HOW TO RAISE A MORAL CHILD

ROBERT P. GRANACHER, JR., M.D.

THE PROBLEM

Contemporary America is finally realizing the importance of the family and the critical need to inculcate in our children basic moral qualities. The very survival of our American way of life depends upon this and the legacy of our future, our children, requires this.

Numerous authors have recently stressed the need for a reawakening of moral instruction for our children. These include:

1. William Bennett: Book of Virtues
2. Herbert Kohl and Colin Greer: A Call to Character
3. Hillary Rodham Clinton: It Takes a Village to Raise a Child
4. Robert Coles, M.D.: The Moral Intelligence of Children
5. Robert Wuthnow: Learning to Care
6. Dan Quayle: The American Family
7. Edward Winne and Kevin Ryan: Reclaiming Our Schools

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Jean Piaget, the famous Swiss psychologist, wrote the original classic text on the development of child morality, The Moral Judgment of the Child. Piaget gave an unequivocal statement about what lie meant by morality: "All morality consists in a system of rules, the essence of all morality is to be sought for in the respect which the individual acquires for these rules." As readers may remember, Piaget focused on children's "respect for rules" and found the origins of these in the child's sense of moral obligation within the games of early childhood. He used his daughter, Jacquelyn, and her marble games to study child-child relations and the development of a sense of morality among children. The social environment comes with its own rules and values that the child must learn. From Piaget's work come two questions:

1. What do judgments have to do with moral action?
2. How can we improve the way children think and act morally?

Somewhat coincident with the work of Piaget in Europe was the work of John Dewey in the United States. His writings on education, notably his The School in Society (1899), presented and defended what were to remain the chief underlying tenets of his philosophy of education. Dewey felt that the educational process must begin with and build LIP on the interest of the child and that it must provide opportunity for the interplay of thinking and doing in the classroom experience. The school should be organized as a "miniature community." Within this miniature community would also be moral instruction as a part of academic instruction. Dewey had an instrumentalist theory of knowledge which conceived ideas as tools or instruments in the solution of problems encountered in environment. He felt that a moral framework was necessary to adequately deal with these problems.

More recently, Lawrence Kohlberg, for many years a professor at Harvard University, developed theories of moral development which he popularized through research studies at Harvard's Center for Moral Education. His theories of moral development depend on the thinking of Piaget and Dewey. These men had previously emphasized that human beings developed philosophically and psychologically in a progressive fashion.

Kohlberg classified the development of morality in the following manner:

Kohlberg believed that individuals could only progress through these stages one stage at a time. Individuals could not "jump" stages. For instance, one could not move from an orientation of selfishness and acting in one's own best interest without passing through first stage 3 where children attempt to be good boys or girls in order to gain the approval of others. Kohlberg felt that it is important to present children with moral dilemmas for discussion which will enable them to see the reasonableness of a "higher stage" morality and encourage children to develop in that direction.

EMPATHY: THE BEDROCK OF MORALITY

There is a considerable psychological understanding of moral development at our time in human social evolution. Decades of recent research leave little doubt that empathy, the ability to know how another feels or the ability to assume another's point of view, develops naturally in the first years of life. For instance, a nine month old baby can see another baby fall and have tears well up in its own eyes and crawl off to be comforted by its mother as though it were the one who had been hurt. A fifteen month old child might go get its teddy bear for its crying friend and if the child continues to cry, it might even go back and retrieve the security blanket for him. Research studies have observed infants behaving in these manners. Thus, the results of various studies on empathy suggest that its roots can be traced to infancy, virtually from the day the child is born. For instance, infants only a few days old may become upset if they hear another infant crying. Researchers have seen this response as the earliest precursor of empathy.

Another feature of empathy in infants is motor mimicry. When a one year old sees another baby hurt its fingers, it may stick its fingers in its own mouth in an effort to see if it is hurting as well. If an infant sees its mother cry, it may wipe its own eyes even though it has no tears. At about age two and one-half, motor mimicry fades from a toddler's emotional repertoire and it begins to realize that someone else's pain is different from its own.

The development of empathy in humans is critically linked to a process called attunement. This is the process where an adult or another child lets the child know that its emotions are met with empathy, accepted, and reciprocated. Attunement occurs as part of a rhythm of a relationship between human beings. Through attunement, mothers let their infants know that they have a sense of what the infant is feeling. A baby squeals with delight and the mother affirms that delight by giving the baby a gentle shake or matching the pitch of her voice to the baby's squeal. The baby shakes its rattle and she gives a quick shimmy of her body in response. These interactions are affirming messages in the mother matching the baby's level of excitement. This gives the infant a reassuring feeling of being emotionally connected. Research shows us that mothers will send messages like this to their babies about once a minute when they interact. From repeated attunement an infant begins to develop a sense that other people can and will share it its feelings. This sense seems to emerge at about eight months when infants begin to realize they are separate from other people.

