A child’s need of direction for their human spirit includes acquiring basic ethics to guide the way they live. Part of the role of a caregiver is that of a teacher. We teach morals in the very same way we teach life skills.
If you are teaching a child to clean up the dishes, you don’t say, “How do you feel like this should be done? What seems right to you?”
You show them, you let them try it, you provide corrective feedback, you show them again, you let them try it again, and so on. It’s incredibly repetitive, they often don’t do a good job for quite a while, and it’s certainly more difficult than simply washing the dishes yourself. But that’s how people learn.
As caregivers, we provide children with modeling, direction, and feedback.
We demonstrate patience and a tolerance of mistakes during the learning process, and offer praise when the child makes a good effort or achieves a goal. This is the fun part of directing kids: seeing their excitement when they can show off a new skill, seeing their confidence increase as they say “I can do it!”
And we do it as life unfolds.
We teach right and wrong the very same way as we teach life skills. We keep living in the moment, focused on building character, on strengthening conscience–theirs and ours–as we walk with them through their daily life of schoolwork, recreation, relationships, and lessons.
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- A child’s need of direction for their human spirit includes basic ethics to guide the way they live. Click to Tweet
- We teach children right and wrong the very same way as we teach them life skills. Click to Tweet