"The Power of Inductive Reasoning" by Laura E. Berk from her book Child Development

Conscience formation is promoted by a type of discipline called induction, in which an adult helps the child to notice other’s feelings by pointing out the effects of the misbehavior on others and noting especially that their distress was clearly caused by it.  For example:

·         “She’s crying because you won’t give her the teddy bear.”  Works better than “let’s share” because this promotes empathy and makes room for a greater understanding of how to work out the problem.

·         You can progress to explaining why the child’s actions were harmful by referring to the others’ intentions: “Don’t yell at him. That makes him feel sad.  He was trying to help you.”

·         With further cognitive advances, more subtle psychological explanations are possible: “He felt proud of his tower and you hurt his feelings when you knocked it down.” (p485)

The success of induction is the power to motivate children’s active commitment to moral norms by giving them tools to use in the future, creating a moment for empathy and reason to change their behavior, and points out consequences of harm to motivate making amends and deterring future transgressions.

We can use this same strategy for us as teachers as well.  Using this verbiage when communicating our feelings can be just as effective. 

“Sometimes warnings, disapproval, and commands are necessary to get an unruly child to listen to inductive messages…but this practice helps children to figure out what they should do and in turn, helps them to internalize prosocial norms.” (p485)

The Role of Guilt

            “By explaining that the child’s behavior is causing someone distress can be a means of influencing without coercion.  Empathy-based guilt reactions are associated with stopping harmful actions, repairing damage and engaging is future prosocial behavior.  At the same time, parents (and teachers) must help children deal with the guilt feelings constructively by guiding tehm to make up for immoral behavior rather than excusing it.” (a little bit of Freudian support…p486)

 

Modeling and Punishment

                “Moral behavior is acquired just like any other set of responses: through reinforcement and modeling”

Reinforcement for good behavior through approval, affection and other rewards is not enough to acquire moral responses.  To be reinforced a behavior must first occur spontaneously.  This may take a toddler seeing this demonstrated through adults.  Once children show examples, reinforcing the act may look like praise: “that was a very nice thing to do” or “you were being very considerate when you gave that toy back.”

 

“Fitting the punishment to the crime”:

A time-out can be moving into a different space until a child is ready to act appropriately or removing a privilege. (such as our stickers on the chart)

Consistency-when children can rely and predict an outcome of a misbehavior they will be less likely to repeat the behavior that receives the undesirable outcome.  This also helps in social interactions when an explanation of the distress that was caused is explained. 

Practicing Positive Discipline

1)      Use transgressions as opportunities to teach-motivate children to make amends for harmful or hurtful behaviors.

2)      Reduce opportunities for misbehavior-talk with your children, or bring activities they enjoy such as coloring during outings where you may lose your temper easiest.

3)      Provide reasons for rules-children appreciate rules when they see the reasoning and rational behind them.

4)      Arrange for children to participate in family routines and duties-joining in meals, washing, etc…children acquire skill, responsibility, confidence and independence.

5)       When obstinate, acknowledging feelings, compromise and problem solve-“I know its not fun to clean up, but if you put those away, I’ll help take care of this for you.”

6)      Encourage mature behavior-express praise for effort to foster pride.  Encourage them not to give up.  Don’t just finish a task for them, let them work it out.

7)      Be sensitive to physical and emotional resources-when child are ill, tired, or hungry they are likely to act more inappropriately.  Attending a child’s needs is more appropriate than discipline at this time.

*And remember to let a child explain their actions: sometimes what we assume to be morally correct in a given situation may have an alternative purpose in a child’s mind.

Moral construction: “actively attending to and interrelating multiple perspectives on situations in which social conflicts arise and thereby attaining new moral understandings” (p491)