Put simply, gentle parenting  is placing a greater value on parent’s understanding and sensitivity instead of traditional punishments. The three primary components of a Gentle Parenting approach are Empathy, understanding and respect.

Read on to gain a comprehensive understanding from our author, Liza Ware.

Introduction

Gentle parenting is a parenting philosophy first made popular by Sarah Ockwell-Smith in The Gentle Parenting Book. The term is sometimes used synonymously with mindful parenting, respective parenting, and other positive parenting approaches. Although not identical, these approaches share common features—they emphasize parents’ sensitivity and understanding instead of strict discipline or harsh punishment, with the goal of helping children develop independence, confidence, self-regulation, and happiness. Gentle parenting is essentially equivalent to what developmental scientists refer to as the authoritative parenting style, an approach shown to be most ideal for healthy child development.

Gentle parenting involves a two-way partnership between parent and child, where the parent is neither too hands-off nor too controlling. Parents respond to their child’s needs and set boundaries and demands that align with the child’s developmental level. The parents encourage positive behavior – such as kindness, respect, and emotional self-regulation – by modelling it themselves.

The three primary components of the gentle parenting approach

• Empathy – Putting yourself in your child’s shoes to understand what needs or emotions are causing their behavior. For example, a tantrum might be caused by hunger, fatigue, schedule changes, transitions, or a need to spend more time with you.
• Understanding – Considering your child’s needs and behavior in the context of their developmental level, such as behavioral and emotional maturity. For example, while throwing oneself on the floor and sobbing may not be how an adult responds to frustration, it is more acceptable for young children because their abilities to regulate their emotions are limited.
• Respect – Treating your child how you would want to be treated. Parents focus on teaching and guiding, rather than dictating. They avoid commanding, criticizing, punishing, or forbidding. Instead of yelling or saying “no,” a parent might calmly suggest an alternative or explain why behavior is problematic (e.g., “When you throw sand at someone, it can hurt them and they might get upset. Can you practice throwing sand in this bucket instead?”).

By implementing these components, gentle parents aim to help their children feel validated in their thoughts and feelings, learn how to self-regulate, and develop independence and confidence in their ability to navigate daily tasks and problems.

Photo: Jupilu. Pixabay.

Gentle parents and discipline

Gentle parenting is not a discipline-free or boundaryless approach. Like authoritative parenting, gentle parenting is a middle ground between permissive parenting, where discipline is lax and the child has more control, and authoritarian parenting, where discipline is strict and the parent is in control. Control and consistency are critical components of gentle parenting, but they are coupled with empathy, understanding, and respect. This strikes a disciplinary balance that incorporates the child and fosters parent-child communication and connection.

Gentle parenting discipline (or authoritative discipline) involves setting age-appropriate boundaries with the goal of teaching children acceptable and regulated behavior. Gentle parents provide behavioral and emotional guidance while also fostering autonomy and independence. For example, they communicate the rationale for boundaries or rules at a level the child can understand, and they allow room for a reasonable amount of discussion, negotiation, and compromise. Gentle parenting does not include negative discipline, such as scolding, yelling, coercion, expressing disappointment, or any form of corporal punishment.

Does gentle parenting work?

The term gentle parenting has become a catch-all term for positive parenting approaches but its effectiveness for child development has not been directly studied. However, child development research has provided decades of evidence in favor of the authoritative parenting style as well as parenting behaviors that relate to the components of gentle parenting.

Research on parental empathy

• Parental empathy is critical for building secure attachment, which is a healthy emotional bond between parent and infant. Infants with secure attachment sense that their caregiver is available and responsive to their needs. This promotes feelings of safety and security, emotional self-regulation, and confidence and autonomy in exploring the world. Infants with insecure attachment typically face challenges in these developmental areas and demonstrate anxiety or avoidance in social interactions. Sensitive and responsive parenting helps build secure attachment, such as consistently and warmly responding to a baby’s cries and gestures. In contrast, insecure attachment is associated with inconsistent and insensitive parenting.
• One especially important component of caregiver sensitivity is mind-mindedness – behaviors that acknowledge and interpret an infant’s internal mental states. For example, during play, a mind-minded caregiver uses the child’s actions to infer their interest or boredom with a toy and might comment on their mental states (e.g., as the child reaches for a ball, the parent might say, “Oh, do you like playing with this ball?”). Thus, secure attachment depends on parental empathy for the child’s needs, thoughts, and emotions.
• Parental empathy also supports the development of social competence and prosocial behaviors. Maternal attention to toddlers’ mental states is linked to lower aggression and greater empathy. Positive impacts of parental empathy are also evident in school-aged children, helping reduce negative emotions like anger.
• Importantly, the benefits of parental empathy involve validating both positive and negative emotions. Minimizing or punishing a child’s feelings, even negative emotions likes anger, sadness, or fear, can lead to issues with social competence, difficulties coping with distress, and aggression.

Research on parents’ understanding

• Parents may find it daunting to understand child development because there is certainly a lot to know! A critical factor in the developmental timetable is brain development. As the brain develops from birth through adolescence (and even into young adulthood), children and youth become increasingly better at emotional regulation and impulse control. Especially important is the development of effortful control during the toddler and preschool years, a child’s capacity to voluntarily direct and regulate their attention and behavior, inhibiting and activating responses as needed and appropriate. For example, effortful control is evident when a child stops themselves from hitting a peer when they feel angry or pays attention to the teacher despite distracting conversation from nearby peers.
• As with most aspects of development, both “nature” and “nurture” influence brain developments leading to improvements in control and self-regulation. Biological factors, such as genetics and maturation, play a key role. Therefore, parents need to match expectations regarding behavioral and emotional regulation to their child’s developmental level. Much as one would not expect a young infant to walk or talk due to developmental immaturity, a young child (and even a teenager) should not be expected to readily manage their emotions and behaviors.
• Environmental factors also play a critical role in shaping childhood brain development. Sensitive (i.e., gentle or authoritative) parenting, and opportunities for play and educational activities that support autonomy and control (e.g., games that involve taking turns), are associated with greater advances in self-control.
• Thus, parental understanding involves both knowing what should be expected at their child’s age and what they can do to support and encourage their child’s development.

