Raising Our Successful Children, Singapore Mom Blog: Character Building

Character Building begins with building a strong sense of identity. With a strong sense of self identity developed and shaped by being a member of a family, the individual can become a confident member of a larger group (community, nation and the world) and eventually become an active contributor.

The basic form of identity is self identity and the family plays an important role in shaping the identity as well.

Find out more about:
Identity of Self.

Identity of Self in the Family.

About the diagram(above):

Building a strong sense of self identity would eventually have a ripple effect as the confidence self would project himself into the family, school, community and world arena. Therefore, parents play an essential role at home in shaping and building the self identity of their young. Hence, the self identity and identity within the family would form the foundation of Character Building while how the individual self projects itself within the community, nation and world would form the foundation of Citizenship Education. Moreover, the individual who has a strong sense of self awareness would eventually become a citizen who will care and want to contribute to the community, nation and world. By being a citizen, the individual would in turn further develop himself. Hence, character building and being a citizen compliments and further reinforce each other.

There are 3 stages of character building.

Stage 1: Knowing ( cognitive)

In the first stage of "knowing", we must help the individual to create self awareness - to find out about his/her strengths and weaknesses so that he/she will be able to work on it.

Stage 2: Caring ( empathy)

In the second stage of "caring", one must be able to empathize. Once the individual develops this capacity to understand and feel what others are experiencing, they would be able to move onto the next stage of contributing to make a difference.

Stage 3: Making a Difference. (Contributing)

In the final stage of " making a difference", the individual becomes fully self awareness as to how to contribute to make a difference within the community, nation and world. The individual may choose to play a smaller role such as doing community work or to play a bigger role in leadership in different areas.

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