Book Review: Bringing Up a Moral Child
I very recently came upon a remarkable book by Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler about morality that was well ahead of its times – Bringing Up A Moral Child. Even though it was written in 1985, it clearly sees that children start life with a moral sense. It even makes a distinction between moral reasoning and a moral sense, a feeling for right and wrong. Moral reasoning was studied by psychologists such as Piaget and Kohlberg and emerges, they argue, on a step-by-step basis between the ages of 5 and full maturity. On the other hand, according to Schulman and Mekler, a moral sense can be seen in the behavior of infants well before they can talk. Selected quotations make these points and more:
A moral child is one who strives to be kind and just. Notice that the words kind and just both refer to how our behavior affects other people. Morality, of course, is concerned with how we treat our fellow humans. We call children kind when they strive to help others. We call them just or fair when they treat people without bias of favoritism, when they try to see that everyone, including themselves, is judged according to the same rules, shares burdens equitably, and receives what he or she deserves.
When children are kind and just, we will also find that they behave responsibly toward others and try to keep their promises to them… Moral behavior has two components: Its intention must be good, in the sense that its goal is the well-being of one or more people; and it must be fair or just, in the sense that it considers the rights of others without prejudice or favoritism… Can people gain pleasure simply by giving someone else pleasure or by alleviating another person’s pain? They most certainly can. Most of us have known this pleasure in our lives, whether through giving to a child, a spouse, a friend, or even a stranger. Giving is a great joy. And, as psychologist Robert Weiss has shown, easing someone’s pain is, in and of itself, an effective positive reinforcer. He found that people work harder and faster on a task when their only payoff is reducing the discomfort of someone they’ve never met before. There have been, to be sure, philosophers (Hobbes) and psychologists (Freud) who have seen human beings as intrinsically self-centered and uncaring, having nary a kind impulse except through the civilizing forces of family and society. But research evidence argues against this dark vision. To cite just one study, a team of psychologists observed twenty-six children, from three to five years old, during thirty hours of free play in a preschool setting. The record shows that during that time the children engaged in approximately 1,200 “altruistic” acts including sharing, cooperating, helping, and comforting… Human beings have not evolved as solitary creatures. For our early ancestors the survival of an individual depended very much on the survival of his or her group. An intact group was better able to hunt and gather food, build shelter, and defend itself from enemies and predators than individuals on their own. When an individual cared for and protected the members of his group, it made the group more likely to stay together and survive, and, in turn, increased that person’s own chances of staying alive. Inclinations to be kind and just, which promote the welfare of our fellow group members and keep our group intact, have, through natural selection, become an intrinsic part of being human because they have had survival value… [A] foundation stone of morality is the child’s miraculous ability to react with empathy to someone else’s feelings. Empathy refers to a person’s feeling bad over someone else’s unhappiness and good over another’s joy. Empathy is surprisingly common in children and appears to be an inborn capacity to recognize and “feel” other people’s emotions. Sometimes in family counseling sessions, when we are talking about teaching morality, a parent will ask, ”But isn’t a moral sense something a child is either born with or not?” This is a question that philosophers have debated for centuries. It cannot be answered with as simple yes or no. Children don’t have to learn to feel empathy when they see others suffering. They are born, in varying degrees, with that ability. But a child can be taught to attend to people’s feelings more closely so that empathy occurs more often and more easily…
The quotes above were all taken from the first chapter of this remarkable book. The rest of the book provides parents and other child caregivers with detailed advice on helping a child develop their own innate sense of right and wrong. This is done, they say, with loving guidance. This socialization process helps the child search for a way to harmonize its own innate values with those of their birth culture. The book offers a host of sample dialogues with young people, from toddlers through adolescents that can help them in finding a moral way to deal with the challenges of each age. These discussions focus on the unintended as well as the intended consequences that are apt to follow any given decision. They help the individual chooser to take responsibility for all these anticipated consequences in selecting the ‘best’ choice of action. By this process they help the learner see that they are not helpless in struggling with the forces of their times, but that they have agency, they can make choices that can make a difference. The last chapter is entitled, “When Morals and Other Values Collide: Helping Your Child Maintain Morals in the ’Real’ World.” This book will be my favorite one to give to new parents.
Posted on: Monday, February 18, 2008 - Tags: Book Review.
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