I've known people who still find the ancient Four Humors notion to be a helpful way of categorizing and understanding human behavior. We still employ the language with some effect today--one can be more or less sanguine, for example, about a particular prospect (though presumably without an over-abundance of red blood cells). I feel that way about Character. One day, I'm sure, some scientist will come along and bust my myth about the disembodied behavioral descriptors I find so helpful, explaining that they are merely cultural constructs used to explain the behavior of neurons firing or something similarly reductive. Fine. I'll still find notions like industry, decisiveness, and tenacity to be helpful ways of describing human behavior.
Every character quality has its opposite, as I read it. One's behavior can also be called indecisive, or, better still, as existing along a continuum between two poles, with decisive and indecisive at either end; descriptive, but not especially helpful. What does help, though, is the notion of an obverse in the character metaphor. Think of undesirable Indecision as one side of the coin which carries a more appealing quality--Analytical--on the other side. You can do this with most any character quality. Bold, which we usually value, might read as Hasty on the obverse; Hyper-active, which we find unappealing, might read as Energetic. Both sides are merely effective or ineffective expressions of the same basic stuff. But how could such a notion be of practical use?
It's practical because in modifying a behavior we do not seek to extinguish it. Or anyway, we shouldn't, chiefly because that doesn't tend to work. How many parents have banged their heads against an undesirable character quality only to find it remains more or less in place? How many individuals have done the same with their own character features? Take a common complaint like Rigidity. How do you soften that feature out of existence? You can attempt to punish, or reward, or possibly reason it away. But there it is still, disrupting and significantly reducing effectiveness. The opposite of Rigid, if we're thinking in terms of opposites, is Flexibility. So that's our aim. Right? Possibly. But think about it another way for a moment.
It seems to me that Methodical might constitute the obverse of the coin whose face is Rigidity. Think of them as the same basic stuff but constituting either an effective or an ineffective expression. Unless the cause is organic (and I've chosen one here which potentially can be), Rigidity and Methodical exist like two faces of the same character quality. You don't extinguish Rigidity; you redirect the stuff that makes it up toward the more prosocial aim. If your child appears Rigid, don't scold him. Instead, help him to recognize and celebrate that he has the stuff on board to be a Methodical person, someone who effectively organizes behavior according to outcomes and implications.
You can sell that. I like to think in those terms. Is there a market for a particular character quality? And there usually is. Silly doesn't sell, but Light-hearted does. Impractical, not so much; but Imaginative can. Aggressive, only rarely, but Assertiveness is almost always prized. Even if you don't buy into the idea of character at all or this suggestion of a character obverse, your child might. Ultimately, the important thing is effectiveness. And inviting a child to value what he already recognizes as a feature in himself, and to develop that feature in a way which will serve his better interest, certainly trumps requiring him to squash it. So that's my notion about character, or one of them, and I have been using it with some effect in behavior mod for many years.
Give it some thought. Maybe give it a try. For more detail on how you might, keep looking here at my blog.
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