The 7 Habits of Happy Kids

As promised, I am posting more about the 7 habits.  This is a school wide initiative at my school that we have been doing for the past 3 years.  The 7 Habits of Happy Kids is written by Sean Covey, son of author Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and is aimed at elementary school age readers.  The book is composed of 7 short stories with a colorful crew of characters that students can relate with.  The stories teach the reader about each of the 7 habits by using nonfiction characters.  We started our initiative by beginning a Synergy Team.  This team was composed of several teachers and other certified staff at the school who would pilot the program.  These teachers were asked to cover the first 4 habits in their classroom.  Read the story, teach the skill, practice the skill.  It spread like wild fire!  Now, not only have we adopted all 7 habits in EVERY classroom, but our principal has made a block of time in our schedule daily for prosocial skills.  We call it Wildcat Team Time (WTT for short) and it lasts 20 minutes at the beginning of each day.  Teachers use the 7 habits along with other resources  to teach children about these skills that are so important to becoming leaders.  (That's our focus here...we're leaders and learners!)  The kids love the books, use the language, and refer to the skills on a daily basis.  It's amazing to see! 

The 7 Habits are:

Habit 1:  Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Not only do our students succeed socially using these skills, but academically as well.  Teaching them to leaders has helped to teach them to take ownership for their learning and to be self-assessing.  After the initial success of the 7 habits in our school, we decided to give the parents an opportunity to learn more.  The Synergy Team hosted a parent night called "Growing Leaders With the 7 Habits."  After the information session, parents were given the opportunity to attend a 7 night workshop focusing on how to implement the 7 habits at home, hosted by yours truly!  I had so much fun discussing how these skills can be implemented in the home with several parents.  In the future, I'll have to rethink the time/dates because there weren't as many parents in attendance as we'd hoped.  I wish I had time to list all of the amazing things our teachers have done with the habits but I'd be sitting here all day!  A great resource to check out on the 7 habits is http://www.theleaderinme.org/

How have you used the 7 habits?  What lessons have you implemented using the habits?