Newsletter Volume 25 - August 28, 2002
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Back to school! Those of us who are parents are busy outfitting our children with everything they will need for the upcoming school year - from shoes and sweaters to pencils and notebooks. What they will need most, however, is something we - and only we - can provide, but not something we can buy them. Our children must start the school year equipped with a moral orientation which will enable them to face moral challenges, act honestly, treat others kindly, and develop their best character traits.
Much is being written about the “moral vacuum in America.” The roots of the problem - and the solution - are in the moral education we confer on our children. Children who submit to peer pressure to cheat or shun another child grow up to become corporate CFOs who submit to pressure from their higher-ups to fudge the company’s financial figures. (A recent survey found that one out of six CFOs admit to being thus pressured.)
While we can relegate our children’s algebra education to professional teachers, their moral education is totally in our hands.
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Quote of the Week:
“Values are tapes we play on the Walkman of the mind.”
--Jonathan Sacks
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Your Child Could Be Armed and Dangerous!
What would you do if you discovered that your child is carrying a weapon to school? Every child carries a weapon to school: his or her words. Here’s the kind of damage your child can inflict with that weapon:
- Calling names
- Making fun of others
- Gossiping
- Shunning
- Criticizing
Every school day millions of American children come home wounded, sometimes for life. How can you teach your child to refrain from hurting other children with words?
- Educate yourself. Take time to give serious thought to your own values. Systematize them. Then devise a program for passing them on to your children. A book such as Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing by Michele Borba, or To Kindle a Soul by Lawrence Kelemen takes your kids’ moral education out of the realm of free-floating and invests it with the seriousness it deserves.
- Spend one-on-one time with each child. Numerous studies correlate a person’s level of morality with the amount of individualized time his parents spent with him during his childhood years. For instance, studies by John Gottman of the University of Washington found that parents who are most successful in developing the characteristic of empathy in their children are those who are actively involved in their children’s lives and also emotionally available. Another study of women raised in Islington, England found that children raised by more responsive parents were twice as likely to have a positive self-image in their adult years. Since gossip and shunning are often the result of caving in to peer pressure, fostering your child’s strong self-image is the best way to equip her to say, “No, it’s wrong. I won’t do it.”
- Set the right example. If, when you child spills salad dressing all over the clean floor, you shout, “Slob!” how can you expect him not to call the overweight kid on the school bus, “Fatso!”? If your child hears you gossiping on the telephone, how can you expect her not to spread nasty rumors about other girls in her class? As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
All three of the above techniques require improving yourself before you can improve your child. So, it’s back to school for all of us!
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Food For Thought
Data File: Acts of violence in the public schools have become all too common today. The Public Agenda for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation found that 34% of teens at small schools (less than 500) and 46% of teens at larger schools (1500 or more) witness a "serious" fight at least once a month.
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Visit www.WordsCanHeal.org for more ideas on how to heal with words.
And spread the word! Send this message out today -- together we can make a difference!
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