EMPATHY AND ETHICS: THE ROOTS OF ALTRUISM

"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." This is one of the most famous lines in English literature and John Donne speaks to the link between empathy and caring: another's pain is one's own. To feel with another person is to care for that person. The empathic attitude is engaged again and again in moral judgments, for moral dilemmas involve potential victims: Should you lie to keep from hurting your best friend's feelings? Should you keep a promise to help your child with its homework or accept a last minute invitation to a dinner party instead? How long should we maintain a life support system for a person who would otherwise die?

The roots of morality are found in empathy as it is empathizing with the potential victim, someone in pain, danger, or acute deprivation, and sharing his distress that moves a person to act to help the individual. Empathic affect, putting oneself in another's place, leads us to follow certain moral principles.

By late childhood, the most advanced level of empathy emerges. Children at this level are now able to understand distress beyond the immediate social situation and to see that a person's condition or station in life may be a source of chronic distress. At this point in its development, the child can feel for the plight of an entire group, such as the poor, the oppressed, the outcast. That understanding, found in adolescence, can improve moral conviction centered on wanting to alleviate misfortune and injustice.

Empathy underlies many facets of moral judgment in action. One such feeling is "empathic anger" which is the natural feeling of retaliation when we feel wounded by another. Another instance in which empathy leads to moral action is when a bystander is moved to assist a victim. The more empathy a bystander feels for the victim, the more likely he will intervene. Studies in Germany and the United States have found that the more empathic people are, the more they will favor the moral principle that resources should be allocated according to people's needs.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL IDENTITY IN ADOLESCENTS

Teenagers need to go through a second experience of internalization, after childhood, if they are to become caring adults. If they learn the childhood rules noted above, they then need to absorb and integrate a rudimentary understanding of kindness and caring from watching adult models. The opportunities most likely to enhance the development of empathy and morality in adolescents are:

1. A parent committed to a cause,
2. Service opportunities during adolescence,
3. Cross-cultural experiences,
4. A rich mentoring experience in young adulthood.

If these opportunities can be offered to adolescents, they will generally grow into adults who will demonstrate in their lives a lifelong, passionate commitment to their life pursuits and they will develop appropriate trust, courage, and responsible imagination.

Robert Coles, M.D., believes that one of the most important things parents can do for their young children and adolescents is to model moral behavior rather than preach about it. He believes that community service is a great way for parents to "walk the walk," and not only "talk the talk." It is important for a child to learn empathy, but that child must also learn what to do with that empathy.

LIFE WITHOUT EMPATHY: THE SEXUAL MOLESTER. THE ABUSER THE SOCIOPATH

Rapists and child molesters are incapable of empathy. Their inability to feel their victim's pain allows them to tell themselves lies that encourage their behavior. Rapists may say, "Women really want to be raped" or "If she resists, she is just playing hard to get." Child molesters may tell themselves, "I'm not hurting the child; just showing love." The blotting out of empathy as these individuals inflict damage on their victims is almost always part of an emotional cycle that precipitates their cruel acts.

Husbands who regularly beat tip their wives or threaten them with knives or guns often do so in a cold, calculating state rather than being carried away in the heat of fury. As their anger mounts, an anomaly emerges: their heart rate drops instead of climbing higher; they grow physically calmer even as they get more belligerent and abusive. Their violence appears to be a calculated act of terrorism, a method for controlling their wives by instilling fear. Men with this behavior are far more likely to be violent outside the marriage as well and often get into lights in bars or with coworkers or other family members. They cannot feel what their wives feel.

The sociopath is a charming person who is completely without remorse for even the most cruel and heartless acts. These individuals lack the capacity to feel empathy or compassion of any sort. They see twinges of conscience as emotional defects. They generally make no more than the shallowest of emotional connections with other people. The cruelest criminals, such as sadistic serial killers, delight in the suffering of victims before they die. Sociopaths are also glib liars and are willing to say anything to get what they want. They manipulate their victims' emotions with the same cynicism.

WHAT MORAL PHILOSOPHY IS CONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIAN TEACHING?

