A Humanist Moral Education for Children

 

by Fred Edwords

After graduating from high school in San Diego, California, in 1967, I worked for a time at a Taco Bell. One of my co-workers was a bright born-again Christian, and the two of us had some rather stimulating conversations. One day, however, an event occurred there that left an indelible impression on me, affecting my ideas about child-rearing to this day.

A whole busload of Protestant-fundamentalist parochial school teenyboppers showed up fresh from a revival meeting. These kids carried Bibles, wore evangelical buttons, and some had giant fingers for pointing heavenward. Since the chaperones decided that they liked the fare better at the Jack-in-the-Box hamburger stand across the street, the kids were suddenly on their own. And when that happened, all hell broke loose. These kids suddenly became rude and abusive to the two of us who were serving them as well as to each other. They were rowdy, noisy, and difficult to deal with. And when they finally departed, they left a mess of papers, napkins, straws, and sacks in their wake, scattered all over the dining area.

However, just as we were getting ready to go out and clean the mess up, a young hippie couple arrived on the scene. They were kind and friendly and, would you believe it? they picked up that mess those kids had left behind.

Well, to say the least, my born-again co-worker was quite chagrined at what had just transpired. But I chose to be consoling. I said, "Look, those kids probably have it pretty tough: they are required to be on their best behavior at home, at school, at church, and just about everywhere else. Being so repressed, they have no outlet for their youthful energy. As a result, they go wild the moment they're left unsupervised."

And that's the way I see it to this day. If you try to make sure that your kids are well-behaved

whenever you're looking, you might have cause to wonder what happens when you're not. I think it's better to teach children acceptable social behavior-to behave well when they're in public, in school, and visiting at the houses of friends. Home can be another situation altogether.

So my strategy has been more like the reverse of the Taco Bell example. Within certain limits, I prefer to let my kids be wild at home, where I can see them. And I want my two girls to speak freely to me. That way I'll know what sort of ideas and information they're picking up elsewhere. Toward this end, I've taught them that there are no bad words, just socially unacceptable words. This means that I get to hear the words many kids would never let their parents know they knew. As I see it, home is a place where you can be yourself, where you can express yourself, where you can vent your true feelings, where you can speak your mind. Home is an oasis of liberty in a world of constraint. And I've been happy with the social results of this approach. My kids get excellent marks for citizenship in school and excellent reports from the parents of the kids whose homes they visit. All of this contributes to what I consider the first humanist virtue: civility. It also shows respect for the honest expression of feelings. The other humanist virtues I wish to address here are compassion, reason, and love of life.

But first let me finish with civility. I've suggested a way to bring about civility in children that, to some, might seem publicly dishonest. That is, I've suggested that we can spare the public the true beastly nature of our children simply by letting our children do all their growling in the lair. And by this means, we can falsely enhance our public image as good parents. And this suggestion, in turn, implies that I cynically see no necessary connection between civility and morality: civility can simply be an act put on to impress others. Is this disconnection of civility and morality valid?

Well, a leading ethical educator of children thinks so. Let me quote from Can We Teach Ethics? by

Howard Radest, a man who was director of the Ethical Culture/Fieldston Schools of New York City and chair of its ethics department for many years, and who founded and chaired the University Seminar on Moral Education at Columbia University. Radest writes:

Our observations of behavior entail their own paradox and are unreliable. Our students may be using "good" behavior as a way of dealing with adults, but we do not know. Out of sight, they may behave one way in school, another way at home, still another way on the street, yet we cannot observe these other spaces, and so cannot know what is going on. Our presence as parents or as teachers changes things. It comes as a shock, for example, when a student we thought was "well-behaved" cheats or steals. Newspaper accounts of a crime typically report the "surprise" of the criminal's neighbors.

Teachers know that students will use "good conduct" to get non-moral rewards--not always, but often enough to suggest the moral unreliability of "good conduct." . . . despite the appearance of virtue, our students can as readily be manipulators as moralists. . . .

The difference between claim and conduct haunts us. We know that helpfulness out of concern for another is not morally the same as helpfulness for payment. We know that truth telling out of respect for accuracy is not morally the same as truth telling for fear of being caught in a lie. In short, simply to equate "good" behavior with morality doesn't make sense. [Pp. 10-11.]

So, unless we are simply interested in successful conditioning, social control, and good appearances, the virtue of civility, while of definite practical usefulness, isn't enough by itself. It cannot be the centerpiece and cannot be the benchmark of any humanistic program of moral education for children. We need to set our goals higher. We need to work toward inducing our children to internalize the moral values we teach them.

In their book, Bringing Up a Moral Child: A New Approach for Teaching Your Child to Be Kind, Just, and Responsible, Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler address this issue of internalizing. They write:

"Warm parents who give their children clear rules and affectionate approval for following them, as well as firm correctives for transgressions, tend to raise children with strong consciences." [P. 22.]

