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Children and Moral Values

In: English and Literature

Submitted By bearme
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Children and Moral Values

Why children today do not have the same moral values as older people? The reason this question is being asked. Because there should be concerns about all this access to information that children have today; is it too much for them? Is there more we should do as the older generations to show our kids better moral values and how to interpret all this information that they’re receiving?
With the advent of the Internet and all its resources our children can find out things so much easier than before Google has become an easy do search engine it is making our children lazy at the same time informing them of things that they should not know. Facebook is another one of these things that is misguiding our children. They socialize with adults’, teenagers, and strangers. They're reading the problems that all these people are going through and foresee some of the same thing happening to them. That's why I have asked these questions.
How important are moral roles for our children to follow? Good role models are hard to come by these days. Yes there are a lot of people out there that like to guide our children but not all these people are good people; so choose wisely who your children hang out with. This was said in the study I found by Carson. “Children have an innate desire to please their parents and behave well, according to Linda C. Mayes, M.D., and Donald J. Cohen, M.D, authors of "The Yale Child Study Center: Guide to Understanding Your Child." However, they are often tempted to stray from making good decisions when they encounter peer pressure, because they want to be accepted by their social group. When attending school full time, the opportunities for decision-making increase, and teaching them proper moral behavior ensures they make the right decisions that allow them to feel good about themselves and others”( Jun 14, 2011 para 5). I say this, talks to your kids explain to them with going on in this world. Let them hear the Information from you and not some kid off the streets this will help guide the better to be better informed.
Will good role models for children develop better morels for them? With role models like Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan, Snookie from the Jersey Shore showing our children the wrong things in life, reality TV is a big problem too. It is not really reality but our children think so.
The music industry does not help this matter either especially rap music today is teaching our kids the wrong thing too. How to degrade women and each other; all they want you to think about is your peers, not to lose face with them. Lil Wayne, Drake, and all this other rappers need to talk about something positive instead of how high they got, how many women they have how much money they have made, and how much drugs they have sold these are not good role models. Cc. Shows like Teen Mom, The Real World, Buck Wild, The Kardassians, and the Bad Girls club. Our kids are really trying to imitate these shows; children think it is the norm. Carson proclaim that. ”Teaching children morality may be more important now than ever before. The support systems children have growing up are not as strong in the United States compared with other nations. Experts encourage parents to be vigilant regarding the moral training of school-age children, because many are vulnerable to stressful and negative situations” ( Jun 14, 2011para 6).

With this I add that a lot of the pressure children are feeling comes from parents always too busy or too tired to really focus on the children. In some families both parents work full-time or there's only one parent so our children are making decisions on their own and stress on our children is gaining more and more every year.
Should parents be more aware of their children moral values when they’re not at home? When our children are out with their peers they do things that we didn't know they were capable of. Most parents have a false security in their children they think that their children are innocent, but in reality they do not know what their children are really doing out there with their peers Sallee explains by saying
“Many children announce the onset of adolescence with a dramatic change in behavior around their parents. They're starting to separate from Mom and Dad and to become more independent. At the same time, kids are increasingly aware of how others, especially their peers, see them and are desperately trying to fit in. Their peers often become much more important, as compared with their parents, in terms of making decisions” .( January 2011 para 9). I think we need to know what our children are watching, who they are watching, and what characteristics they are picking up. Then help guide them through the maze of people they will encounter. What role should teachers play in teaching our children morals? They see them five days a week. As my grandparents used to say “it takes a village to raise a child”. I still believe that children should have lots of different role models and the first place we should start is at school. As Ryan wrote in The Six Es of Character Education.” Schools should embrace their role as a partner with parents in character education. By gender issues or energy use or whatever the hot topic of the day is. There is a role for engaging children in discussion of such complicated ethical dilemmas, but true character education is about acquiring virtuous habits. It's about knowing what persistence is and then being able to stay the course, or about having a rich understanding of what kindness is and then being able to apply it”. When our children understand and remember these types of morals. This will bring back more self-confident and do right people back into the world. At this day and age morality is needed more now than ever before our kids are becoming adults and parents before they even have a teenage life. In conclusion our children morality comes about from all different things we interact with what they watch on TV, with the peers who urgent them on to do, and even the music they listen too, and let's not forget the World Wide Web. There's just too much information to navigate through. What they need is some kind guidance and this is what our kids are not getting the guidance they need to navigate through. So there morals become confused and they don't know well from bad. I say you should discuss things openly which children because most likely they know what's going on anyway; there is just too much information to be had. All adults need to take a more active role in raising our children not as just parents but the neighbors, teachers, nieces, nephews, cousins aunts uncle, and friends we all need to work together to change our children moral patterns. Like they say “it takes a village”

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