Don’t be Afraid To Teach Morality. It Will Make You More Effective

Having had the privilege to speak to several groups of people I have found that one of the topics they find most interesting, but controversiall is the subject of morality. This subject is much like any concept or idea which is a bit ambiguous but laden with intense emotions. These emotions, of course, are tied to the idea that whatever it is, morality is important and because it is important we should be very concerned about who teaches our children. This is especially the case for sexual morality. Some people seem to think that sexual morality is not a topic that should be talked about in public. No public organization, including schools, should even be involved with it. While you might agree or disagree about this I think there are some other concerns. One is, that children need some guidelines and I think parents are the best people to teach them. A second concern has other implications. Sometimes people’s concern about sexual morality spreads to concern about other forms of morality such as honesty, responsibility, understand consequences, and etc. Not teaching about sexual morality often is linked to not teaching about other forms of morality as well. This is not the only problem.

It seems to me that some people are divided over whether churches are a good place for morality to be taught. These individuals often worry about the idea that some people, whom they may not trust, will legislate morality to them and to their children, teaching a narrow type or different kind than what they want. Churches are designed to be influential and so it is a reasonable concern. Churches and religious teaching are a logical link to questions of morality but they are not the only authority on the matter. Some civil or secular ideas are useful too. The question, then is what to do. Take a look at the section in this website titled, “One Year At a Time.” It is designed to give ideas of what parents can do each year of their children’s lives.

Others, who may know more about morality, think of it as something they want for their children but may not be certain how to teach or educate them. Still others are very interested. Both of these groups listen in an effort to see what they might learn. The point of all this is fairly easy to understand. There appear to be so many divisions among us, and we do not wish to have conflict over it, that for many the decision they have made is to not teach much about it at all.

I am not certain what others think about this, but this whole thing scares me. Not because I am worried about the ideas inside the domain of morality, but because children who are not taught to live it are often those that hurt us and themselves. I remember when I first started doing research about moral development. The more I read the more excited I became because it was easy to see that the ideas in moral development gave purpose and motivation to every other form of education at home and at school. It has in it the most wholesome, constructive, and positive ideas I have ever found regarding the best way to organize families and teach children.

I will include one of these here. Any idea taught to a child about right and wrong or good and bad can be strengthened if parents use a one line application adage. Does some form of behavior help or harm people? The reason this idea is so powerful is because it is distributed throughout our society in both general and specific terms. This idea is the basis for virtually all of our moral relationships. If you wished to think of morality in terms of laws and legal processes, for instance, you would discover that what helps or harms someone is the root question of our entire jurisprudence system, including legislatures and courts. This is not to say they always do what is right for every person, it is merely recognizing the obvious. People debate about what will help people the most and what will harm them the least.

Religious doctrines and dogmas are the same. Why is something a commandment or a doctrine? We may disagree about the substance of either of these, but we can easily see that each is based on someone’s notion of what helps people and what harms them. In this case the helping or harming might have spiritual or religious implications. so it will be important for parents to pay attention to what is being taught and decide whether you agree with it. Even inside the same religion there are a variety of view points where morality is concerned.

So the stage is set for our families. If you don’t trust others to teach your children, and even if you do, how about learning about morality and teaching it to your own children? Parents provide a cognitive map which children use to make judgments about others and decisions for themselves. When your children face conflicting problems and challenges to decide how they will act or what course of action they will follow, what ideas will be in their minds which serve as guidelines for them? I propose you consider that along with other possibilities, the idea of examining any course of action from the point of view of helping and harming someone will generally lead to better decisions and judgments than many others or natural impulses.

We should not be afraid of morality but instead see it as the opportunity it really is to teach our children how to succeed individually and with people. If we teach it well, it is not narrow or restrictive. It is not a set of burdens that weigh our children down with excessive guilt or shame. It is a framework that motivates and inspires. Those who know it and live it say it is among the most important of all knowledge.