Educating in the Virtues (4)

The other elements in our strategy to educate our children in the virtues are to seek out and discuss examples and to catch them doing it right and praise that (as well as, when necessary, chastise them for wrong-doing).

So we often discuss behaviour of friends etc at school, or characters in stories, in terms of the virtues (or lack thereof) displayed and the consequences.

Particularly when this is negative stuff about people we know and like, it also reinforces the whole notion of hate the sin and love the sinner, which is a very important distinction.

It also means we have to be honest when we as parents have failed in a virtue - I often find myself apologising for shouting unfairly at one or other of them, for example.

But the most important element is probably the positive reinforcement. So when Ant broke her nose, and was extremely brave about it, she received lots of praise and some tokens of appreciation to acknowledge her bravery.