Teaching ethics to children

Many children who display anxiety, anger rages and social withdrawal might be facing harsh criticism and enforcement of the rights and wrongs.

For representational purposes 

HYDERABAD: Every parent love the child who is well behaved, kind, compassionate, and truthful. We love drawing imaginary halos around our children’s heads, and make excuses for their failings. Every time a child steals, lies, or cheats, we blame friends, school, relatives, neighbours and sometimes even the cat except of course our children. Why? Because we feel it’s a personal failure if our child errs. Parents covertly blame themselves or each other for their child’s ‘human’ frailties

When teaching a child ethics, parents and adults should have clear blue print of what they expect from their children, and also an idea of their own values that they wish to inculcate in their children and also a way of enforcing these values gently without oppression. ‘I’m your parent, you have to do only as I say’ is not an effective parenting strategy. Neither is ‘You’re a disgrace to the family’.

Joseph and Edna of the Josephine Institute of Ethics outlines what they call the six pillars of character:

• Trustworthiness
• Respect
• Responsibility… accept mistakes and make amends
• Fairness... play by the rules
• Caring... be kind
• Citizenship... do your share

Empathy... this is something I have added. Understand others as you wish to be understood. While these pillars are very doable, one must be cautious of not enforcing them harshly, punitive with constant negative feedback and inculcate feelings of guilt.

Many children who display anxiety, anger rages and social withdrawal might be facing harsh criticism and enforcement of the rights and wrongs. Building ethical behaviours doesn’t happen overnight and there are always lessons to be learned and areas of improvement to be acknowledged.

I always tell parents, start with yourself! Role models have always worked as good teachers. Parents need to police themselves first and then gently police their children. The next common error that parents make is inadvertently teaching our children to lie. For example, if there is a salesman at the door, the mother whispers, ‘tell him I’m not home’! This can be a very confusing signal for a child who’s always been told to tell the truth no matter what. The child then learns to normalise lies and becomes confused and disturbed when reprimanded for the same.

How can parents teach their children ethics?

• Be a role model
• Provide a safe and accepting platform to children to communicate their woes, feelings, emotions and other ‘human’ behaviours and frailties without fear of punishment or stern reprimands
• Teach them how to make ‘value’ judgments without spoon feeding your values to them
• Agree to disagree and discuss why
• Analyse values and ask children to discuss how they would behave if facing the same situation.
• Act with kindness... everyone makes mistakes...
• particularly children. Explain the whys and why not without lecturing, criticising, belittling or getting angry. And please no guilt trips!
• Enjoy a good laugh... even if its at your expense
• Never be afraid to acknowledge and apologise for your mistakes, children will learn to respect you more
• Don’t indulge in corporal punishment, constantly punishing and criticising children can cause anxiety, depression and rages
• Keep parental conflicts away from children
• Resolve issues with fairness.
• Allow them to express their emotions
• Appreciate all the good stuff and gently correct the not so good stuff
• Spend time with your children, reading stories, having fun
• Inculcate a sense of pride in them
• Lastly, practice self acceptance and self love. This will reflect in your behavior. Children respond best on a platform of unconditional love and acceptance

(The author is a mental health professional and psychotherapist at Dhrithi Wellness Clinic)