A Question of Character

Sheba Matheu recently moved to Sarasota with her husband, Teddy Matheu, and Amina, their six-year-old daughter. Sheba’s an abstract painter, designer and a prolific writer—as you could easily deduce, after a quick stroll through their renovated Tim Seibert home on Siesta Key. Evidence of Sheba’s creativity surrounds you on all sides. What’s her greatest creative accomplishment?

The young author answers without hesitation …

“Our daughter, Amina.”

This leads to the predictable follow-up question. What’s her second greatest creative achievement?

She doesn’t think twice on that one, either.

“10 Secrets of Being a Lady” is the answer. It’s Sheba’s latest published work—an instant classic of character education aimed at young women.

Turns out, Amina was the inspiration.

Sheba watched her daughter coloring one day. Anima was bubbling with pride. Look, mommy! The young artist had learned a new trick—a better way of drawing trees! Mommy looked. And indeed it was.

Amina’s art was getting better. But not just that.

Sheba was struck by how fast Amina was developing, how rapidly she was changing. 15 years from now, she’d be an adult—a completely different person, yet still her daughter. Who will Amina be when she grows up?

Growing older is easy. Just hang around on planet Earth, that’s all there is to it.  But growing up isn’t automatic. Not everyone with a driver’s license is an adult. As a drive down I-75 will tell you.

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

That was the question. It was up to Amina to find her own answer.

But the multimedia world she lived in was bubbling with wrong answers.

“There’s no lack of character education for kids in contemporary society,” says Sheba. “But so much of it is just plain bad—especially for young girls.” She lists the relentless conditioning of commercials that train kids to define self-fulfillment as a product to buy or image to project. Or the pablum pedaled by the descendants of Rousseau who define self-fulfillment as a lack of self-control. Or the old-school traditions of repression and conformity. Which Sheba sees as equally destructive.

“The bad advice targeting children is all over the map,” she says. “But it all has one thing in common: it’s externally focused. It’s all about the rules you follow or the image you project. It ignores who you are on the inside—and that’s the very definition of character, good or bad.”

Sheba went looking for an inner-focused alternative. Intense research led her back to Aristotle—and eventually forward to Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman’s “Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook” from 2004.

This academic work had an admirable intent: Shift psychology’s focus away from mental illness. Create a working model of a healthy human being. What character traits do they share?

According to the study behind the handbook, gratitude, a love of learning, fearlessness and inner direction were right at the top. There’s more to it, of course. Sheba boiled it all down to ten principles. That took deep thought and hard work. The fun began when she distilled those principles into a book for her daughter.

“Instead of talking down to Amina, I wanted to inspire her with a character she found engaging.” 

The book took the form of a simple talk between mother and daughter. Originally, the talk would begin and end there.

But Sheba wanted to make the book a special one. She contacted her friend, graphic artist Meredith Rushing, to illustrate the book’s main characters. A mother and daughter who resembled Sheba and Amina, of course.

Her talented friend was deeply moved by the book’s message. She encouraged Sheba to publish the book—and reach a wider audience of young women.

“This was all very personal to me,” Sheba says. “The project began as a private conversation with my daughter: my gift of ten secrets for Amina’s future happiness. Meredith convinced me that my gift shouldn’t stop with her. Sharing those secrets with strangers wasn’t easy for me. But Meredith and other supportive friends got me over my fear.”

“10 Secrets of Being a Lady” had its first printing in April, 2016. It was an immediate hit with young readers throughout the area.

What began as a private conversation soon grew into a public outreach. Kimberly Penman, the principal of the Rowlett Academy for Arts and Communication, asked Sheba to develop a classroom curriculum based on her book.

 “She felt that Amina was a great role model,” says Sheba. “Positive images of African-American girls—or girls in general—are very hard to find. She told me this was exactly what she was looking for.”

The “10 Secrets of Being a Lady Scrapbook Project” puts the book’s principles into practice. It’s an interactive program where girls select cards listing their most prized character virtues—then find people in the surrounding community who put those virtues into action. Based on the lessons of this pilot program, a modified curriculum may be offered throughout the school next year.

Sheba’s also close to her final draft of “10 Secrets of Being a Gentleman.”

The author notes that, “‘Who do you want to be when you grow up?’ is the big question for boys and girls alike. Real character growth doesn’t mean fitting the mold of what society wants. It starts with understanding your individual strengths. It’s about embracing yourself as an individual, and finding a circle of people who support you for who you are.”