Research on parental respect

• Parental respect is at the core of authoritative parenting because it involves balancing warmth and responsiveness with discipline and demands. Children learn in a safe and supportive context where their individuality and voice are respected. Authoritative parenting has long been viewed as the gold standard of parenting styles and is associated with many positive developmental outcomes. Parenting that is either too too harsh (authoritarian) or lenient (permissive/indulgent) places children at risk for emotional and behavioral issues, such as substance use and internalizing symptoms (e.g., anxiety, withdrawal).
• One effective authoritative parenting strategy is inductive discipline, which involves explanation and discussion rather than punishment. For example, a parent might use age-appropriate language to explain to a young child why they should not hit their sibling: “Ow, that hurts your sister. Use gentle hands, please.” Inductive discipline can involve helping the child identify alternative behaviors (e.g., “When you’re mad you can squeeze your hands into a ball or stomp your feet instead of hitting your sister”) or asking them to explain the causes of their behavior (e.g., “Are you angry because she took your toy?”). Negotiation can also be included to acknowledge the child’s feelings and promote autonomous decision making (e.g., “Would it be okay if you gave your sister a turn when you’re done playing with the toy?”).
• Inductive discipline provides consistent structure and expectations, coupled with warmth and guidance, to help build self-awareness and self-control. As such, inductive discipline is associated with behavioral, social, and academic adjustment and promotes prosocial behavior, such as empathy.

Photo: Family Equality. Creative Commons.

How to practice gentle parenting

The gentle parenting components of empathy, respect, and understanding and the authoritative balance of responsiveness and demandingness (i.e., parental warmth and sensitivity coupled with a reasonable degree of control and discipline) create a foundation that can be applied to a variety of specific parenting situations. Gentle parenting focuses on acknowledging and supporting a child’s thoughts and emotions and offering them behavioral and coping tools. Gentle parents establish consistent rules and routines but are flexible and willing to compromise within reason.

Gentle parenting example

For example, imagine a child frequently asks to watch or engage with different screen media, getting upset when not allowed to do so, and the parent is questioning how much screen time to allow. A gentle parent might empathize with their child’s interest in screen media, gain a better understanding of media recommendations from experts (e.g., quantity and quality guidelines, parent monitoring and controls), and work with the child to develop a media schedule and plan that meets the child’s needs and the parent’s guidelines. This might include a plan for turning off screens when designated media time is over to promote regulated responses during this schedule transition (e.g., using a visible timer or 5-minute warning to avoid tantrums or demands for more viewing time).

The parent might also consider how to maximize screen-free time by building in family activities, encouraging outdoor time, and offering other enriching activities that help promote parent-child connection and child development. The gentle parent might periodically review and adapt the media plan as the child develops or other situations arise.

Avoiding punishment and not relying on rewards

Just as gentle parenting avoids using punishment, it also does not rely heavily on rewards. External material rewards, such as a small prize, are generally ineffective and actually reduce the likelihood of the behavior the parent means to encourage. Rewards undermine intrinsic motivation, or the child’s desire to engage in a behavior because it is inherently enjoyable or beneficial. For example, rewarding prosocial behavior like sharing makes the child less likely to perform that behavior in the future.

Using positive reinforcement

In lieu of rewards, gentle parenting naturally provides positive reinforcement through affection, warmth, connection, and gentle encouragement. Parents can also reinforce and praise in ways that help build self-confidence, self-regulation, and prosocial attitudes. In particular, process praise (e.g., “You were really working hard on that puzzle!”) is more effective than person praise (“You are so good at puzzles!”). Process praise provides specific feedback that helps children understand how to approach and persist in a task. Person praise, like material rewards, can reduce intrinsic motivation and teaches children that their self-worth depends on whether they do a “good job.”

Gentle parenting as a long-term approach

Importantly, any effective parenting approach requires patience, persistence, and flexibility. Gentle parenting is not a magic wand that will instantaneously alter child behavior. Parenting is a long game, and child development and learning require lots of repetition. Parents also evolve and adapt their parenting over time. Understanding your child as they go through different developmental stages requires continuous education. Gentle parents do not need to know everything about their child’s development at the start, but they are committed to learning and adapting with their child.

Photo: Pexels. Pixabay.

Challenges and limitations of the gentle parenting style

1. Focuses mostly on young children

One limitation of the popular literature on gentle parenting is that it focuses mostly on parenting young children (from birth to seven years) in areas of social and emotional development, with some discussion of physical development (e.g., feeding practices). However, research on authoritative parenting is extensive and demonstrates its application and benefits for school-aged children and adolescents. For example, gentle parents might have rules about household chores, curfews, peer and dating relationships, and so on, but adapt them to their child’s developmental level, discuss their rationale with the child, and consider the child’s input in establishing and modifying them.

Authoritative parenting has also been shown to benefit other areas of development, particularly cognition, learning, and academic achievement. Authoritative parents guide and scaffold learning as appropriate for their child’s age and avoid taking over or providing too much direction. In so doing, they promote independent exploration and problem solving.

2. May not apply to all children

An important question to ask of any parenting method is whether it applies to all children in all contexts. Literature on the gentle parenting approach includes minimal discussion of its effectiveness across individual or situational factors, but again, research on authoritative parenting provides insight. One child-specific factor to consider is a child’s temperament, which varies on several dimensions, such as fearfulness, emotional reactivity, and effortful control. Authoritative parenting is effective regardless of temperament, especially benefitting children with more “difficult” temperaments.

Nevertheless, the relationship between parenting and temperament is complex. It can vary depending on other factors, such as children’s gender or genetic predispositions, and can include bidirectional effects, with children’s behavior influencing parenting. For example, a child with high levels of negative emotionality (e.g., one who is easily frustrated or fearful) is more likely to elicit controlling parenting as parents try to contain or direct the child’s emotions. Consequently, adopting and maintaining a particular parenting style may unfold differently depending on child and family dynamics.

3. Can vary across socioeconomic and cultural contexts

Similarly, parenting can vary across socioeconomic and cultural contexts. Some research shows that the authoritative style is beneficial for child development across sociocultural contexts. However, authoritative parenting is somewhat of an anomaly that is found mostly in Western cultures. Authoritarian parenting is the norm in many Eastern cultures and among U.S. families of ethnic or racial minority or lower socioeconomic status. Questions about what is the “best” style must therefore consider the relevance of cultural values (e.g., respect for authority) and environmental factors (e.g., neighborhood safety).

The goals and values of the authoritative parenting style may also lead to different parenting behaviors in different sociocultural contexts. For example, imposing a strict curfew may be overly controlling (authoritarian) in one context but appropriately protective (authoritative) in another. Thus, when assessing parenting effectiveness or educating parents about gentle or authoritative parenting, it is important to consider how social contexts and culture may influence parenting style and practices.

