GES PROMOTION ON LINE

FACILITATOR: KING SOLOMON

MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Moral development is the process of building up a value system necessary for making personal
decision in interpersonal relationships. These decisions help the individual to form personalities
that determines how they should behave in familiar as well as non-familiar situation.

Moral behaviour is that which is acceptable to the society or conforms to social expectations and
is good and virtuous. Various homes, cultures and even generations differ in what is acceptable
behaviour and attitude. Sometimes a behaviour that is acceptable in one culture may be regarded
as immoral in another culture. In spite of these differences there are certain values and
behaviours that are more or less universally upheld as good and virtuous and society all to
conform to these.

The importance of moral behaviour is seen in the fact that:

1. It creates an atmosphere of peaceful co-existence for the welfare of the group.

2. It also enables co-operation so that one can work with another in harmony.
3. It gives a sense of security because one is sure of society‟s approval of one‟s behaviours.

Stages of Moral Development

Various psychologists have identified several stages but this discussion will be based on
Kohlberg‟s stages of Moral Development Kohlberg L. has postulated three levels of moral
development with two stages at each level. In this way he has traced, through six sequential
stages, the path with moral development takes.

Level I: The Pre-Conventional Level

At this level the child‟s moral judgments are based on such external criteria as whether the
person is punished or not. The standards of right and wrong are absolute and laid down by
authority, such as parents or teachers.

Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience

Punishment and physical consequences provide cues to what is right or wrong. One obeys in
order to avoid punishment.

Stage 2: Instrumental Relativism Orientation (Naïve Egoism)

This is the orientation where things that bring pleasant results are good, and those that bring
unpleasant results are bad. An act is deemed good or bad to the degree that it promotes or
hinders satisfaction of needs and desires. There is an element of sharing and exchange of
favours – “You scratch my back and I will scratch yours”. The child will help someone else if
that person will help him in return. One obeys orders to gain rewards.

Level II: The Conventional Level

The child‟s judgments are based on the norms and expectation of the group. What the group
(family, society) says is right.

Stage 3: The Good Boy/Nice Girl Orientation

Good behaviour is that which pleases one‟s family, friends and neighbours, and one obeys in
order to gain their approval and to avoid their censure. To be moral is to be nice „person‟. The
emphasis is on conformity to group norms.

Stage 4: Authority Maintaining Orientation

This is a Law and Order stage. The focus here is the lager society. What is right is what the Law
says is right. The law is seen as fixed and laid down by an established authority. Doing one‟s
duty, respecting authority, and maintaining the social order as it already exists are all seen as
good.

Level III: Post-C0nventional Autonomous or Principles Level

At this level the child (now a young adult) recognizes the arbitrariness of social and legal
conventions. Laws are arbitrary and can be changed. The child attempts to define moral values
that are separate from the group norms.

Stage 5: Contractual Legalism

Right action is defined in terms of agreed standards. These reflect a general social consensus
and are embodied in social custom and law. One obeys in order to maintain one‟s sense of
reasoned impartiality.

Stage 6: General/Universal Principles of Conscience

At this stage what is right is defined in terms of ethical principles deemed to be universal and
which transcend particular groups; one follows these principles in order to maintain one‟s sense
of consistency and integrity.

Results relating Kohlberg‟s stages with children‟s age are not certain. The following tentative
figures have been suggested. Most children of ten years and below about (70 percent) operate on
level 1, by thirteen years, about 50 percent of children reach level2. By sixteen years, a little
over 30 percent have reached level 3, about 25 percent at stage 5 and about 6 percent at stage 6.

Agencies of Moral Development

The child is confronted by a number of agencies that influence the process of moral
development. These agencies include the home; the school, the peer group, the church or
religious organization; the media and the community.

The Home as an Agent of Moral Development

The home serves as the child‟s first social environment. His interactions with the parents and
siblings as well as the facilities available go to shape the child‟s moral development. The socio-
economic background of the home is one important factor. The child brought up in the lowest
socio-economic home environment may come to accept dishonesty as a natural part of his way of
life; while a child from a higher socio-economic background may well have a strong sense of
honesty.

The child who is well provided for usually has little occasions to resort to stealing to get what he
wants or needs, while the child who is not well provided for faces a stronger temptation to steal.
Again parental influence is powerfully exerted upon children in a number of ways. In one way,
parents servers as models for children. The child absorbs the values of the parents and makes
them his own.

In another way, parents give direct moral teaching in „dos‟ and don‟ts‟. When this teaching is
based on reasoning, the child learns from each offence why it is foolish and wrong, and so he is
helped to learn inductively from a number of situations, the general principle behind the “dos and
don‟ts”. This learning best takes place in a close and affectionate relationship.

Again in the home there are unconscious moral assumptions prevailing. Though seldom, if ever
spoken of, they are very powerful for being unconsciously absorbed by the child.

The school As An Agency of Moral Development

Schools with their invaluable opportunities to give children moral training can help through the
following ways.

