What are character strengths in children?
Character strengths are the positive qualities a child shows in how they treat people and approach the world, such as kindness, empathy, self-control, responsibility, curiosity, courage, and fairness. They are not fixed traits or a personality type; they are capacities that grow with practice, encouragement, and example. Most children show a distinctive mix, with a few strengths that come easily and others still developing.
What is the Child Strengths & Character Builder?
The Child Strengths & Character Builder is a free, LBL-original parent-report assessment of 24 short, warm questions that map your child's character across 12 strengths in four families. Instead of a single score, it shows a strengths constellation, your child's signature, their top emerging strengths, the ones still blooming, and a first everyday step to nurture next. It is an educational, strengths-based reflection for parents, not a diagnosis or a clinical test.
What are the 12 character strengths it measures?
The 12 strengths are kindness, empathy, gratitude, self-control, responsibility, persistence, curiosity, creativity, courage, fairness, social confidence, and a budding sense of purpose and values. They are grouped into four families, and every child expresses some more strongly than others. The mix naturally shifts as a child grows.
What are the four strength families (Heart, Drive, Spark, and Compass)?
The four families group related strengths. Heart is about caring toward others: kindness, empathy, and gratitude. Drive is about follow-through: self-control, responsibility, and persistence. Spark is about engaging the world: curiosity, creativity, and courage. Compass is about character and meaning: fairness, social confidence, and purpose and values.
Why focus on a child's strengths instead of their problems?
Building on what a child is already good at, not only fixing what is hard, is one of the most reliable ways to support healthy development. Children who know and use their strengths tend to be more engaged, more resilient, and warmer in their relationships, and simply naming a strength out loud helps it grow. A strengths lens also gives parents something genuine to build on instead of another list of problems.
Can character strengths be taught, or are children just born with them?
Both temperament and experience play a part, but character strengths are highly buildable. Research on praising effort, modeling, and everyday practice shows that strengths like persistence, self-control, kindness, and gratitude grow when they are noticed, named, and given room to practice. That is why this tool frames lower strengths as still blooming and offers a concrete first step to grow them.
How is this different from a personality or "child type" test?
A personality or type test sorts a child into a fixed category. This is the opposite: it looks at character strengths, which are not a label and not fixed, but capacities that grow over time. There is no type, no good-or-bad result, and no box your child gets put in, only a snapshot of which strengths are shining now and which are still on their way.
What does it mean that a strength is "still blooming"?
A strength that scores lower is not a weakness or a deficit; it simply shows up less often right now, so the tool calls it still blooming. Children develop strengths at different paces and in different settings, and a strength you do not see at home may show up at school. A lower strength is an invitation to nurture it, never a verdict.
Does my child get a score or a grade?
No. The Child Strengths & Character Builder deliberately gives no single score, grade, or ranking for your child. Each strength is shown on its own, as how often it appears, and the result highlights your child's strongest family and signature in warm, descriptive language, never as a number that sums up who they are.
What age is this test for?
It is written for parents and caregivers of a child from toddlerhood through the early teen years. You choose an age band before you start, which only frames the wording. Character strengths matter at every age, though what each one looks like shifts as a child grows.
How long does it take, and who should answer it?
It takes about six minutes and is answered by a parent or caregiver who knows the child well, thinking about the last few weeks. Different caregivers sometimes see different sides of the same child, so it can be interesting to compare. There are no right answers.
Is this a clinical or diagnostic test?
No. It is an educational, descriptive parent-report, not a clinical or diagnostic assessment. It celebrates the strengths your child is showing; it does not screen for, diagnose, or treat any condition, and it does not diagnose autism, ADHD, or anxiety. For concerns about your child's development, behavior, or wellbeing, talk with a pediatrician or a licensed professional.
Is my data private?
Yes. The entire assessment runs in your browser, and your answers about your child are never sent to our servers. If you choose the optional premium report, only the computed scores needed to generate the PDF are processed for that purpose.
How is the result calculated?
Each of the 24 items is rated on a 0 to 10 slider, and every item is positively framed, so nothing is reverse-scored. Each strength's score is the average of its two items rescaled to 0 to 100, where higher means the strength shows up more often. The four families are each averaged from their three strengths, and the highest-scoring family becomes your child's dominant family and shapes their signature. There is no single overall score.
