Children develop increasingly complex moral values, judgments, and behaviors as they mature. Emotional regulation, sexual differences, and parenting practices are all moral issues, as “morality is multifaceted and includes affective, cognitive, and behavioral components” (Smetana, 2013). Thus, moral development is evident in every topic already discussed.

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Rough-and-tumble play, for instance, teaches children not to hurt their playmates. Concern for helping other people is also apparent in sociodramatic play, especially the rescue fantasies and caregiving routines that are commonly acted out. Children learn to take turns and to share, and they believe it unfair when another child does not do so (Utendale & Hastings, 2011).

Piaget thought that moral development began when children learned games with rules, which he connected with concrete operational thought at about age 7 (Piaget, 1932/2013). We now know that Piaget was mistaken: Both games with rules and moral development are evident much earlier.

Some precursors of morality appear in infancy (Narvaez & Lapsley, 2009). By age 3 or even earlier, children evidence many moral emotions and behaviors. For example, when given rewards to distribute, 3-year-olds try to be fair, giving each person an equal amount unless someone has been helpful or mean, and then they are rewarded by getting more or punished by getting less (Baumard et al., 2012).

With maturation and adult guidance over the preschool years, children develop guilt (as Erikson explained) and self-control. That helps them behave in ethical ways and feel pride when they do so (Kochanska et al., 2009; Konner, 2010; R. Thompson, 2014).

Many parents, teachers, and other adults consider children’s “good” behavior more important than any other advancement already described, including health, motor skills, intelligence, language, and social play. Perhaps for this reason, debate rages over how children internalize standards, develop virtues, and avoid vices. Scholars in many social sciences hold conflicting perspectives—nature versus nurture again.

The nature perspective suggests that morality is genetic, an outgrowth of natural bonding, attachment, and cognitive maturation. That would explain why young children help and defend their parents, no matter what the parents do, and punish other children who violate moral rules. Even infants have a sense of what is fair and not, expecting adults to reward effort. An experiment with 6-month-old babies found that they preferred a puppet who helped another puppet, rather than one who did not (Hamlin, 2014).

Morality, if defined as behavior that helps others without immediate reward to oneself, may be in human DNA. According to evolutionary theory, humans protect, cooperate, and even sacrifice for one another because each individual is defenseless and vulnerable to weather, strangers, and wild animals. To survive, people need to rely on other people, and from that need springs a moral sense (Dunning, 2011). The body produces hormones, specifically oxytocin, that naturally push people toward trusting and loving each other (Zak, 2012).

The nurture perspective contends that culture is crucial to moral development. That would explain why young children emulate people who follow the rules of their community, even if the actual behavior is not innately good or bad. Although children understand the intellectual difference between morality and custom, some children believe that people who eat raw fish, or hamburgers, or bacon, or dogs are immoral (Turiel, 2002).

Developmentalists distinguish between ethical behavior (seeking not to harm others) and conventional behavior (seeking to follow norms), but that distinction is not always apparent, and may itself be cultural (Haidt, 2013). Consider gun use, abortion, the death penalty, disobeying an elder, stealing food—all considered immoral in some cultures, conventional in others, and morally right (not wrong) in some communities under particular circumstances.

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Both nature and nurture are influential in standards of conduct, and the interaction between the two is essential—and well worth discussion and debate. Beyond that truism, specifics cannot be settled here.

However, it is apparent that morality appears during early childhood and that parental practices are crucial as they teach children—explicitly and by example—how to behave (R. Thompson, 2014). Accordingly, we explore two moral issues that arise from age 2 to age 6: children’s aggression and adults’ disciplinary practices. Nature and nurture are crucial in both.

Moral emotions are evident as children play with one another. With increasing social experiences and decreasing egocentrism, children develop empathy, an understanding of other people’s feelings and concerns, and antipathy, a feeling of dislike or even hatred. Experience is crucial at every age; people with more friends of various backgrounds are more empathetic to those of another race or immigration status.

Scientists studying young humans and other primates report spontaneous efforts to help others who are hurt, crying, or in need of help: Those efforts are evidence of empathy and compassion, which then lead to prosocial behavior—extending helpfulness and kindness without any obvious benefit to oneself.

Expressing concern, offering to share, and including a shy child in a game or conversation are examples of prosocial behavior among young children. Jack, age 3, showed empathy when he “refused to bring snacks with peanuts to school because another boy had to sit alone during snack because he was allergic to nuts. Jack wanted to sit with him” (Lovecky, 2009, p. 161).

Prosocial behavior seems to result more from emotion than from intellect, more from empathy than from theory of mind (Eggum et al., 2011). The origins of prosocial behavior may arise from parents helping their children become aware of their own emotions, not from telling children what emotions others might have (Brownell et al., 2013).

The link between empathy and later prosocial behavior in early childhood was traced longitudinally in children from 18 months to 6 years of age. A preschooler’s empathy at ages 2 to 4 predicted prosocial behavior in first grade: Those empathetic preschoolers were more likely to share help, and include other children. Neither parents’ education nor income predicted prosocial behavior (Taylor et al., 2013).