4. Can increase pressure on the parent

Finally, a challenge for any parent is allowing mistakes and avoiding pressure to be the “perfect” parent. Some situations might naturally call for temporarily strict parenting, such as quickly pulling your toddler out of harm’s way when they are about to touch a hot flame or step onto a busy street. Explanation and discussion can be used after the event to incorporate gentle parenting. Parents may also find themselves wavering from gentle parenting in non-emergency situations, such as after a stressful day.

Instead of seeing this as faulty parenting, it can be viewed as an opportunity to reassess and adapt as needed. The parent may need to practice self-care to reduce stress, identify opportunities for co-parenting, or locate educational resources to learn more about their child’s behaviors and needs at their current age and adapt parenting as appropriate. Just as your child is developing, allow yourself the room to develop as a parent and acknowledge that parenting is a skill that can be honed over time.

Photo: Phinehas Adams. Unsplash.

Conclusion

Ample research supports the benefits of authoritative parenting and gentle parenting methods. However, parenting is complex, and a parent’s style and how they apply that style may differ depending on factors specific to the individual child or situation. Work in this area is still ongoing as researchers continue to ask new questions and acquire additional knowledge about parenting. Like the researcher who continues to uncover new information, gentle and authoritative parents are guided by a core style but continue to learn and adapt as their child develops and different situations arise along their parenting journey.

The post What is gentle parenting and is it good for children? appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Humans develop empathy in response to the basic need to care and we know that children who grow up with non-TD siblings often take on greater caregiving roles. We also know from other research that siblings influence each other’s development of empathy.

In the Israeli study, researchers measured cognitive empathy by asking children to score statements such as “I can often understand how people feel even before they tell me.”

“The researchers suggest that a child with a non-TD twin needs to develop better skills of understanding because of the difficulties their siblings experience – for example, with communication.”

The children could have said what they thought the researchers wanted to hear, but this is unlikely because they did not score higher than their peers on other measures of empathy, namely “emotional empathy” and “prosociality.” Emotional empathy – feeling others’ emotions rather than just understanding them – was measured by asking children to rate statements like “When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel protective toward them.” Prosociality was measured by inviting children to play a computer game that led to a choice about allocating points needed to earn a prize: “Which do you prefer? (1) To earn 20 points for yourself and not donate any points to children in need. (2) To earn 10 points for yourself and donate 10 points to children in need.”

Photo: yan Krukov. Pexels.

Why might a difference exist in cognitive empathy but not in emotional empathy? The researchers suggest that a child with a non-TD twin needs to develop better skills of understanding because of the difficulties their siblings experience – for example, with communication. Meanwhile, greater emotional empathy “might be disadvantageous for the empathizer’s adaptive functioning in a relationship with an individual in distress”.

The study focused on cognitive and emotional empathy toward others in general, not empathy toward children’s non-TD twin in particular.

The study involved 63 twin pairs drawn from a larger study of 778 families with 11-year-old twins. The non-TD twin siblings had a variety of conditions, including language-communication problems (12), cerebral palsy (5), autism spectrum disorder (2), hearing impairment (1), and visual impairment (1).

Whilst most earlier research on children with a non-TD sibling has focused on the negative impacts of having a non-TD sibling, some other studies have also found enhanced empathy, including studies of children with Down Syndrome and of siblings of children with autism. However, results of such research are not entirely consistent due to different methods of measuring and differences in the ages of the children (during childhood or later in adulthood).

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The nature of climate anxiety

Climate change worries people, youth included, in different ways. It threatens people and places we love. It threatens people far away and future generations, as well as nature and animals. For some it is already destroying their livelihoods, cultures, and well-being. Actually experiencing extreme weather events increases individuals’ commitment to taking action, as in the response of Indigenous people to drought (Australia), Inuit people to the loss of sea ice, Indian farmers to temperatures that destroy their crops, and Inupiat communities to flooding (NW Alaska).

How do children respond? Before adolescence, they may not have the capacity to comprehend the complexity and enormity of the problems. Ojala’s research finds that younger children are less prone to pessimism than older youth, who have greater capacity to comprehend the gravity of the situation.

The link between climate change worry and psychological well-being is not straightforward. Climate change anxiety can be associated with environment-friendly behaviors, as found in studies in Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. It does not reliably predict poor mental well-being. Children with higher self-efficacy, or who have less to worry about on a day-to-day basis, may be more likely to have enough energy to worry about climate change and have adequate resources to engage positively.

Parents and teachers have a vital role in shaping how children react to climate change anxiety.

How children deal with climate anxiety

In her research, which is based on questionnaire responses by children, youth, and young adults, Ojala has articulated three coping strategies.

Problem focused. Children and young people seek information about what to do and take individual action, such as cycling to school, eating less meat, and saving energy. The danger in this response is that the burden of individual responsibility can harm children’s well-being. Some children undertake actions together as a group, providing a sense of solidarity. Older children are more likely than younger children to make a problem-focused response, perhaps because they are more mature and have more individual agency.

Emotion focused. Children and young people seek to manage their emotions in response to the anxiety. A small proportion of children simply deny climate change. Others just avoid the information and distract themselves with other things. Yet others seek social support, discussing the issue with people around them. A few older youth ruminate darkly, vent anger, and fall into fatalism.

“Ojala presents three recommendations about what teachers and parents can do to support children to respond positively to climate change.”

Meaning focused. Children and young people seek out positive aspects of the situation, for example, the overall increase in global awareness and action or the probability of solutions being found eventually. They have trust – in the science, in technology, in what others are doing, in environmental organizations, and in politicians. A leading global youth campaign, Fridays for the Future, is founded on trust in science.

How teachers and parents can support children to engage with climate change

Ojala presents three recommendations about what teachers and parents can do to support children to respond positively to climate change. She argues that more evaluation of particular approaches is needed, but in the meantime, she builds on youth’s responses to her questionnaires.

1. Support a problem-focused response. Teachers should show concrete examples of pro-environmental behavior. Offering specific examples, rather than getting children to search for and plan actions, helps avoid the risk of children feeling the burden of individual responsibility. Teachers can encourage children to come together to build a sense of togetherness around action.
2. Support an emotion-focused response. Teachers and parents should take seriously children’s fears and emotions about climate change, acknowledging, validating, and encouraging discussion about them. Ojala recommends promoting “critical emotional awareness.” For example, children could be invited to consider what emotions are “allowed,” whose emotions are taken seriously, how boys and girls might react differently, why different children react differently, or the difference between individual and collective responses.
3. Support a meaning-focused response. Teachers can promote hope and trust by inviting climate actors from different generations into schools to share their contributions to tackling climate change. Teachers and parents can turn the discussion to one about values, such as caring for people who are suffering and for animals. These adults can introduce children and youth to opportunities to act collectively with other young people, for example, by taking part in youth climate campaigns.

