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
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Content: Helping Children Build a Conscience
Helping Children Build a Conscience
Most of us who live in this culture are all too familiar with a growing number of events and stories involving children and teens that commit crimes. The Columbine tragedy has left us with a deep sense of sadness as well as horror about what can happen when children grow up without a secure sense of being valued, and with an inability to feel connected to those around them. The news is full of stories about children who have infringed on the rights of others, sometimes very seriously. We are witnessing a growing phenomenon in which unconscionable acts perpetrated by children and teens are landing them in adult court, and often, adult prisons, sometimes for life! Certainly the media has exaggerated these incidents in our minds, yet we cannot deny the terrible human waste and suffering that is experienced on some level by all of us when these incidents occur. This is a rather somber beginning for this article, but timely in the sense that it is more important than ever to make sure that in our work as parents, we do our very best to help our children develop a full and operating conscience. Their happiness and self-fulfillment, along with the health of our society, depend upon it. When Does One's Conscience Develop? Before launching into this discussion, it is necessary to come up with some rudimentary definition of what we mean when we talk about one's conscience. Generally, people link having a conscience with knowing the difference between right and wrong, being able to empathize with others, feeling remorse when causing an other's pain, and having the capacity to inhibit behavior that is unlawful or unethical.