Prosocial reactions are not automatic. Some children limit empathy by “avoiding contact with the person in need [which illustrates] … the importance of emotion development and regulation in the development of prosocial behavior” and the critical influence of cultural norms (Trommsdorff & Cole, 2011, p. 136). Feeling distress may be a part of nature; whether a child expresses that emotion, and how a child responds to his or her feelings of distress, may be nurture.

Antipathy can lead to antisocial behavior—deliberately hurting another person, including people who have done nothing wrong. Antisocial actions include verbal insults, social exclusion, and physical assaults (Calkins & Keane, 2009). An antisocial 4-year-old might look another child in the eye, scowl, and then kick him hard without provocation. In general, children become more prosocial and less antisocial as they mature (Ramani et al., 2010).

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In some ways, antisocial behavior comes naturally (Seguin & Tremblay, 2013). For 2-year-olds, it is hard to let another child use a crayon that they have already used. Preschool children have a definite sense of ownership: If a crayon belongs to the teacher, it should be shared, but a child who owns it is allowed to be selfish (Neary & Friedman, 2014). The rules of ownership are understood by children as young as 3, who apply them more rigidly than adults from the same community.

At every age, antisocial behavior may indicate a failure of empathy. That may be brain-based; sometimes something is missing in the neuroanatomy of the person (Portnoy et al., 2013). But it also may result directly from parents who do not talk about emotions or respond to the emotions of the child (Taylor et al., 2013; Richards et al., 2014).

Not surprisingly, given the moral sensibilities of young children, 5-year-olds already judge whether another child’s aggression is justified or not. Children are particularly focused on effects, not motives: A child who accidentally spilled water on another’s painting may be the target of that child’s justified anger.

As with adults, impulsive self-defense is more readily forgiven than is a deliberate, unprovoked attack. As young children gain in social understanding, particularly theory of mind, they gradually become better at understanding someone else’s intentions, and that makes them less likely to judge an accidental action as a hostile one (Choe et al., 2013a).

Researchers recognize four general types of aggression, all of which are evident in early childhood (see Table 10.2). Instrumental aggression is common among 2-year-olds, who often want something they do not have and simply try to take it. An aggressive reaction from the other child—crying, hitting, and resisting the grab of the instrumentally aggressive child—is also more typical at age 2 than earlier or later.

Reactive aggression is therefore common among young children; almost every child reacts when hurt, whether or not the hurt was deliberate. Children are less likely to respond with physical aggression as they develop emotional control and theory of mind (Olson et al., 2011).

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Relational aggression (usually verbal) destroys another child’s self-esteem and disrupts the victim’s social networks, becoming more hurtful as children mature. A young child might tell another, “You can’t be my friend” or “You are fat,” hurting another’s feelings. These are examples of relational aggression.

The fourth and most ominous type is bullying aggression, done to dominate someone else. It is not rare among young children but should be stopped before school age, when it becomes particularly destructive. Not only does it destroy the self-esteem of victims, it impairs the later development of the bullies, who learn behavior patterns that will harm them in adulthood. (Developmental Link: An in-depth discussion of bullying appears in Chapter 13.)

All forms of aggression become less common from ages 2 to 6, as the brain matures and empathy increases. In addition, children learn to use aggression selectively, and that decreases both victimization and aggression later on (Ostrov et al., 2014). Parents, peers, and preschool teachers are pivotal mentors in this process.

It is a mistake to expect children to regulate their emotions on their own. If they are not guided, they may develop destructive patterns. It is also a mistake to punish aggressors too harshly because that may remove them from their zone of proximal development, where they can learn to regulate their anger.

In other words, although there is evidence that preschool children spontaneously judge others who harm people, with the emphasis on the actual hurt more than the intention, there also is evidence that prosocial and antisocial behavior is learned (Smetana, 2013). Preschool teachers are often instrumental in this education because they have many opportunities to teach: Aggression often arises in a social setting with other children.

A longitudinal study found that close teacher–student relationships in preschool predicted less aggression and less victimization in elementary school, presumably because close relationships led teachers to guide the children to control their own reactive aggression (Runions & Shaw, 2013).

For people everywhere, part of human development is learning the moral standards of their culture. Each culture has particular moral principles; parents form personal standards based on these principle and then guide their children in developing good behavior.

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However, no child always does exactly what parents want. Indeed, if a child is too quiet and proper, that may be a sign that the child is fearful of a parent’s rage. Some disagreements, some protests, some untoward impulses and unexpected rebellion are part of the normal process of growing up.

Lest anyone imagine that children will always be good if they have benevolent parents, consider a study of mothers and 3-year-olds during late afternoon (a stressful time). Conflicts (including verbal disagreements) arose about every two minutes (Laible et al., 2008). Here is one example that began with an activity recommended for every parent; the mother was about to take her daughter for a walk:

Child:
I want my other shoes.
Mother:
You don’t need your other shoes. You wear your Pooh sandals when we go for a walk.
Child:
Noooooo.
Mother:
[Child’s name]! You don’t need your other shoes.
Child:
[Cries loudly]
Mother:
No, you don’t need your other shoes. You wear your Pooh sandals when we go for a walk.
Child:
Ahhhh. Want pretty dress. [Crying]
Mother:
Your pretty dress!
Child:
Yeah.
Mother:
You can wear them some other day.
Child:
Noooooo. [Crying]
[from Laible et al., 2008, pp. 442–443]

In this study, those 3-year-olds who had been securely attached at age 1 (an indication of responsive parenting) had as many conflicts as those who had been insecurely attached. Obviously, responsive parents do not always have children who are peaceful and obedient.

