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Archives for May 14, 2012
Teach moral reasoning
How deep do your moral lessons go? Are you working with your children on the golden rule? Do your children truly know the reasons behind the moral lessons you give? It’s important to not only teach moral truths, but also give our children the tools to reason and process moral situations.
“The prerequisite to moral reasoning is knowing moral truth,” (On Becoming Childwise).
So from our earliest parenting years, we must teach our children in moral situations. For example, we need to teach them not only to not pick flowers in a neighbors’ garden, but we need to teach them that doing so robs the neighbor of enjoying the flowers she worked so hard to plant. We need to teach the moral truth behind even the most basic instructions.
I like the example given in “Amy’s story” in chapter 10 of On Becoming Childwise:
“Briana was celebrating her eleventh birthday, together with her family. They were traveling on her birthday, but her parents brought along many of her gifts. Her special present that year was something she had been wanting for a long time: a vanity for her bedroom. After opening her gifts, Briana’s dad told her that a special gift was waiting for her at home because it was too large to bring along. Briana started giving guesses as to what it might be. Amy, Briana’s eight-year-old sister, blurted, ‘It’s a vanity!’ Immediately, tears flooded Briana’s eyes,” (On Becoming Childwise).
It’s easy to see that this there is a moral lesson to be taught in such an example. Amy’s sister was excited about a gift, and something Amy said brought her sister to tears. That alone is enough to warrant a conversation centered on moral principles.
After Amy was told to sit in a reflective sit-time, Amy was asked to morally process what had happened. Her parents needed her to say more than just “I told Briana what her gift was.” They wanted her to know on a deeper level why what she said was wrong.
“After forty-five minutes, Amy tearfully confessed what she had done, and her confession was beautiful: ‘I stole Briana’s joy of receiving the gift as a surprise.’ Wow! Where did that answer come from? From an ability to morally process. Here [was] an eight-year-old child coming up with an adult-sized answer,” (On Becoming Childwise).
In Amy’s case, her parents had been actively investing moral truth into Amy’s heart.
“This deposit of moral truth created an infrastructure of logical thought that enabled Amy to deeply process. Without a knowledge of virtues and values, children will be limited in their ability to reason and process moral situations,” (On Becoming Childwise).
But clearly, with that moral infrastructure, children can process moral situations and truly understand the moral ramifications of their actions. They are able to put themselves in another person’s shoes to see the situation from their perspective. In this case, Amy was able to see the situation from Briana’s perspective. This is a skill that she had learned. Because of this skill, she could truly admit to the hurt that her actions had caused her sister. And she will have learned to think twice before blurting out an answer that she so desperately wants to give.
Think about similar situations in your daily life. Do you take the time to fully explain the moral truth to your children? Do you tell your children not to run in the grocery store, or do you take the time to explain that they could hurt someone (or themselves) or make other shoppers nervous? Do you tell your child not to climb up the slide, or do you explain that by climbing up the slide, he is preventing other children from going down? Do you tell your child not to tattle, or do you explain that tattling is just as bad as (or worse than) the action that prompted it?
As you go about your day, make note of opportunities to teach moral truths, and invest the time that it takes to give your children the important skill of moral reasoning.