Reading Together - How Children Succeed - How to Build Character

"So what do you call the quality exhibited by Segal’s go-getters, the kids who exerted themselves whether or not there was a potential reward? Well, here’s the technical term that personality psychologists use: conscientiousness. Over the past couple of decades, a consensus has emerged among personality psychologists that the most effective way to analyze the human personality is to consider it along five dimensions, known as the Big Five: agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, and conscientiousness." (page 70, Kindle Edition)

"And yet we know— on some level, at least— that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can." (page 84, Kindle Edition)

"The problem, as Randolph has realized, is that the best way for a young person to build character is for him to attempt something where there is a real and serious possibility of failure." (page 85, Kindle Edition)

"Here’s one way of looking at character: It can function as a substitute for the social safety net that students at Riverdale enjoy— the support from their families and schools and culture that protects them from the consequences of occasional detours and mistakes and bad decisions. If you don’t have that kind of safety net— and children in low-income families almost by definition do not— you need to compensate in another way." (page 103, Kindle Edition)

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