel long and tiresome, this season is so short compared to the time that they’ll spend as young adults and fully grown men.

For our family, Instilling virtues such as empathy, resilience, compassion, responsibility, self control, discipline, diligence, and integrity is crucial and at the top of our list as we know that they will reap great and ongoing rewards for them as they grow and mature. In this blog post, I’ll be exploring a few practical ways to cultivate character development in your boys (or girls!) to set them on the path to becoming grounded and well-rounded.

1. Be their first Example: I am starting with a hard one here because we don’t get a pass do we (squeezes face). One of the things that I struggled with a lot in my early moments of motherhood was being under the spotlight constantly. Everything we say and do is seen and heard and that can feel really hard, intrusive and overwhelming on the really difficult days. Children are like sponges, absorbing everything and as we are their primary role models, we can feel a lot of pressure to live up to a perfect standard. I am learning to encourage myself with a new perspective… I have to allow myself to be changed by the Word, authentically and not in a performative way in order in order for my boys to mirror this.
2. Teach Empathy: Learning to take on another’s perspective, to understand, feel and possibly share and respond to their experience is quite powerful. Empathy is a cornerstone of strong character and being able to feel compassion towards others is what touches the heart and soul. We start off at home, encouraging the boys to understand and appreciate the feelings of one another when someone is upset. It isn’t always easy as usually everyone is upset at each other at the same time! We do our best to remember to always discuss emotions, read books that explore different perspectives and scenarios, and watch content that demonstrates a particular emotion that we are exploring. By exposing them to diverse experiences, we want to broaden their understanding of the world and cultivate empathy. This may take some time so we just need to be creative and consistent.
3. Encourage Responsibility: Responsibility is a vital trait that prepares children for the challenges of adulthood. In our house, as soon as you start walking, you are encouraged to contribute to something. We assign age-appropriate tasks at home, such as setting the table for the siblings, loading the washing machine, clearing up toys, organising the shoes in the hallway, making beds, helping to wash up cups, helping to sweep the garden of leaves. I have found that my boys are very eager to be involved in a lot of things as it is probably new and interesting to them so I do my best to involve them – even though sometimes it takes ages! I know that if I can cultivate a sense of responsibility, order and accountability in their hearts now, it’ll be the norm as they grow older and we won’t experience much resistance to housework, and other forms of work.
4. Promote Resilience: Life is full of ups and downs, and teaching children to bounce back from setbacks is a valuable life skill. At his current age (5), my oldest really hates getting things wrong. He has a complete meltdown and shut down when he struggles with something and everyday I am encouraging him to know that it is okay to make mistakes. Challenges are part of life, and we all make mistakes on a daily basis. We do our best to talk to them often about failures and how we can learn from them.
5. Cultivate a Growth Mindset: I am really proud of you for persevering and being so determined to build the fort even though the roof kept on falling down. Encouraging a mindset that embraces learning and growth. is important. The beautiful thing is that this is hardwired into our children, and as they are growing physically, so is their desire to learn and understand the world around them. It’s a natural thing. We can go a step further by teaching the benefits of traits such as effort and dedication, and praising and encouraging hard work. This can help them to develop a mindset that loves learning and help foster a positive approach to overcoming challenges.
6. Foster a Sense of Gratitude: Gratitude is a powerful force that can shape a child’s perspective on life. We started out with reading books on gratitude, and saying daily affirmations. When they pray at night I sometimes ask them to share one thing that they are grateful for. Creating gratitude rituals would be the next step for us and we would love to introduce writing down what they are grateful for each day, placing it into a jar over the course of the year and then reading it out together as a family. Grateful children are more likely to appreciate what they have and this is a real big one. Discontentment is all too easy in our world of more more more but to live a life that feels fulfilled, you need to be deeply grateful for it.

A life long journey

Building character in our children is an ongoing process that requires time, commitment, and a genuine connection with them and ourselves. I have to always remind myself that we play a great role in shaping, inspiring and encouraging them to grow, think and be as Christ is. It isn’t an easy thing to do, but small intentional and consistent steps towards this will surely reap a good harvest- I am sure of this!