As teachers and parents themselves become more aware of the climate crisis – driven largely by the campaigns of young people – the challenge of raising children in the shadow of such a threat becomes more and more acute. Ojala provides a useful set of actions that parents and teachers can take, based on what children and young people themselves say about what works.

The Climate Psychology Alliance lists resources and networks for young people, resources for parents, teachers and carers, and courses on climate psychology. 

The post Three Ways to Help Children Channel Climate Change Anxiety Into Positive Action appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Experiences that build resilience strengthen children who face adversities.

Adversity, such as abuse, neglect, and poverty, damages children. But protective experiences can build resilience against adversity and promote positive development.

We identified 10 relationships and resources proven to counter the impact of adverse experiences. They have hidden magic that can transform an otherwise miserable childhood. Perhaps a child has been abused and has an alcoholic or depressed parent – or both. Down the street lives a grandmother who provides safe harbor. Maybe a caring teacher or an athletics coach takes the child under her wing. These are just a few of many protective antidotes that can diminish the toxicity of adverse experiences. They mean that a child’s outcomes may turn out to be much better than expected in the face of difficult circumstances.

This list of PACEs – Protective and Compensatory Experiences – is based on more than common sense. The impact of such experiences is often identifiable through changes to the brain and in behaviors. For example, experiments with mice graphically demonstrate what can happen when a PACE repairs some of the damage caused by bad early experiences.

PACEs and genetic changes

 A new mother mouse placed after the she gives birth in an unfamiliar environment with inadequate bedding typically becomes abusive to her pups. She may step on her young, and stop licking or grooming them because she is stressed. These pups grow up and act in a depressed manner, and are more likely to be harsh and fail to nurture their own pups. However, when the pups are fostered by non-stressed, nurturing mothers, over time, the epigenetic change driving their abusive behaviors can be reversed.

“When children experience multiple forms of adversity, the impacts are magnified. Multiple protective experiences may also have a cumulative effect.”

We do not yet have data for humans on the epigenetic impact of switching from an adverse to a protective experience. However, infants raised initially in Romanian orphanages who were later fostered in nurturing homes showed developmental benefits that likely mirrored the neurobiological improvements observed in mice.

Our colleague, David Bard, professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, has demonstrated how positive parenting practices in thousands of U.S. families have buffered children against the impacts of adversity. Activities such as reading to children; ensuring they have routines; and taking them to shops, museums, and playgrounds were associated with better learning in preschool and fewer behavioral problems at school than would otherwise have been expected.

Top 10 protective and compensatory experiences

From research evidence, we have assembled a list of the top 10 types of relationships and resources that provide the PACEs that bolster children against adversity. These are detailed more extensively in our new book, Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences: A Developmental Perspective.

1. Receiving unconditional love: Not only do children need to be nurtured and loved, that love should feel unconditional. This does not mean that children never get in trouble or parents never get mad. The crucial point is that whatever a child does, the parent stays on the child’s side. As an infant, it means that when you cry, you get a response; your parents make eye contact with you and cherish you; and they sing, play, and talk with you. As a child, you can count on your parent’s eyes lighting up when you walk into the room; mom or dad always has your back. And when you grow older, it means that your parent sets limits and explains how things are done. There are many ways to express unconditional love.
2. Having a best friend: Close friendship offers protection from peer rejection, bullying, and victimization. This happens not just because a child has someone to talk to, but because it helps the child learn how to deal with conflict and grow a relationship over time. Children have a sense of being important and they have someone to go to.
3. Volunteering in the community: Volunteering helps children learn about the needs of others and gives them the opportunity to see a world outside their own. When they understand that helping is not done out of pity, it allows them to accept help from others when they need it.
4. Being part of a group: Being in a group gives children a sense of belonging outside the family. It allows children and teenagers to learn about themselves in different contexts, and provides opportunities for friendship and leadership. Taking part in school clubs and sports is linked to academic success, psychological well-being, and lower rates of substance abuse.
5. Having a mentor: Having an adult other than a parent who can be trusted and counted on for help and advice helps protect against psychological distress and academic difficulties, and reduces the incidence of high-risk activities. Even if children have exemplary parents, an adult outside the home can be an alternative role model to whom children can aspire and is a reminder that someone else loves them.
6. Living in a clean, safe home with enough food: These primary needs are crucial. Good, regular nutrition is important for brain development and protects against health problems; eating dinner regularly with your family reduces the risk of weight problems. Chaotic, unpredictable home environments are associated with harsh and inconsistent parenting. Children who live in unclean, cluttered homes have worse outcomes than those living in clean, organized homes.
7. Getting an education: Just like living in a clean, safe home, the opportunity to learn and be educated in an environment with boundaries and rules also protects children from risk. High-quality early childhood programs make a lasting difference to outcomes for children from low-income families.
8. Having a hobby: Whether it is playing an instrument, dancing, doing judo, reading, or playing chess, any recreational activity helps teach self-discipline and self-regulation, and can provide children and youth with a routine and a sense of mastery, competence, and self-esteem.
9. Engaging in physical activity: Being physically active helps children handle the physiological effects of stress on the body, and improves mood and mental health. In so doing, it reduces the likelihood that children will grab a bag of chips or lash out to relieve stress.
10. Having rules and routines: Security comes when children know what to expect and when caregivers enforce clear rules and limits. Children cannot parent themselves; they need high expectations, consistency, and parents’ involvement. In early childhood, this means that parents should establish and enforce bedtime and other routines, redirect children when they misbehave, and as children grow up, explain the effects of their behavior on others.

Photo: Anna Earl. Unsplash.

We know that when children experience multiple forms of adversity, the impacts are magnified. Likewise, multiple protective experiences may have a cumulative effect for children, though the power of this accumulation requires further study.

PACEs matter for all children

Adverse experiences can happen anywhere to anyone — the rich as well as the poor. All children should have access to experiences that bolster and protect them. Children from more well-to-do families who face adverse experiences, such as family break-up, mental illness, and substance abuse, are more likely to have compensatory experiences. These might be opportunities to participate in clubs, have tutors, go to drama classes, choose to play an instrument, and have teachers and coaches who really care about them.

“Down the street lives a grandmother who provides safe harbor. Maybe a caring teacher or athletics coach takes the child under her wing. These are just a few of many protective antidotes that can diminish the toxicity of adverse experiences.”

