Your Family and Your Personality

Consideration. There are times in everyone’s life when he realizes that someone in his family is very consider­ate of him. When this happens to you, what do you do about it? You might stop and wonder whether you have done as much to help your mother, father, or brother. It is wise to remind yourself that everyone in your family wants to be treated the way you do. Their feelings are like yours and they need the same kindness and under­standing you need. You can see the wisdom in treating people with the same consideration you would like from them.

Growing with your family. During your early teens you are beginning to enjoy new interests and activities. You may find that your interests are changing but that those of your par­ents and brothers and sisters are not.

When these differences become noticeable, you may find that you have to find new ways of understanding the other members of your family. They, in turn, have to find new ways of un­derstanding you.

One of your new interests is prob­ably an increased desire for indepen­dence and self-reliance. Because this feeling of growing independence is a new one, your parents may disagree with some of the responsibilities you want to assume. You should try to have patience and exercise self-control in your attempts to show your inde­pendence.

As you become more and more in­dependent you will find that conflicts are most likely to occur in four areas. They are disagreements over spending money, outside activities and social life, time spent doing schoolwork, and clothes. These disagreements do no one any good and should be eliminated by talking about conflicts and by respect­ing others’ points of view.

Sometimes you can confide in adult friends outside your home. Your teach­ers, your pastor, or a counselor may be
a good person to confide in.

As you talk with your parents and friends about differences of opinion, you will find that you and they will reach a deeper understanding of each other’s wishes and needs. This process helps you to grow up and makes the path of growing up less troublesome than if you walked it alone.

Personality Traits

Knowing yourself. As you wrote your list of personality traits, you may have noticed that some of your personal qualities are more outstanding than others. Everyone has some traits which are less desirable than others. Being able to judge your own personality traits is an important asset. When you know yourself, you can begin eliminating the undesirable traits and adding others that are more desirable.

Changing traits. Once you know what you would like to improve, you can make an effort to acquire the new habits and attitudes that you find worthwhile. The first step in this process is making an effort to acquire new traits. If you find that thoughtfulness is a trait you want to develop, you can begin by making an effort to be thoughtful of others. You can try to be aware of the wishes of others at all times. As thinking of others becomes a habit, you will find you have developed the trait of thoughtfulness.

In your effort to acquire new traits, you must make and effort to be sincere. There is a difference between appearing thoughtful and being thoughtful. In the first instance the person is being dishonest with those about him. He is pretending to be something he is not. This lack of sincerity is easily sensed by one’s friends. They do not respect a person who is “putting on” a trait only for his own gain. It is only by being sincere in your effort to change some of your personality traits that you can make any change in your personality.