Children naturally want their parents' love and approval, especially if they have strong feelings of love for their parents. And so securing parental approval out of love becomes a motivation for accepting and even internalizing parental rules. But that's only the beginning. The authors go on to say:

Their parents' rules must become their rules, which can only happen if they understand and appreciate the reasons for the rules. When that occurs, we say the rule has become a personal standard of the child. A rule . . . will then be followed because it leads to good consequences, and not because parents or any other authority say it should be followed. [P. 22.]

Schulman and Mekler therefore advise parents to do two things: make their rules clear and give reasons for their rules. For example:

"Remember Billy--be nice to your cousin Jennifer when she comes over tonight" is not a clear statement of how Billy should behave toward his visitor. "Don't forget to ask her what she wants to see when you're selecting a television show," or "Remember, she's not supposed to eat ice cream, so don't make fun of her when she has fruit for dessert" are statements that define for Billy what you mean by "nice," and also clarify for him what he must or must not do to fulfill your instructions. [P. 23.]

Schulman and Mekler are quite adamant about this approach, declaring:

As a parent you have a choice. You can refuse to explain the reasons behind your commands and, in effect, teach your children that being good simply means being obedient, or you can teach them that being good means striving for certain openly stated values . . . , and that the purpose of the rules . . . are to bring those values about. [P. 23.]

One practical benefit of parents explaining rules is that the obedience to such rules can then carry over to new situations and can also occur when the parents aren't present. Further, the authors write: "When parents make clear statements of reasons, a child learns that they care about his intentions as well as his actions."

A particular intention that plays a major role in moral behavior is the feeling of empathy. And this brings us to the second of the moral virtues I wish to discuss, that of compassion. Schulman and Mekler define empathy in this way: "When you feel sympathy you care about the other person; when you experience empathy you are the other person." With empathy, you identify another person's experience.

There are psychological studies that demonstrate how easy it is to arouse empathy and how that then leads directly to altruistic behavior. For example, in 1982, University of Kansas psychologists Miho Toi and C. Daniel Batson performed an experiment. They had two groups of students listen to a taped interview with a fellow student who reported having broken both her legs in an accident, resulting in her having difficulty keeping up with classwork. One group of the student interviewers were instructed to listen dispassionately, gathering only objective facts. The other group was asked to focus on the feelings of the interviewee. After the listening was finished, the students in each group were given an opportunity to volunteer assistance to the interviewee. The results were striking. Students who had been instructed to focus on the feelings demonstrated much more compassion toward the student in need and considerably more of them volunteered to help, as compared to students in the "objective" group. The conclusion of the researchers was that empathy for someone in trouble induces a strong urge to help.

Other studies show that parents who are, themselves, empathic and who also consistently react to the misbehavior of their children by causing them to focus on the feelings of whoever they have harmed, tend to have more caring and altruistic children. Schulman and Mekler write:

A child is better able to put himself in someone's place and thus is more likely to feel empathy for that person when he knows not only what the person feels, but why he feels as he does. If a mother tells her son in a harsh voice, "Turn down the stereo," he can be pretty sure what she is feeling. . . . Scolding and threatening may get her what she wants for the moment, they won't get her son to care about her peace of mind.

If she wants empathic understanding from him, she'll have to provide him with the information he needs to understand her. . . . She might, for instance, tell him, "when the stereo is that loud, it makes me physically uncomfortable and I can't concentrate on my work," or "I need to relax for a while after work and I can't when the music is that loud." These messages would let her son know the specific needs behind her reactions to his loud music and give him the opportunity to accommodate her out of compassion rather than fear. [Pp. 55-56.]

With all of this advice, however, and with the evidence from these studies, we still need to keep our expectations realistic. Moral education in compassion isn't equally easy with all children. Studies of infant temperament and later development make it clear that empathy is like most human traits; it isn't distributed equally across the human spectrum. Some children are naturally more empathic than others. In fact, securing empathy and altruistic behavior can often be like pulling teeth. And that's just one fact we will continue to have to live with. So, though compassion can be taught to some degree, we shouldn't expect miracles.

But where compassion is taught, and where it results in improved altruistic behavior, that compassion can be expanded to develop an overall social awareness. The empathic person can put him or herself in a variety of other people's shoes. Here, then, is a social consciousness-raising experiment you can try with children. It comes from the book Parenting for Peace and Justice, authored by Kathleen and James McGinis, two liberal Christians who quote more humanists and have adopted more humanist ideas than I think they realize. In any case, their "TV Quiz for Martians" is an excellent exercise. It goes like this: [P. 21.]

Watch television for a continuous two-hour stretch.

Pretend you are from Mars: Imagine that what you are seeing on the screen is the only information you have about Americans.

1. Discuss what you have seen. As Martians, what would be your ideas about Americans, judging from the shows and ads you have seen?

