You can show good citizenship by being a leader in your school or community. Leadership isn’t a job — it is an action. Everyone in your family can be a leader.
Basic concepts of citizenship:
- Do your share to make your school and community better
- Cooperate
- Get involved in community affairs
- Stay informed; vote
- Be a good neighbor
- Obey laws and rules; respect and authority
Teaching citizenship with T.E.A.M.
- Teach: Teach your child about being a leader using the tool below.
- Enforce: Praise your child when they are acting as a leader. Provide fair consequences when they do not respect rules.
- Advocate: Have a family plan to regularly protect and conserve resources. For example: recycle, plant trees, don’t litter.
- Model: Model how to keep up on current events by reading or watching the news, attending local meetings of importance, and talking about issues as a family.
Discussion starter
Ask your child what they think: how do you think our community or school could be better? What can you do to help?
Excellence with Integrity Tool: Leadership in Action
4 Steps to Being a Leader
- Commit to a shared goal
- Motivate others
- Help others do their best
- Convince other to join you and believe in your goal
Here’s what the Four Steps look like in action.
The Smith family has decided to spend Saturday cleaning up their local park. They can all be a leader in the project.
- They all want the park to be clean, and they are dedicated to the project. (Committing to a shared goal)
- When one member of the family gets tired, another reminds them of how great the park will look when they are done. (Motivate others)
- If a member of the family is having trouble with their task, another can give them help or teach them how to do it. (Help others do their best)
- The project goes by quickly because each member of the family brought a friend to help clean the park. (Convince others to join you and believe in your goal.)
Click here to learn more about character education.
Teaching citizenship