1. Giving children opportunity to take much of the burden of care, both for themselves and
their belongings.
2. Children should be given opportunity to do things for others.
3. They should be made to take turns so that they can appreciate the rights of others.
4. Children should be given the opportunity to hear about other children‟s parents, other
children‟s interests and lives. This broadens their sympathy and understanding.
5. Handle first lies and first stealing properly so that other children do not imitate these
behavious. This applies also to all forms of deceit and cheating.
6. Inculcate proper respect for work into children. The individual‟s attitude to school work,
especially in the first three years of schooling, has an influence on a person‟s attitude to
work for the rest of his life.
 7. Sharing of school property, of teacher‟s time and attention and responsibilities.
8. Children should be should be helped to learn to co-operate with other children and
participate in group activities.
9. Learning how to accept defeat in games as a sportsman and how to react to failure at
school work as a challenge to greater effort.
10. Create situations that will enable the children to make contact with pupils of different
cultural backgrounds and so increase social tolerance.
11. Children should be trained to work for real rather than artificial goals. They should never
be motivated to achieve merits by dishonest means.

The Peer Group as an Agent for Moral Development

1. The peer group serves as a source of security and training ground for various
interpersonal skills required in adult life.
2. Through actual experience in the group, children learn how rules are made, changed and
also how to rule and be ruled.
3. The child learns to respect and obey group regulations and norms.
4. In the peer group children learn co-operation, as they work together to achieve their
goals.
5. They also develop a sense of responsibility.
6. The peer group acts as a teacher of sex roles e.g. Boys are taught how to relate to girls
and to guard them in times of needs; girls tend to teach how to dress to fit in the company
of boys.

The Media as Agencies for Moral Development

All the types of media: print, radio, T.V, Cinema, present to the child lessons in more
development which the child imbibes. There are both positive and negative effects but when
care is taken, the positive moral effects outweigh the negative.

The Church/Religious Bodies as Agents of Moral Development

1. Teaching of accepted behaviours through Sunday School and Koranic Schools

2. Preaching Sermons on morals during services.
3. Welfare services in the churches teach the youth to be caring e.g. Visiting the sick and
the bereaved.

Examples of some Basic Behaviour that Children should Acquire

The following are some types of moral behaviour which every child should be encouraged to
acquire.

1. Honesty: Honesty includes what the individual does to himself. Being true to oneself,
proper use of one‟s time, acceptance of one‟s weaknesses and strengths, and sincerity in
 one‟s relation with others are essential aspects of honesty. Uprightness, justice and
fairness and all dimensions of honesty.
2. Respect for the Property of others: A child steals when he cannot restrain himself
when confronted with the property of others. Stealing may be caused by the following{
a. Faulty training in self-control
b. The inability to distinguish between what is free, what is common property for the
whole class, and what is the property of others.
c. Physical needs e.g. hunger
d. Seeing other steal and getting away with it, not having any punishment.
e. Attention – seeking behaviour for fame, status and excitement.
f. Fulfillment of deep-seated emotional needs, as revenge on parents, teachers and other
adults or on companions.
g. As a means of resolving repressed emotional conflicts and tensions to compensate for
not being loved and for loneliness. Such children may steal money to buy sweets for
other children so that those children may be friendly to them.

How to Check Stealing

Identify the cause of stealing in the particular child and remove it. If the cause is repressed
emotional conflicts and tensions, the child may require the help of a child psychologist or a
psychiatrist.

3. Respect for Truth: Reasons for lying or not telling the truth may be as follows:
a. Many children lie as a result of imitation of adults and other children who lie and do
not get found out and punished.
b. Lying often follows stealing and other dishonest acts which children want to cover
up.
c. Many children lie in order to avoid punishment either at home or at school, especially
when parents or teachers are known to be sever.
d. Some children lie in order to experiment; to experience the effect of untruth on their
parents, teachers and companions.
e. Young children aged 3 – 5 years often confuse real and imagined stories. They are
often genuinely unable to discriminate and distinguish between what actually
happened and what they imagined.
f. Some children lie to get other into trouble. This is often called „malicious‟ lying.

Ways to Check Lying

Identify the cause of lying in a particular child. Try and remove the cause.

Respect for Other People’s Feeling

Children should learn not to tease, insult ridicule or bully other children. These acts hurt
people‟s dignity and sometimes can be physically injurious. Some reasons for these actions
include;

a. The example of others, especially their group

b. Show of strength, especially by children who mature early and are bigger that the
children they bully.
c. Idleness, lack of constructive occupation
d. Curiosity or experimentation
e. Being jealous of qualities another child may have
f. Compensation for feelings of insecurity
g. Inordinate pleasure in hurting others
h. Revenge for personal failures and misfortunes

How to Check

The causes must be identified and removed. There is also the need for counseling.

4. Tolerance: Tolerance is a socially acceptable skill. When children are intolerant, it may
be due to some of the following reasons:
a. Lack of opportunity to meet people from different environments
b. Insecurity about socially unfamiliar persons =.
c. Lack of social training
d. Emotional conflicts and tension
e. Social prejudice

Remedies

By their own examples and other means, parents and teachers should improve the social training
and widen the social horizon of their children. They can also help children by not making too
much demand on them for conformity, and by making them feel emotionally secure.