Peacebuilder Traits for March
Citizenship
The character trait for March is Citizenship. Help your child clean up the park, neighborhood, and school to show them how a good citizen helps out their community. Volunteer to clean a creek or explain how good citizens vote to elect officials to office. A good citizen is proud to be an American and shows respect by helping out without being asked.
Citizenship is doing your share to make your community a better place. Good citizens are good neighbors. They cooperate with others, obey laws and rule, respect authority, and protect the environment.
Thanks for doing your part to create our Vargas
Peace builders of tomorrow!
Caring and Courteous
What To Do:
A pet is an excellent way to teach both caring and responsibility. If having a dog or cat is not practical, think about a guinea pig, a bird, or fish.
Encourage your child to be charitable. When you make your charitable donations, involve your child. Discuss what you are giving and why. Let your child help chose the charity.
Clean out closets with your child to find clothes and toys to give to charity. Explain to your child that there are people who have less than you do and that caring people share what they have with the less fortunate. Let your child pick out some toys to give away.
Help your child write get-well notes and letters to people who are ill. Take your child to visit elderly relatives or friends to show that you care.
Offer to care for plants or pets for a neighbor while they are out of town. Encourage your child to help you.
Parent Tips:
The best way to teach caring is to show caring. Spend time with your child – be affectionate, encouraging, appreciative, and patient.
Caring often involves elements of friendship and loyalty. Be sure your child knows the limits of loyalty when a friend tries to get him or her to do something wrong.
Encourage your child to make small gifts to show caring and love to relatives and friends.
Help your children develop empathy by discussing how others feel and encourage them to express how they feel.
Peacebuilder Traits for January
Fairness and Honesty
A fair person, takes turns, shares, and considers the feelings of others.
An honest person tells the truth even when the truth could get them in trouble.
Many times we hear "it's not fair?" coming from a child, it probably means that the child has failed to get something that he believes he deserved. A child's beliefs about what he should get are based on his expectations, which stem from previous experiences, promises, and comparisons of himself with others. You can help children develop a realistic sense of fairness by being consistent, by making sure that expectations are clear, and by helping him understand that certain rights come only with age or achievement. Play games with your child and talk about what is fair. Show them things that others do that would not be fair, discuss this and how it makes others feel when you are not playing fairly.
Building Character