However, unlike the situation in the snippet above, the mothers of securely attached children more often compromised and explained (Laible et al., 2008). Is that the best response? Should this mother have offered reasons why the other shoes were not appropriate, or should she have let her daughter wear them? Alternatively, should she have slapped the child for crying, or said, “I won’t walk with you if you fuss”?

Since misbehavior is part of growing up, parents must respond. How to respond is a major moral issue for the parents, with each type of response teaching the child something about moral behavior.

In the United States, young children are slapped, spanked, or beaten more often than are infants or older children. They are physically disciplined more often than children in Canada or Western Europe but less often than children in Africa or South America. Not only in the United States but also in many developing nations, adults remember being physically punished and think it works. In some ways, they are correct: Physical punishment (called corporal punishment because it hurts the body) succeeds at the moment—it is impossible to misbehave while being spanked, and afterwards children are usually quiet.

Longitudinal research finds, however, that children who are physically punished are more likely to become bullies, delinquents, and then abusive adults. They are also less likely to learn quickly in school or attend college (Straus & Paschall, 2009). In fact, although children who misbehave in externalizing ways (hitting, yelling, throwing things) are more likely to be spanked, longitudinal research finds that children who are not spanked are more likely to learn self-control. As spanking increases, so does misbehavior (Gershoff, 2013).

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In 33 nations (mostly in Europe), corporal punishment is illegal; in many nations on other continents, it is the norm. In the United States, parents use it often. Even in U.S. schools, paddling is legal (but rarely used) in 19 of the 50 states. Most of those states are in the Southeast, and most of the children who are paddled are African American boys, which raises questions about the justice of the punishment (Morones, 2013).

Although some adults believe that physical punishment will “teach a lesson” of obedience, the lesson that children learn may be that “might makes right.” When they become bigger and stronger, children who have been physically disciplined then tend to use corporal punishment on others—their classmates, their wives or husbands, their children. Most developmentalists advise against corporal punishment, but this issue is controversial. Many parents believe that spanking is sometimes necessary.

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Many studies of children from all family constellations find that physical punishment of young children correlates with delayed theory of mind and increased aggression (Olson et al., 2011). To prove cause without a doubt would require parents of monozygotic twins to raise them identically, except that one twin would be spanked often and the other never. Of course, that is unethical as well as impossible.

Nonetheless, most developmentalists wonder why parents would take the chance. The best argument in favor of spanking is that alternative punishments may be worse (Larzelere et al., 2010). Let us consider other options.

A common method of discipline is called psychological control, in which children’s shame, guilt, and gratitude are used to control their behavior (Barber, 2002). Psychological control may reduce academic achievement and emotional understanding, just as spanking is thought to do (Alegre, 2011).

Consider the results of a several studies in Finland, in which parents were asked about psychological control (Aunola et al., 2013). If parents strongly agreed with the following questions, they were considered to use psychological control:

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The higher the parents scored on these four measures of psychological control, the lower the children’s math scores were—and this connection grew stronger over time. Moreover, the children tended to have negative emotions (depression, anger, and so on).

A disciplinary technique often used with young children in North America is the time-out, in which an adult requires a misbehaving child to sit quietly, without toys or playmates, for a short time. Time-out is favored by many experts. For example, in the large, longitudinal evaluation of the Head Start program highlighted in Chapter 9, an increase in time-outs and a decrease in spankings were considered signs of improved parental discipline (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010).

The crucial idea behind time-out is that it not be done in anger, or for too long; it is recommended that parents use a calm voice and that the time-out last only one to five minutes (Morawska & Sanders, 2011). It works as a punishment if the child really enjoys “time-in,” when the child is happily engaged with the parents or with peers. Time-outs must not be done with hostility.

Often combined with the time-out is another alternative to physical punishment and psychological control—induction, in which the parents talk extensively with the offender, helping the child understand why his or her behavior was wrong. Ideally, time-out allows the child to calm down, and a strong and affectionate parent–child relationship allows the child to explain his or her emotions and the parent to listen carefully. The parent then encourages the child to imagine what he or she might have done instead of what was done.

Such conversation helps children internalize standards, but induction takes time and patience. Since 3-year-olds confuse causes with consequences, they cannot answer an angry “Why did you do that?” or appreciate a lengthy explanation of why the behavior was wrong. Simple induction (“You made him sad”) may be more appropriate, but even that is hard before a child develops theory of mind.

Nonetheless, induction seems to pay off over time. Children whose parents used induction when they were 3 years old became children with fewer externalizing problems in elementary school (Choe et al., 2013b).

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