The Sunday, April 13th's Opinion Section of the New York Times includes an article titled: "Raising a Moral Child" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/opinion/sunday/raising-a-moral-child.html?ref=opinion&_r=0).
After reading it and summarizing it on the blog, state your opinion regarding the topic focusing on guilt and shame and action and character formation. Be ready to share your views before you classmates for extra credit.
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The articles strives to explain how children are able to learn concepts of morality and tries to identify the correlation between the genetic composition of the child and how he is conditioned or shown to react in certain situations. It goes over the argument of rewarding vs praising and how making it seem as being kind is the natural thing to do instead of having to force them and rewarding to share which makes it seem as it is something out of the ordinary and not natural which should only be done when their is a gain involved.
ReplyDeleteBased on the Article, it illustrates the importance that parents have about faithful, compassionate, and kindness in their children, rather than having them being number one. The article also adds that it is better to give children praise rather than rewards because it shows that children can show kindness to anyone at any given time without a reward at the end. In which I agree with the author. Furthermore, the author adds that it is better for parents to teach their children guilt rather than shame, and it is good to model generosity to our children because preaching will be less effective in the future. I agree with the author's last statement, children mimic all that they see their parents or caretakers do. So it is good to show your children to be moral all the time and not just when opportunity knocks.
ReplyDeleteIn the article, it's explained how much importance an action has on a child, and the different approaches to a problem, and for the most part I agree with the angle that the writer gives, which is show don't tell, which is something parents do not do, most of the times parents want to express shame on the children through verbal threats and physical harm, but at the end of the day, the problem was never solved by the kid, because the child spent more time feeling bad, then coming up with a way to fix it, and it says that children who feel shame avoid the problem instead of looking for a way to fix it. Personally I like the guilt method, why? simple, because it creates a psychological need for the child to redeem his/her action instead of avoiding it, it also creates a problem solving mentality on the infant, which in the long run, creates a way for the kid to solve problems in a much better sense, and with a new perspective of things. Also the way a parent's action for caring or carelessness can affect a child, because a child follows as they see, so if the parent talks more than what they get accomplished, they follow those steps, but if they see that a parent does more than what they say, they become more do-ers than just talkers, which in time makes for a better and more responsible person.
ReplyDeleteThis article explained in grave details the exact opposite of the old adage "do as I say not as I do" for most. The writer explains how some parents or adults praise the action of the child rather than the child carrying out the action and thereby creating a selfish child. For the most part I agree with the contents of this article, as a parent myself, I find that that there are times that I have to tell my daughter that she is the action that she just portrayed, whether it was helping to pick up the toys or helping to dress herself; it's not just a helpful thing to do, it has to be you are a helpful person for it. I have also found that the more we praise child’s character the more likely they are to perform the same action without a second thought, the same applies to negative behaviors. As adults that have children in our care, whether we are parents, caregivers or teachers, we need to watch our own behaviors because they are what our children follow most, it is what they learn from. The careful or careless behavior of a parent can be quiet helpful or quite detrimental in forming who a child will grow up to be.
ReplyDeleteThis article provided and interesting and insightful view on how to raise morally sound children. Behavioral techniques were used to positively or negatively reinforce a child's behavior. Examiners studied how praise of character rather than action had more lasting effects in a child's generosity. Children that had received praise in character were more likely to be generous in the future instead of those that were simply told their actions were generous. The study also examined how children reacted to negative reinforcements. Shame, is a damaging emotion towards the character of a child while guilt can be amended and does not damage their self esteem. The last part of the study showed how the age old saying "practice what you preach" hold true. The article explains how children learn generosity by seeing figures of role-models act generously. They do not learn by being preached about the importance of generosity. The significance of these studies is invaluable. We can now teach our children to be more generous and caring towards others and perhaps instill in them a sense of global responsibility. Creating a worthwhile future that is full of hope and empathic understanding.
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