In contrast, children in families living in high-crime and high-poverty neighborhoods might lack access to protective experiences because their families have insufficient money or time. These children face a double jeopardy – more adversity and less compensatory protection. Their difficulties have increased in recent decades as many PACE resources, such as youth sports and activities, have become increasingly expensive.

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized how alone many parents are as they try to help their children gain access to PACEs. Parents have struggled to support their children’s learning at home, grappling with isolation; lack of routines; inadequate opportunities for exercise and hobbies; and in some cases, lack of enough food to keep children healthy.

The pandemic reminds us that promoting childhood development is about much more than preventing adversity. We need to think more about how to ensure that children have the good things in life so they are less likely to be hindered by what can go wrong.

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Children need to be empowered to seek help about bullying and to be helpful.

When my daughter was in the second grade, the boys started a silly game during recess of grabbing the girls’ coats at the neck to stop them in their tracks. Of course, after a few days, the girls “told on them” – complaining to the teacher on playground duty about the boys choking them. The teacher’s well-meaning response was to tell the girls to play near her so they would be safe. The girls went on to tell their own teacher who, in turn, told the boys’ teacher, but the game continued. My daughter then told me – a child psychologist who is supposed to know what to do! We decided to write to the principal for help. My daughter dictated and I wrote it all down. She took the note to the principal and the game stopped. What is the point here? Seeking help is important for children, and the other side of this interaction is that adults need to respond to children’s requests for help.

“Our children deserve to feel safe at school. How can schools and parents work together to prevent conflicts before they become bullying?”

Conflict is normal in children’s interactions with their peers at school – just as it is normative in our interactions with other adults at work, at home, and in the grocery store. Not all peer conflict is bullying or results in bullying, but repeated aggression that targets children who are perceived as less powerful or different in some ways (often due to gender, race, ethnicity, disability, behavioral problems, or mental health) is bullying. Our children deserve to feel safe at school. How can parents work with their own children and schools to prevent conflicts before they become bullying?

Our own research highlights two social behaviors of children that make a difference in reducing aggression and emotional problems and in enhancing school climate. We call these social responsibility and prosocial leadership. The former is essentially about being a cooperative social member of a classroom or family, while the latter is about facilitating others’ work and well-being, and looking for opportunities to help. These two protective factors are incompatible with bullying and victimization of peers, and they can be enhanced by both home and school activities.

Photo: ihtatho. Creative Commons.

Consider how these two prosocial behaviors of children might work in families. Does your family generally cooperate in making your family environment positive, safe, and fair? Do the children in your family generally have opportunities to make valued contributions to your family’s everyday life? Sometimes? No? Yes?  Creating a positive family climate is a lifelong endeavour that encounters both smooth winds and heavy storms. It is not static. All family members from all kinds of family structures have changing needs and different abilities to contribute to overall family well-being. Children’s abilities to contribute reflect differences in their ages, but also differences in their sense of belonging to a cooperative team that is trying to create well-being for everyone.

How? One factor that can make a difference is to find a way to open conversations about conflict and conflict resolutions. Being part of your family’s well-being requires that you have input into its functioning. Responding to conflicts and aggressions with silence allows conflicts to be repeated unchanged. Having a family plan for managing the inevitable day-to-day conflicts of interpersonal interactions is as important as having a plan for fire prevention or emergency responses. In my intervention research, we have developed and tested a plan that is working in schools, with family support. The WITS Programs open conversations about conflict by using a common language. WITS stands for Walk Away, Ignore, Talk it out, and Seek help. When adults respond with this practiced, common language, we present conflicts as solvable. “Did you use your WITS?” or “What WITS did you try?” The program also identifies “WITS PICKS,” children’s books in the popular domain that present conflicts in which children have opportunities to talk about how they handled them and what else they could do. Many of the books are read online and are free to access.

“One thing that can make a difference is to find a way to open conversations about conflict and conflict resolutions.”

Using your WITS is not the only way to have open conversations about conflict. Many families establish their own routines, like reflecting on and talking out conflicts when everyone is calm or at bedtime, making a siblings plan for taking turns, and valuing family kindnesses and contributions Families can also talk about movies and TV programs in which the characters resolve conflicts. Thinking about what you do in your family and making these routines visible to children is important. Young children like to know what is the right thing to do. Seeking help can be rejected as “tattling” or embraced as problem solving.

Children need to be empowered to seek help and to be helpful. Parents can create opportunities and family cultures that make a difference in their abilities to resolve conflicts, and they can support schools in their efforts to do the same. By opening conversations about resolving conflict at home and in school, you can help your own children enhance their social responsibility and prosocial leadership, which can make a difference in improving school cultures.

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According to the World Health Organisation, children will suffer 80% of the illnesses, injuries and deaths attributable to climate change.

“The well-being and even survival of today’s children are at risk, ” according to a paper on the impacts of the climate crisis on children and youth from the Society for Research in Child Development.

What do children suffer?

According to the World Health Organisation, children will suffer 80% of the illnesses, injuries and deaths attributable to climate change. Children are harmed by both sudden climate change events (e.g., floods and fires) and long-term climate changes (e.g., droughts and rising sea levels). Children will experience:

• Heat-related illness
• Exposure to environmental toxins
• Infectious, gastrointestinal and parasitic diseases that spread in warmer temperatures
• Malnutrition
• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (an example: after the floods in Pakistan in 2010, 73% of 10- to 19-year-olds displayed high levels of PTSD)
• Depression and anxiety
• Sleep problems
• Cognitive deficits and learning problems

Past research has shown that children’s reactions to extreme weather events include distress, grief, anger, loss of identity, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, higher rates of suicide, and increased aggression and violence.

All these are direct impacts of climate change. Then there are indirect impacts: food shortages, intergroup conflict, economic dislocation and forced migration. Younger children are impacted when their parents’ well-being is undermined. For example, after hurricanes, levels of domestic violence rise. Children’s education is also jeopardized; flooding and droughts are followed by declines in school attendance. Forced migration is followed by trauma and behaviour problems among children.

Things are worse for children in low- and middle-income countries

Low- and middle-income countries are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, both through their geographical position and because they have less infrastructure and capacity to respond to climate change. Eighty-five percent of the world’s children live in these regions. Climate change is described as the single biggest threat to development throughout the world, undermining the sustainable development goals set for poverty, hunger, health and well-being, education, water and sanitation, peace and justice.

How children should be supported (but are not)

The key to supporting children and young people in such circumstances is to give them agency. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children have the right to participate in and influence decision-making processes that are relevant to their lives.

