Family members are the people who a child turns to in times of need and in times of joy. It is the family who teaches a child good morals and values, and how to navigate the world at large. Social scientists studied the family closely throughout the 20th century. The outward appearance of families is changing in the 21st century, and so are the morals that are being taught.
Identification
According to the Child's Development Project, there are five ways that a child achieves moral development. Children learn through positive adult-child relationships; through the moral insight of adult society; through moments of peer interaction when they must exercise self-control; through development of their own moral order; and they learn through trying to understand the perspectives of others.
Significance
A good question that many children ask is what makes a person good? A good person is someone who has respect for another person, as defined by the Family and Consumer Sciences at Ohio State University. This concept starts within the family. If you treat your children with respect, chances are they will reciprocate.
Considerations
Children must learn moral values through their parents, according to Marvin W. Berkowitz, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Marquette University. Some of the moral values they learn are empathy, conscience, altruism and moral reasoning. Children emulate what they see, so if they see their parents exercising these values, they will learn to develop them too.
Expert Insight
Urie Bronfenbrenner, a co-founder of the Head Start program, was a psychologist who studied how morals are developed in children. Bronfenbrenner identified five components of morality development. He saw self-oriented morality; authority-oriented morality, where the child or adult basically defers to the demands of authority figures; peer-oriented morality; collective-oriented morality (duty to one's group or society is paramount); and objectively oriented morality. Objectively oriented morality follows universal principles that do not rely on the sudden and changeable conceits of individuals or social groups.
Learning Respect
It's become understood that morals are now reciprocal components of the child and parent. In the beginning of the 20th century, the child had no choice but to do what she was told. Now, it has shifted to where the parent is learning morals and values right alongside the child. The shift emphasizes treating others with respect and learning to "walk in another person's shoes."
