Best Ways To Set Your Kid’s Moral Compass

As parents, we do our best to steer our children in the right direction so they become strong and capable adults. Through hardship and struggle, we acquire a moral compass that is a combination of personal values and societal values.

After we find our place in society and settle down, we want our children to live honorable lives and have a set of morals that is compatible with the society we live in.

While there are institutions we can send our children to learn science and the humanities, there is no institution for morality. Morals are only forged in the face of adversity and temptation.

So how can we help our children build a strong moral compass?

Childhood and The Moral Compass

Freud believed that children formed their ideas on morality after their selfish urges were either corrected or encouraged by their caregivers.

This idea was expanded on by Jean Piaget, who theorized that children went through two main phases of moral development:

A heteronomous phase where the child simply obeys their guardian while they are young and helpless.

An autonomous phase where children reach adolescence and rebel, trying to break rules to understand how solid the rules are in a quest to understand the world and the rules governing them.

As the child learns how to survive in their environment, they obey their instincts for food, love, and survival. All the while learning what rules can be broken and what rules cannot as they try to satisfy their instinctual urges.

A child that is unpunished or evades punishment for being immoral learns that consequences are avoidable, and weakens their moral fiber. Morals are weighed against the consequences of punishment and the probability of getting caught instead. Constant correction is what keeps children on track, which is why a parent that actively takes part in the growth of a child is so important.

Outside of pathological and physiological conditions, most children with empathy can be nudged into behaving morally as long as they are made to understand the golden rule i.e., treat others how you would like to be treated.

If the child is raised in a well-adjusted community, and the social contract is well-maintained, the child will grow up believing in the importance of morals and adhering to them.

Practical Techniques

As parents, we have limited control over our environment, which is why it’s important to have knowledge of techniques we can use to nudge our children’s morals in the right direction. Let’s look at those, along with some practical examples.

Modeling

When a child falls down, they do not necessarily begin to cry. They look to their guardian and analyze their reaction to gauge how they should react as well. Children base their thoughts and actions on what they witness in the caregivers around them. Learning through observation is the child’s first instinct as it is the least resource intensive. Also, the more examples they have to learn from around them, the more they can learn and adopt what seems to be the best response with the least downsides and most upsides.

All you need to do is actively engage in ethical behavior and show your children how it pays off positively for them to learn from you.

Positive reinforcement

A common mistake many parents make is making judgments about a child’s identity rather than their actions.

Telling your child they are “a good boy” is positive, but offers no meaningful information the child can use to learn morals. Telling them it was nice of them to share their ice cream to make another person happy shows them you approve of their sharing. It demonstrates clearly what action you want them to repeat. Additionally, you can share your ice cream with them soon after to reinforce how nice it feels to have someone share something with them right after they shared their ice cream. This really drives home the point.

Allowing mistakes

Making mistakes is part of the learning process. If you witness your child making less-than-perfect decisions, simply focus on creating more opportunities to expose them to situations where they have to make moral choices again.

If your child is kicking their uncle, for example, make it clear how much their uncle is hurt. Make them understand why a kick hurts, why it is bad, and what to do instead. Give them an opportunity to correct themselves next time a similar opportunity presents itself to fine-tune their compass.

Remember to reward your child with positive reinforcement when they successfully do the right thing with actions such as hugs or praise.

Share moral experiences

Bed-time stories focus on subjects such as justice, honesty, and helping others but occur in situations that are wildly disconnected from normal life. Incidents from your own life are vastly more relevant and are more likely going to reflect real-life situations that your child will encounter one day. Sharing real-life stories about important moral moments in your life is an incredibly powerful way to get your message across. The more meaningful your story was to you, the more emotion and impact your story will have when telling your children.

To sum up

In conclusion, it is very important to parent your child into being a person with good morals, both for themselves and society. By using the techniques mentioned above, you will be able to gather a clear idea of how you can approach the concept of morals and inculcate good values in your child.

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