Yet this has not happened to any significant extent. There have been few adult-initiated programs to help young people respond to the threats of climate change, and little research in this area. Few resources are available to guide parents and other adults about what do to for children.

In response, perhaps unsurprisingly, young people have taken matters into their own hands. All over the world, theyhave taken action.

As just one example—other than the best known of all, Greta Thunberg—in 2018, 25 young plaintiffs won a case in the Colombian Supreme Court against deforestation in the Amazon on the grounds that it threatened their rights to a healthy environment. Millions of children are now demonstrating all over the world.

These youth activists are showing the psychological value of taking action to address the crisis – they commonly report how taking action has helped them deal with their previously debilitating anxiety, fear and anger, and has built their resilience and hopefulness as well as teaching them many life skills.

What adults must do for child development in the face of climate change

Such action by children and young people cannot absolve adults of responsibility, particularly given that if this generation of leaders fail to take effective action, it will be too late.

Those who support child development globally should focus on the 85% of children in the developing world – those most affected by climate change. However, all children will need to cope with climate change impacts, and with the massive changes involved in the shift to a zero-carbon economy.

Key skills that young people will need in the future include empathy, belief in social justice, adaptability and creativity, negotiation and conflict-resolution, collaboration, and civic engagement.

Developmental psychologists need to ensure that the climate crisis is comprehensively covered in psychology education and training. Funding bodies should prioritise research and support for children around climate change.

Finally, child development scientists should themselves become involved in advocacy and education of decision-makers, colleagues and the public about the magnitude of the threat of climate change to today’s children.

“The climate crisis represents a massive threat to our children’s well-being and survival. As such, it poses an unprecedented challenge to those with responsibility for the well-being of children and youth, and requires us to take on new roles as a matter of urgency,” the paper says.

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The social effects of video games are hard to decipher. In this Norwegian study, more electronic gaming at 10 years old was linked to less social competence two years later, but only for girls.

Research in Norway into the social effects of video games, following 873 children from age six to age 12, found two main correlations:

• More electronic gaming at 10 years old is linked to less social competence two years later, but only for girls.
• More social competence at ages eight and 10 is linked to less gaming two years later, for both boys and girls.

The researchers also explored whether video games might increase social competence, but they found no evidence of this.

The social effects of video games on children are a legitimate concern, given the impact of these games on real-life social interaction through which essential social skills are learned, such as listening, responding, recognising non-verbal cues, sharing and cooperating, being appropriately assertive, and regulating one’s emotions and behaviors.

Why would video games have negative social effects for girls more than for boys?

Earlier research has found possible negative effects of video games to include less time spent with friends and social difficulties among adolescents and young adults. Conversely, some research has evidence of positive effects if video games are played with real-life friends or on-ine acquaintances. Many contemporary games are interactive and social, requiring collaboration and self-control.

The research from Norway shows that boys play video games far more than girls do, something found in numerous studies. They are also much more likely to play in the company of their friends, making video games part of their culture and socialisation. So, whilst more gaming with friends was not linked to higher social competence, nor was it linked to lower social competence.

For girls, the effects of video games are likely to be more negative because gaming is rarely part of socialisation among girls. Those who participate are likely to have fewer girls to play with. This same insight into the potential effects of video games on girls has been found in other studies.

It should be noted that in this study, as in many others, girls were on average more socially competent than boys.

Why a link between less social competence and more gaming?

Although people commonly ask how video games affect children, equally important is the question of the influences the other way round: How do children’s social competences influence video gaming?

The researchers offer three possible explanations for the link between reduced social competence at ages eight and 10 and more gaming two years later.

• The need to belong. Children who struggle with face-to-face interactions may go online to connect in ways that are easier and psychologically safer. They can maintain anonymity, there are fewer nonverbal cues to decode, and they have more control.
• The need to escape. Video games are extremely absorbing.
• The need for mastery and achievement. Low-esteem in real-life may create the need to achieve elsewhere. Other research has found a link between low self-esteem and video gaming.

The study raises new questions. Are the social effects of video games different depending on the nature of social gaming ? How children interact with each other may be important, rather than just how much they interact, which was all that was examined in this study. And, of course, social effects may not be the only consequence of video games – cognitive development, for example, may be influenced also. The characteristics of individual children and their home environments are also likely to be important.

More than 95% of the 873 children in this study were Norwegian/Western. They were tested at the ages of six, eight, 10 and 12. Their gaming was measured through interviews with parents and children, and their social competence was measured through interviews with teachers.

The amount of video gaming among the children in this sample was lower than the average for Norway, where 96% of boys and 76% of nine- to 16-year-olds play video games. Just over half of Norwegian nine- to 16-year-olds play two hours or more a day and 8% play over four hours a day.

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How empathy is developed in toddlers is important for later social development in children – greater empathy in toddlerhood is linked to later popularity, friendship quality and social competence.

The development of empathy in toddlers is important for children’s later social development in children – greater empathy in toddlerhood is linked to later popularity, friendship quality and social competence. A new study helps us understand the role that mothers and fathers play in this process.

The experimenters observed 156 British two-year-olds with their mother or father responding to a life-like baby doll starting to cry in the same room. The researchers found that the more the parent talked to the toddler about the crying, the more attention the toddler gave to the baby. When parents talked more, the toddler was more likely to describe the emotion they saw in the baby – being “sad”. They found no differences in how mothers and fathers talked to their boys or girls.

The similarity of empathy responses between boys and girls and between mothers and fathers was striking. Only one small difference was observed between boys and girls—girls offered a verbal description of the emotion of the crying baby (e.g., “sad”) more often than boys did. And two very small gender differences were observed among the four possible combinations of boy/girl, mother/father. Boys expressed more distress in the presence of their mother than their father, and girls demonstrated more empathic concern in the presence of their father than their mother. Perhaps by the age of 24 months, boys are already starting to constrain their expressions of distress in the presence of an adult man. Similarly, perhaps girls have already become used to seeing their mothers engaged in soothing activities and hang back more if they are with their mother.

The study confirmed one important finding also found in other research on how empathy is developed: there is a big difference between a toddler showing distress in response to a crying baby and the same toddler showing an empathic response. Some toddlers show distress and are able to contain their response and go on to respond to the baby in a concerned way. For others, the distress becomes too much and they cannot interact with the crying baby, focusing instead on their own distress. There is a link between showing distress and showing empathy only when the toddler shows the capacity to understand and describe the situation.

