Amplify's Parent Network

Character?  What's Character?

One thing Amplify teaches teens is how to take time to be friends first in a potential romantic relationship.  We explain that taking it slow (no touch) allows clear-headed
thinking during the time it takes for someone's true character to come out.  Specifically, 90 days is about the time it takes for someone to BEGIN to reveal who they really are.  

It has never occurred to me to wonder if they know what 

"character" is, or how to be a good judge of character. Take the word "judge."  Isn't that being judgmental?  And the word "character."  Doesn't that imply some kind of morality?  Hmmm.  Judgment and morality are both words that have become suspect to the modern ear. 

Indeed, it turns out that young people really may not have any idea how to go about evaluating good and bad behavior in someone else, or themselves. A fascinating 

New York Times editorial described some recent research on the ability of 18- to 23-year-olds to think about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life: "When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong.  But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn't enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner....The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste."   

As educators and parents, we don't want to moralize (in the sense of scolding or shaming), to be sure.  But we DO want our sons and daughters to have finely tuned sensors, able to detect serious character flaws.  Here are some examples I have run across recently: