Character Building

[Lacy Renee Dawson]

A lot of times adults depend upon various experiences that they went through in life to assist in building their characters. In growing up I had the opportunity to have some very positive minded individuals and circumstances to sew seeds of benefit into my life. We all know that our society is changing drastically every day and that there are lots of teens whose characters are nourished upon a foundation of negativity - mainly because of media influences, parental neglect and the disenfranchisement of societies mental poverty. What types of activities do our youth feel that they need in order to assist them in building positive mental, physical and spiritual characters??? The things that worked for 80's babies won't necessarily work for 00's babies...Any suggestions????

[Fuzzytek]

I think the key is to have youth identify the role models they look up to and offer the reasons why. As you said as time moves along the reasons people are admired change. I have people both older and younger than myself that I admire. Although over time and getting to know more about them my admiration changes either negative or positive. Seeing that someone has been in a negative space and moved past that is a success and builds their character. It rounds out their knowledge of what works and doesn't in the world.