Philosophers deal with the knowledge of reality, of matters of fact and real existence. However, that begs another question. Is there another kind of knowledge, such as moral philosophy, that does not claim to be knowledge of reality, but rather is concerned with moral values, that is with good and evil, right and wrong, with what we ought to seek in our lives, and what we ought and ought not to do?

There are two groups of thinkers on this issue in our society. One group consists of those who think that when we are dealing with reality, with matters of fact and real existence, we have genuine knowledge and have some hold on truth. In their view, our judgments of value about good and evil, right and wrong, or our judgments about what ought or ought not to be done, are neither true nor false. These individuals hold that moral judgments express nothing but our personal preferences, our likes and dislikes. These arguments are voiced persuasively in our very presence relative to the apparent behavior of President Clinton.

For this group of individuals, moral judgment suggests mere opinion, concerning which there is no point in arguing, as there is no point in arguing about any matters of taste or personal preference. They dismiss arguments about moral values as pointless and they may give the Shakespearian quote, "One man's meat is another man's poison." This is to the effect that there is nothing good or evil but thinking makes it so.

The other group of individuals, holds a philosophy more consistent with Christian teaching. For these persons, there are absolute and universal standards of right and wrong, what ought to be done or ought not to be done. They do not engage in argument about such matters, for they feel secure in their assertion that the existence of objective moral values and standards is incontrovertible. Many philosophers feel that the second view is healthier for society. Moral judgments should not be reduced to mere opinion and should be established as objective and universal as these moral values consist of real knowledge.

WHAT CAN PARENTS DO TO ENHANCE MORAL DEVELOPMENT IN THEIR CHILDREN?

1. The development of empathy is not enough. A child is born with natural empathy and a caring, nurturing environment will cause it to flower. Verbal, emotional, or physical abuse will destroy it.
    
2. While empathy is the bedrock of morality, a second crucial building block of morality is self discipline. Parents can enhance the development of self discipline, and empathy, by being accepting and warm, firm about rules and discipline, and supportive of their child's individuality.
    
3. How parents combine the traits of acceptance and warmth, firmness with rules and respect for the child's autonomy, send very important messages to their children. Over time these are internalized in such character traits as self-esteem, self-control, social competence, and responsibility. A rejecting, overly lenient, or controlling parent can destroy these traits.
    
4. The need for parents or institutions to overly control children appears to be especially damaging to self discipline. Parents who value obedience over independence reduce both the competence and integrity of their children. Parents should strive to achieve balance.

HOW CAN OUR CHURCH HELP US TO RAISE A MORAL CHILD?

1. Recall that Kohlberg felt that it was important to present children with moral dilemmas for discussion which will enable them to see the reasonableness of a "higher stage" morality and encourage children to develop in that direction. This is the very substance of what occurs in Sunday school teachings, the parables of Christ, and Christian teaching. Thus, the Church reinforces parents in their efforts to raise a moral child.
    
2. Empathy is the bedrock of morality! The Church stresses empathy and altruism. We have seen that service opportunities during adolescence foster moral identity in adolescence. The Church offers many opportunities for our young people to be of service to others.
    
3. A mentoring experience in young adulthood or adolescence is very important for moral development. The Church offers opportunities for young people to mentor with members in a way that fosters the internalization of caring for others.
    
4. Robert Coles, M.D., has taught us the importance of modeling moral behavior. Many examples occur in the Church where this happens for our youngsters. Youth ministers, adult ministers, deacons, the church members, and elders offer these modeling opportunities for our youth.
    
5. We have seen that a parent committed to a cause is a healthy role model for a youngster developing a moral identity. Our churches constantly are committed to causes: housing for the elderly, housing for the poor and disadvantaged, feeding the hungry, clothing those without clothes, or assisting those in need.
    
6. Cross cultural experiences are very important for development of morality and moral identity. The Church provides these for our youth who choose to participate.
    
7. Using Kohlberg's classification, stages 5 and 6 are rarely attained in moral development. However, the antecedents for the development of these stages are available to all of us within our Church. We are given to the understanding of our social mutuality and certainly the Church has an interest in the welfare of others. Lastly, our Church teaches us for the respect and the demands of individual conscience.

1. Piaget J: The Moral Judgment of the Child. New York, Free Press (1997).

2. Goleman D: Emotional Intelligence. New York, Bantam Books (1995).

3. Adler M: Ten Philosophical Mistakes. New York, McMillan Publishing Company (1985).

4. Kung H: Does God Exist? New York, Doubleday & Company (1980).

5. Coles R: The Moral Intelligence of Children. New York, Random House (1997).