2. Now switch your identity back from Martian observers to the Americans who were being observed. Discuss the experience of being observed and the descriptions of you that these "outsiders" gave. How does it feel to be seen and described in that way?

So we see how empathy can be inspired and, from that, altruism and social consciousness developed. But such compassion isn't the only moral virtue. Compassion without reason can actually bring about harmful results. We can become carried away with our feelings, paving hell with nothing but good intentions. Reason needs to be applied as a manager of emotions. And it forces us to gather our facts before adopting policies that may only appear compassionate but may have long-term disastrous effects.

Reason is also a moral virtue because it is an important tool of mental health. Little good can come, for example, from a concern for others that develops into a kind of neurotic catastrophizing, followed by our making absolutistic demands on others. Children need to be reminded that we all have limited powers for setting matters right, that matters are rarely set right quickly, and that one's emotional energy is better invested in empathic efforts that have some possibility of success. As the ancient Roman Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, pointed out, some things are beyond our power, some things are within our power, and emotional health is the art of knowing which are which and acting accordingly.

One way of teaching children how to involve reason in the moral process is to encourage them to think about their thinking and feeling. Children can learn to examine themselves and discover why they feel angry, for example, or why they feel upset. Psychologist Albert Ellis teaches this directly to children through a booklet called Instant Replay. It shows children how to rationally review the thoughts that may have led to their excesses of emotion.

As children develop the ability to reason about their feelings, they develop more confidence in their own thinking. And with this, they become more willing to think for themselves in ethical situations and to also be skeptical of certain empathic claims made by others who are only trying to manipulate them.

Another way to directly develop rational thinking is to utilize Socratic dialogue. That is, never tell when you can ask. Let children find out factual and ethical truths somewhat for themselves. In this way, the values acquired will be theirs, not yours. Your values they will skeptically question. But their own values they will know.

This has the added advantage of promoting flexibility. The real world is a complex place. It rarely lends itself to the direct application of copybook maxims, the Ten Commandments, or any other simple rules. One therefore needs to be adaptable. Moral living requires thinking. And thinking is particularly vital in sorting out moral dilemmas.

We humanists recognize that moral dilemmas are real and that solving moral problems and acting in the right way is therefore an uncertain process. At some point, children need to be taught that moral decision-making can be difficult at times, that wrong decisions can be made for the right reasons and right decisions for the wrong reasons. But the more they think their way through moral problems, the better they will get at it. And this will enhance self-confidence.

With the self-confidence to reason, children can gradually be left to let experiences be their own teachers. Allow your children some looseness in the system, some free choice. As events unfold, or when they are reading a story, don't always give away the moral. Reality and fiction often deliver their messages obliquely, rarely directly. Learn to respect that. Despite humanism's manifestos, humanist moral values aren't a catechism. They are an internalized attitude and a way of life. And this leads me to the final virtue I wish to address. I call it the "love of life." This is about happiness. Happy people find they have disposable energy they can devote to helping others and self-confidence enough to tackle moral dilemmas.

But happiness can't be pursued directly. Happiness and love of life is what happens when you are busy doing something else. So children need to learn how to secure for themselves the sort of vitally absorbing interests that will give their lives meaning.

With my own children, I do this by making them aware of as many choices as I can. This gives them a larger universe, a larger smorgasbord, to draw from and thus increases the odds that they will find things in the world they can get excited about. By this process, my children have learned to enjoy travel, movies, music, people, animals, nature, daydreams, books, and the joy of learning. And even from an early age, it created an attitude of optimism toward life. For example, when our family was traveling in Texas and Oklahoma a number of years ago, we stopped by the Oral Roberts religious complex in Tulsa. Our oldest daughter, Livia, was then four. And when I asked her what she thought the praying hands in front of the Oral Roberts medical complex were doing, she exclaimed, "They're clapping!" Such was her love of life.

Morality, then, is made up of at least these four things: external civility, internal compassion, reason, and the love of life. Though all of them have their roots in temperament and, therefore, are not completely in your hands, they also can be taught to a significant degree. And the teaching is worth the effort.

I'm fond of that common remark of Christian fundamentalists when they argue against evolution. They declare that if you teach your children that they are animals, they will act like animals. Of course, these folks are thinking of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), not dolphins and other peaceful creatures. But also, they are forgetting that animals come in three varieties: wild, domesticated and feral. If you teach your children well, if your moral education has a real civilizing impact, you will have made the wild little ones who first became part of your life into the sort of domesticated animals who won't suddenly go feral every time a chaperone isn't looking. And they will grow up to become the civilized human beings we adults have all, ourselves, learned to be.

This article originally appeared in Humanist Living Volume 2, Issue 3 & 4 Summer/Fall 1999.

© 2004 The Humanist Society. An adjunct of the American Humanist Association.