Looking at the oft used phrase: “It was character building.” usually said after a tough experience…
For me, building character is a mixture of experience and teaching. You can build character if you know that after a tough experience, that instead of whinging about how hard done by you are, you learn from it, and hopefully don’t repeat mistakes or indeed, make fewer mistakes in future. I think that kids need to be taught that losing a game, failing a test or being a bit shit at something isn’t something to always feel bad about or that they can’t do anything about it.
I wish I’d had a dad with a bit more patience to teach me stuff like that. Instead he was short tempered, lost his cool easily with things he couldn’t change and when I now look back on his adult life, I can see that he often didn’t learn much from his mistakes. He was still “one of the good guys”, but I don’t think he taught me much in terms of character (while he was alive, that is). I had to learn it for myself – too late in life for some things that I feel I could have done better.
So as such, is it something that can be taught? I dunno…depends on the definition of “taught” I suppose. You can give a child the tools to become a “better” character and hope he or she uses them positively. You can learn it yourself too but you’ll possibly have some tough lessons along the way.