Parenting and Moral Development
Take Home Points
- Teach to Recognize Feelings
- Maintain sacred "unplugged" times so children can socialize and practice reading emotions
- Children are not reading emotions because they are spending more time plugged into media and need more time face-to-face in order to learn to read emotions
- Provide emotional language
- Read books about feelings
- Fostering Moral Identity
- Use character-focused praise
- Using the noun form over the verb
- "You are a helper!" is better than "You are helping!"
- Character-focused blame is bad!
- Praise should not be focused on effort
- Model responsibility for children
- If I were the only example my child had to learn moral identity, what did she learn today?
- Set standards for what you value as a family
- Practice defending beliefs
- Encourage self-talk
- I know who I am and that is not me
- Is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?
- Fostering Perspective Taking
- Use discipline encounters (other-oriented induction)
- How would that make you feel if it happened to you?
- No spanking or yelling/shaming
- Avoid external rewards
- Sometimes they are okay to help with short-term goals, but do not actually help in the long run
- Encourage eye contact and listening
- Switch places when arguing
- Provide opportunities to expand perspective
- Volunteer on Christmas day
- Traveling and seeing the different ways that people live
- Allow children to give things in a way that they can see the effect of what they are doing - better than anonymous giving
- Read! Moral Imagination
- Reading for pleasure is the most important indicator of future success for children
- Literary fiction is the most effective at promoting empathy, perspective taking, and appreciating those different than ourselves
- Fiction that focuses more on the character and the way they change
- Have books in the house and model reading
- Ask "what if" questions
- Help you child love to read
- Make reading fun - match to their level
- Use audiobooks
- Parents Foster Self-Regulation
- Model calmness
- Identify body alarms and teach calming strategies
- Foster problem solving and proactive prevention
- Practice Kindness
- Kindness means you care about other people - kind people think about another person's feelings and don't expect anything in return. They treat others kindly because they want to help make someone's life better.
- Practicing kindness is associated with increases in self-esteem, popularity, happiness, gratitude, and health
- Cultivate Collaboration
- Competition is an empathy reducer
- Group work promote empathy
- Work on creating an "us" not "them" mentality
- Broaden children's horizons by providing opportunities to interact with those who are different
- Help your child look for similarities rather than differences
- Read diverse books and watch diverse movies
- Teach/play cooperative games
- Moral Courage
- An inner strength to act on empathetic feelings and help others regardless of the consequences
- Expect and model social responsibility
- Don't rescue your children
- Highlight heroes with moral courage
- Dispel superman myth
- Proactively prepare your children to be courageous
- Maintain sacred "unplugged" times so children can socialize and practice reading emotions
- Children are not reading emotions because they are spending more time plugged into media and need more time face-to-face in order to learn to read emotions
- Provide emotional language
- Read books about feelings
- Use character-focused praise
- Using the noun form over the verb
- "You are a helper!" is better than "You are helping!"
- Character-focused blame is bad!
- Praise should not be focused on effort
- Model responsibility for children
- If I were the only example my child had to learn moral identity, what did she learn today?
- Set standards for what you value as a family
- Practice defending beliefs
- Encourage self-talk
- I know who I am and that is not me
- Is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?
- Use discipline encounters (other-oriented induction)
- How would that make you feel if it happened to you?
- No spanking or yelling/shaming
- Avoid external rewards
- Sometimes they are okay to help with short-term goals, but do not actually help in the long run
- Encourage eye contact and listening
- Switch places when arguing
- Provide opportunities to expand perspective
- Volunteer on Christmas day
- Traveling and seeing the different ways that people live
- Allow children to give things in a way that they can see the effect of what they are doing - better than anonymous giving
- Reading for pleasure is the most important indicator of future success for children
- Literary fiction is the most effective at promoting empathy, perspective taking, and appreciating those different than ourselves
- Fiction that focuses more on the character and the way they change
- Have books in the house and model reading
- Ask "what if" questions
- Help you child love to read
- Make reading fun - match to their level
- Use audiobooks
- Model calmness
- Identify body alarms and teach calming strategies
- Foster problem solving and proactive prevention
- Kindness means you care about other people - kind people think about another person's feelings and don't expect anything in return. They treat others kindly because they want to help make someone's life better.
- Practicing kindness is associated with increases in self-esteem, popularity, happiness, gratitude, and health
- Competition is an empathy reducer
- Group work promote empathy
- Work on creating an "us" not "them" mentality
- Broaden children's horizons by providing opportunities to interact with those who are different
- Help your child look for similarities rather than differences
- Read diverse books and watch diverse movies
- Teach/play cooperative games
- An inner strength to act on empathetic feelings and help others regardless of the consequences
- Expect and model social responsibility
- Don't rescue your children
- Highlight heroes with moral courage
- Dispel superman myth
- Proactively prepare your children to be courageous
Concerns
- How do I raise genuinely kind children?
- Make an intentional effort to tip the scale from performance to kindness
- Two kind rule - do or say at least two kind things to people each day
- Family kindness box - when you see kindness put it in the box
- Choose a caring cause
- Encourage children to donate rather than have a garage sale
- How do I counteract discriminations taught to my child by society?
- Start young and have open communication with your child about the importance of loving everyone and how there should be no differences between us based on gender or race
- Read diverse books and watch diverse movies
- Be sure you have an open relationship with your child so when inevitably they are told something that goes against your values your child feels comfortable enough to come to you to talk about it
- How do I praise my children correctly?
- As stated above it important to use character-based praise in helping children develop a moral identity, it shouldn't be about their effort
- By using character-based praise related to their moral development children will start to take those things and make them a part of their identity
References: All research and information in this post are from in-class lectures and the book Unselfie.
(Borba, M. (2017). Unselfie: why empathetic kids succeed in our all-about-me world. New York, NY: Touchstone.)
(L. Walker, Parenting and Moral Development lecture, SFL 240, Fall 2019)
- Make an intentional effort to tip the scale from performance to kindness
- Two kind rule - do or say at least two kind things to people each day
- Family kindness box - when you see kindness put it in the box
- Choose a caring cause
- Encourage children to donate rather than have a garage sale
- Start young and have open communication with your child about the importance of loving everyone and how there should be no differences between us based on gender or race
- Read diverse books and watch diverse movies
- Be sure you have an open relationship with your child so when inevitably they are told something that goes against your values your child feels comfortable enough to come to you to talk about it
- As stated above it important to use character-based praise in helping children develop a moral identity, it shouldn't be about their effort
- By using character-based praise related to their moral development children will start to take those things and make them a part of their identity
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