Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues [Paperback]

Thomas Lickona (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2004

Don't Let Our Kids Flunk Life

The novelist Walker Percy once observed, "Some people get all As but flunk life." Succeeding in life takes character. In Character Matters, award-winning psychologist-educator Thomas Lickona offers more than 100 practical strategies that parents and schools have used to help kids build strong personal character as the foundation for a purposeful, productive, and fulfilling life.

Lickona shows how irresponsible and destructive behavior can invariably be traced to the absence of good character and its 10 essential qualities: wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control, love, a positive attitude, hard work, integrity, gratitude, and humility. He lays out a blueprint for building these core virtues through a partnership shared by families, schools, and communities. Chapters include:

• 14 strategies that help kids succeed academically while building character
• More than a dozen character-building discipline strategies
• 20 ways to prevent peer cruelty and promote kindness
• 10 ways to talk to teens about sex, love, and character

The culmination of a lifetime's work in character education, this landmark book gives us the tools we need to raise respectful and responsible children, create safe and effective schools, and build the caring and decent society in which we all want to live.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his timely follow-up to the definitive Educating for Character, Lickona plucks the burden of moral corruption from society at large and plants it squarely in the laps of parents and teachers. He describes a society nearly bereft of character, and proposes that the solution is to awaken children's social consciences. Through a series of grim statistics and anecdotes from his research as a psychologist and educator, Lickona illuminates a culture that is lost (but not hopelessly), due largely to an overemphasis on academic achievement in lieu of formal character education. "The disturbing behaviors that bombard us daily-violence, greed, corruption, incivility, drug abuse, sexual immorality, and a poor work ethic-have a common core: the absence of good character." He defines 10 essential virtues that comprise good character and prescribes a six-part remedy, including modeling virtuous behavior, building a strong home-school partnership and getting involved with communities. Quotes from Aristotle, Martin Luther King Jr. and others make more eloquent points for why character matters, but the author's passion for creating a more civil and harmonious world is evident and inspiring. Lickona admits that changing the moral fiber of an entire generation is a lofty goal and that his solutions are ambitious: "The social-moral problems that beset our society have deep roots and require systematic solutions." However, this book can be one small step along that path, if it finds its way into the right hands.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Hal Urban author of Life's Greatest Lessons Our job as parents and teachers is to bring out the best in our kids. This marvelous book can be of immeasurable help.

Dr. Stephen R. Covey author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People What an absolutely marvelous book! Greatly needed in restoring the character ethic in a techno/materialistic-obsessed world. Character is primary greatness; prestige is secondary greatness. Extremely valuable practical resource for every parent and teacher. Great gift book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (February 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743245075
• ISBN-13: 978-0743245074
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Ideas Clouded By Over-Reaching Moral Judgment, July 22, 2007

By 

Anonymous "Anonymous" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues (Paperback)

While this book started off strong, with great definitions and explorations of character, the author goes off on some specific tangents that disrupt from the books central theme and detract from the message. While the author is entitled to his position on abortion, he takes for granted that all people must feel the same way, and spends time on at how many weeks fetal heartbeat is detected to further his position. Interesting in an anti-abortion book, but came out of left field in the chapter he was writing here. Similarly, he takes for granted that all parents naturally want to teach their children that masturbation is immoral, and suggests that if your teen self-identifies as homosexual that you should try to take them to a psychiatrist to get that fixed. Again, a lot of parents might feel this way, but he makes assumptions and then goes off on tangents.
He also uses some questionable data and doesn't support some of his statistics with verifiable sources. For example, he says that homosexual young women are at a higher risk for STDs than heterosexual women (completely untrue) He obviously supports abstinence-based sex education in schools, but doesn't talk about the studies that show that teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to substitute high-risk behaviors that lead to STDs (Journal of Adolescent Health) and are less prepared to handle temptation when they are asked to use willpower alone to manage the risks that can be consequences of adolescent hormones.
I started off loving this book, and dog-eared and high-lighted several pages in the first few chapters, and ignored the first few questionable statistics and tangents, but it got worse and worse, until I felt uncomfortable continuing to read it, like I was reading a parenting book by Jerry Falwell.
One character-building book I'd recommend instead is Character Building Activities For Kids.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please read this book!, July 18, 2006

By 

Reba - See all my reviews

This review is from: Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues (Paperback)

I wish this book would be required reading for every school administrator, teacher, and parent. I have been a public school educator for 25 years. I am also a parent and a grandparent.

I found this book to be extremely refreshing in a time where "No Child Left Behind" has taken us too far in the wrong direction. Yes, we want to set high academic expectations for our children and yes, we do want accountability. But what good are high test scores if there is more cheating, dishonesty, cynicism, and disrespect for others? This book, along with many others on Character Education, is a call back to common sense in education: Let's not only raise our expectations for academic achievement, but also for honesty, integrity, responsibility, work ethic, and respect for others. The current NCLB legislation (with its emphasis on high stakes testing) has taken the focus away from educating the whole child. Current education research shows this is not best practice; this is not in the best interest of the child or of our society! This book provides inspiration and hope for educating the whole child. It provides many practical suggestions and ideas for making our homes, schools, and communities a much more civil place to live and learn. If educators, legislators, and parents would read this book and put it's ideas into practice, we would be making a positive difference!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A+ for Thomas Lickona, June 29, 2007

By 

Amanda P. "School Counseling Graduate Student" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues (Paperback)

As a graduate student going into the field of school counseling, I found this book extremely interesting and useful. Of all the books I have been assigned to read for classes, this one is by far the best. The ideas and activities Thomas Lickona has come up with for building character and morality in students is phenominal. His ideas are so creative yet simple at the same time. They are also realistic and very diverse for all ages. If you are in the field of education, a parent, or someone just interested in this topic, this book is a MUST! I believe if all educators looked at character education the way Thomas Lickona does we could make a positive difference in our children today.