Chapter 15, Moral

According to Feldman (2007) boy’s and girls view moral differently. Girls see “it in terms of responsibility” (Feldman, 2007). They also will display more compassion and will self sacrifice to help someone else. On the other hand boy’s view moral in terms of fairness and justice (Feldman, 2007). Fittro feels children need to development certain characteristics to form moral. Some of things they should learn are to be honest, loyal, responsible, loving, helpful, and good manners. Fittro also feels that moral is taught or learned in stages and parents play a big role in teaching their children this. They can begin by what Fitrro calls teaching by example. How can parents expect to be treated with respect if they do not treat their children with respect? Also parents are the children’s first teachers and they need to lead by example. For instance, if a parent lie’s and then turns around and tells the children lying is wrong. Then what mixed messages are they sending. Another example is when some parent’s burn copies of music and then preaches to their children that stealing is wrong. But wait isn’t that what they are doing? So maybe we need to teach moral to parents then teach the children.

Feldman, R. (2007). Child development (4th edition). Pearson Prentice Hall

Fittro, J. K. (n.d.). Rearing Moral Children. Retrieved July 30, 2008, from The Ohio State University Fact Sheet: http://ohioline.osu.edu/flm97/fs03.html