Title: Helping Children Build a Conscience
Headings: Helping Children Build a Conscience
Helping Children Build a Conscience
When Does One's Conscience Develop?
The Process of Identification
Instruction and Training
Interactions with the Environment
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Content: The process begins with the initial attachment that is formed between you and your child soon after birth. The strength and quality of this attachment establishes the very foundation on which a conscience is eventually built. In short, children who don't feel that they are loved and cared for on a consistent basis by a parent will have some difficulty in developing empathy at a later age when he is able to begin to discriminate between his needs and those of others. If his own needs for love and dependency haven't been met, then he will be consumed by trying to get them fulfilled at the expense of others. As children move through childhood, the initial attachment expands into a more complex process of identification. It takes two different forms. On the one hand, the child directly imitates the characteristics of the parents. Obvious examples are copying certain mannerisms, styles of speech, methods for doing things, or any kind of habitual behavior that is often experienced by the child through observation. As we said in the beginning, "Monkey see, monkey do." The second form of identification is more about how children experience their parents as opposed to how they imitate them.