The study took place in the East of England amongst educated families recruited before their child’s birth in local hospitals. The life-like doll was introduced by the researcher (as “George” to boys and “Charlotte” to girls) and put down for a nap close to where the toddler and parent were to play. The parent was instructed to respond to their toddler’s interest when the remotely controlled baby started to cry, but not to respond if the toddler did not. The toddler’s empathy reactions were measured: their attention to the crying baby, their personal distress, the labelling of the baby’s emotions (“sad”, “hungry”, etc.) and their spontaneous action to help the baby. Everything about the situation was set up the same way for mothers and fathers.

Toddlers’ empathy responses varied widely in the study: 70% showed attention to the crying baby, 39% displayed moderate or strong distress, and 44% described the baby’s feelings. Only 14% acted spontaneously to help the crying baby. Toddlers who offered a description of the baby’s feelings were more likely to display a spontaneous action to help the crying baby. Meanwhile, in line with previous observations, there was no correlation between a distress response and a show of empathy. In contrast to earlier research, no gender differences were observed between boys and girls, other than the slightly greater likelihood that girls would use words to describe the baby’s emotions.

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What is social emotional development?

When social emotional development has proceeded well, children develop five key social and relationship skills. These include:

Self-awareness

They recognize their emotions, describe their interests and values, and accurately assess their strengths. They have a well-grounded sense of self-confidence and hope for the future.

Self-management

They manage stress, control impulses, and persevere in overcoming obstacles. They can set and monitor progress toward personal and academic goals and express their emotions appropriately in a wide range of situations.

Social awareness

Their social learning enables them to take the perspective of and empathize with others and recognize and appreciate individual and group similarities and differences. They seek out and appropriately use family, school, and community resources.

Relationship skills

They establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships based on cooperation. They resist inappropriate social pressure; constructively prevent, manage, and resolve interpersonal conflict; and seek and provide help when needed.

Responsible decision-making at school, at home, and in the community

In making decisions, they consider ethical standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms, respect for others, and the likely consequences of various courses of action. They apply these decision-making skills in academic and social situations and are motivated to contribute to the well-being of their schools and communities.

Adapted from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

The social emotional development journey: baby steps

The first steps of social emotional development are gaze, attachment, attention and gestures.

1. Gaze

Even before birth, babies react to projections of faces through the abdomen into the womb. They will gaze into the eyes of their mother and father within days of being born. At 4-5 months, babies will stop smiling and frown if their carer stops smiling or smiles at the wrong time relative to the activity they are both engaged in. The foundations of relationship skills are being laid.

Photo: Shutterstock.

2. Attachment

Attachment is a cornerstone of early social emotional development. The strong emotional bonds that form between infants and caregivers over the first year of life are referred to as attachments, which are based on children’s experience with their caregivers. The originator of the idea of attachment, John Bowlby (1958), observed in the 1950s that infants go through a period between about 6 and 30 months when they require the care and proximity of one or two key people, known as “attachment figures”. Emotional learning starts within these intensely emotional relationships. Patterns of everyday love and care set up the infant’s expectations of how particular caregivers will respond to them. Bowlby called these “internal working models”.

3. Joint attention

This is the ability to home in on another person’s point of view while they are describing or pointing at something, such as a toy or book. It starts around the age of one. The baby learns gradually to switch attention between the carer and the object. Babies will also start to look to the carer when they don’t understand a situation, possibly as a bid to get information or just comfort. Joint attention is a foundation for relationship skills.

4. Intentional gestures

At this stage of social emotional development, around the first year, infants start to point at things. Some months later, they start to use head movements, for example, to indicate yes and no. Gestures can be learned through imitation, such as waving and nodding; others are not necessarily what carers are doing, such as lifting the arms.

Social emotional development: preschoolers’ social learning of others’ perspectives

The next key stage in the social emotional development journey is the emergence of an understanding of others’ perspectives.

The “false belief” test is one measure of this understanding. The child is presented with the story of Maxi, who returns home from shopping with his mother, and, before going out to play, puts his chocolate away. While he is outside, his mother moves the chocolate. When Maxi gets hungry and returns for his chocolate, where will he look for it and/or were will he think it is? A five-year-old will know immediately that Maxi will look for it where he left it, but a three-year-old will incorrectly claim that Maxi will look for it where Maxi’s mother put it.

Another test that a three-year-old is unlikely to pass involves showing something to them that looks like a stone and which they identify as a stone. But once they touch it, they discover it is a sponge. Three-year-olds will then claim they knew it was a sponge all along and that another child would think it is a sponge too.

As children develop, they reach higher levels of social learning.

Photo: Shutterstock.

For example, the “faux pas” test is a measure of a child’s reaction to a situation in which a child says he does not like a picture and then realises he is standing next to the child who drew it. Social learning involves recognising the embarrassment and the feelings of the budding artist.

Six stages of social learning in childhood

Two researchers, Henry Wellman and David Liu (2004), developed a five-stage test of social understanding up to five to six years of age.

1. Grasping that people may want different things (diverse desires).
2. Understanding that different people may have and act on different beliefs about the same thing when it is not known whether these beliefs are true or false (diverse beliefs).
3. Appreciating that a lack of visual access results in not knowing something (knowledge access).
4. False belief understanding, as described above.
5. Grasping that the emotions that someone experiences may be different from what they display (hidden emotion).

More recently, a sixth stage has been added: understanding sarcasm, which is reported to emerge when a child is six to nine years old.

Emotional learning: the development of empathy

Empathy is the emotional reaction to another’s feelings. Reacting emotionally to another’s distress starts very early, before babies are one year old.

Researchers have observed four stages in the emotional learning of empathy:

1. Global empathic distress. A baby cries when another baby cries.
2. Egocentric empathic distress (11-12 months). As in the first stage, but the babies do something to soothe themselves, like seek refuge with their father.
3. Quasi-egocentric empathic distress (12-14 months). The toddler will attempt to soothe the distress of the other child.
4. Veridical empathy (two years). Toddlers will bring distressed children something to comfort them, like their own teddy bear.

Other research has shown that babies as young as 8-10 months show facial and vocal responses to the distress of another.

Parents who actively encourage emotional learning in their children, helping them see the perspectives of others, have children with more empathic skills. Children who are not just told the rules, but who are made aware of the consequences for others of their own actions, tend to have greater empathy and a feeling of responsibility for the feelings of others.

Relationship skills: prosociality or being nice to others

A key area of current research is the emergence of prosocial behaviour in children: that is, when one person acts for the benefit of another.

Toddlers around the age of 14 and 18 months typically love to help their parents with housework and picking up dropped objects, often so enthusiastically that it becomes very difficult to get any housework done at all. This may, however, not be prosocial, but just a desire to be involved in the activity.

Photo: Shutterstock.

