The list is overwhelming: soccer, basketball, baseball, swimming, gymnastics, dance, art, music, horseback riding, and tutors. Parents enroll their kids in activities geared to help nurture self-esteem, be strong and competent, and have a competitive edge. Everyone agrees sports and enrichment activities are a great way to enhance your child’s social and physical abilities. Most kids today rely heavily on cell phones, pages and scheduling devices to keep up with the pace. However, there are increasingly alarming statistics in this active world in which kids live.
In the United States, 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by peers. The National School Safety Center calls bullying "the most enduring and underrated problem in American schools." According to the Josephson Institute of Ethics 24% of high school students say they took a weapon to school at least once in the past year. 73% of 10-to 18-year-olds hit someone during the year because they were angry. One out of five fifth-graders has been drunk and two-thirds of eighth graders have used alcohol, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Clearly, something is not working. However, there are small changes parents and teachers can schedule into their daily activities that will build the character and virtues kids need to survive in today’s increasingly difficult world.
The evidence suggests we need to take time out of our schedules to teach critical virtues to our kids. Dr. Michele Borba, author of Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing, says the best way to help kids overcome negative pressures and act right even in these morally troubling times is to boost their Moral IQ. According to Dr. Borba, moral intelligence is a miraculous capacity that helps kids understand right from wrong and behave morally. Borba says empathy, conscience, and self-control are the three virtues that form “The Moral Core.” “When kids are lacking an ability to feel for others, an inner voice to guide them to do the right thing, and the strength to control their destructive impulses, they are left defenseless against the many negative influence kids face constantly.”
Parents have a choice to make when deciding which virtues to teach to their kids. Dr. Borba says there are three critical virtues a child must possess to become a caring and compassionate person. The first virtue is empathy. Empathy is the unique ability to be aware of and feel for another person’s concerns. Empathy provides the critical ingredient needed to resist acting on negative or aggressive impulses. It enhances a child’s ability to react kindly and see the bigger picture when faced with social challenges. Many parents believe you can’t begin teaching virtues to kids until they are in grade school. However, virtues must be taught from birth while kids are amazingly and intuitively responsive to being “good”. Parents can offer direction to small children during playgroups and in their own families. When sibling rivalry or sharing difficulties rear their head, changing the child’s focus can alter the entire dynamic. Rather than teaching kids the value of sharing and/or giving in to the other child, use the opportunity to guide children to realize what the other child is feeling. Asking questions like,”How do you think this is making Sam feel?” can be a powerful way to nurture empathy and decrease aggression. When these kinds of attitudes are presented to children at a very young age, it becomes natural for them to behave compassionately. Discussing how people might feel during television watching can be another wonderful opportunity to nurture empathy.
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