Two-year-olds will stop playing to help someone, even if that person does not realise they need help – for example, if they have dropped something unknowingly.

Parents’ encouragement of helping in the home is associated with greater social understanding in children later. Giving a 20-month-old a reward for prosocial behaviour actually decreases the helping behaviour, whereas praise strongly encourages it. These things happen irrespective of a child’s temperament.

Nine influences on social emotional development in children

Social emotional development in childhood is a gradual process of social learning and emotional learning through activity and talking about the activity.

Culture

Children’s rate of social learning varies significantly, as does the age at which they are able to pass the false belief test. Australian and Canadian children understand false belief, on average, a little before British or American children. Austrian and Japanese children lag further behind. In some communities, children will pass the test only at the aged of eight, for example, Samoan children, Junin Quechaun children in Peru, Mofu children in Cameroon, or the Tola and Tainae children of Papua New Guinea.

Interestingly, authoritarian parenting reduces performance in the false belief test in European Americans, but not in Korean-American families where they a positively related.

Siblings

Interaction with siblings helps social learning and relationship skills. Children with siblings progress some months ahead of children without siblings, though the varied results from research suggests that more than just the fact of having siblings is involved. The quality of the interaction may be important. For example, a child with older siblings may be more exposed to discussions about what others know and don’t know. Also, the impact of siblings is less on a child with already advanced language abilities. One theory is that siblings help generate greater self-awareness through more frequent references to “me” and “mine”.

Play

Pretend play involves making plans and assigning roles, and this may develop social learning and relationship skills. It may also be a factor in the sibling effect.

Peers

Popular children tend to be better at the false belief test and children who have been rejected by peers tend to do worse on the faux pas test. It is unclear which way cause and effect are working here. Lack of friendship and a low level of social learning could contribute to each other.

Child characteristics

A shy and socially fearful temperament is associated with more advanced social understanding in preschool, though the evidence is not entirely consistent.

Blindness and deafness

An inability to see or hear delays social learning, though this is not the case for deaf children with deaf parents who communicate well with them, suggesting that language is important for social learning.

Parent-child interaction

The way that parents interact with their children and use language influences the children’s social development. Responsive conversations, with organised give and take, contribute to social understanding. So do conversations about thinking, desires, emotions and intentions.

Parents with more advanced social understanding have children with better social learning. Parents who talk to their children more about others’ feelings have children who do better on the false belief test. Authoritarian parenting, characterised by shouting and physical punishment, is associated with less social learning.

Earlier attachment

Children who have enjoyed secure attachment in their first year will tend to do better in the false belief test when they are five.

Mind mindedness

If a parent describes their child as someone with a mind, rather than just a physical being – so-called “mind mindedness” – and use psychological terms to describe their children, the children are likely to pass the false belief test at an earlier age. Hearing psychological terms used to explain and elaborate social events improves children’s social understanding. A mediating factor here is the higher language skills of these children.

Social emotional development: the role of language

Language has been shown to play a very important role in the whole process of social emotional development in the early years. Advanced language skills are linked to better performance on the false belief test, for example.

Purposefully teaching children the meaning of mental-state words, such as know, think, wonder, and figure out, has a positive impact on understanding of emotion at age three and performance in the false belief test at age four.

The benefits of strong social emotional development: good relationship skills

Does a child who does better in the false belief test or the faux pas test have better relationship skills and a better social life with friends? The answer is yes. Such a child is likely to have better relationship skills, engage less in conflict, use more sophisticated arguments in response to others’ perspectives and interests, have better close friendships, and be less likely either to bully or be bullied. Greater social understanding and relationship skills are not linked to premeditated proactive use of aggression, but they are linked to the more unthinking reactive form.

Photo: Shutterstock.

Some of these associations are small – for example, only 4% of the variance in peer popularity could be linked to difference in performance on the faux pas test.

Advanced social emotional learning: morality

Jean Piaget

In The Moral Judgement of the Child (1932/1965), Jean Piaget discussed children’s understanding of the rules of the game and their judgement of bad behaviours. He proposed that morality emerges as children develop relationship skills with peers.

Piaget observed how children play with marbles:

• At three years, children tend to be unaware of any rules.
• Between three and six years, children are inconsistent about rules and their application.
• From the age of seven, children understand the rules.
• From the age of nine, children start to understand that rules are not simply handed down from on high, but are agreed by mutual consent.
• From the age of 11, children master the rules completely and police them.

These are only approximate ages for the children Piaget interviewed. He thought that what is important in moral development are relationships of cooperation among equals. These are best suited for understanding others and working out a solution that is good for all. In contrast, within relationships of constraint, children have difficulty understanding others’ perspectives, so these relationships are not well suited for moral development.

Lawrence Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg took another approach. He maintained that the key to morality is not behaviour itself but the reasons that a person has for behaving that way. For example, not paying taxes could be a selfish means of cheating the state, or an unselfish stand against the way the state uses the money.

Kohlberg posed painful moral dilemmas, often choices about who should be allowed to die in a situation with two possibilities. He then observed how people respond to them.

He described six stages or world views.

1. Might is right. Rules must be followed, and disobedience should be punished.
2. Do to others what you would want them to do to you.
3. Do to others as if they were yourself, with the perspective extending to family and friends only.
4. Communities need accepted rules to prevent breakdown, and these should be broken only in the most extreme cases.
5. Rules should be defined by fundamental human rights. The question should always be asked: are current rules and laws moral?
6. Everyone affected by a rule should have a say in how that rule is put in place and implemented.

Kohlberg observed that most adults reach stage 3 or 4, and few reach 5 or beyond. He believed that moral development occurs as people encounter situations where the current rules break down and they are faced with new moral dilemmas.

Objections raised to Kohlberg’s theory include:

• People are not always consistently in one stage at a time.
• Some cultures place more emphasis than others on social solidarity, harmony relationships and deep affection for others. This affects how rules are applied.
• The stages are not necessarily hierarchical. There are very good people who help others in their communities and yet are at stages 3 and 4.

Morality versus social conventions

Not all rules are the same, and children learn this early. Some rules are social conventions – calling a teacher “Mr” or “Mrs”, wearing a school uniform, how to hold a knife and fork. But other rules are moral, including those relating to protecting others from harm, such as not stealing or not fighting. Children as young as three years understand the difference between these types of rules.

Some have criticised both Piaget and Kohlberg for mixing up the learning of social conventions and morality. “Domain theory” holds that they are separate processes from the outset, though this idea creates the problem of rules that are somewhere in between, such as lining up and dressing in a way that may offend others.

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