
Raising a moral child - sanoli
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/opinion/sunday/raising-a-moral-child.html?emc=eta1&_r=1
======
jawns
The experiments this op-ed describes are really neat. I especially like the
one that demonstrates the importance of "practice what you preach."

Here's another cool experiment related to social/moral development, which you
can perform on your own kid:

Have two grown-up friends each show your baby a toy. The first friend should
offer the toy to your kid but then retract the offer and keep the toy to
himself. The second friend should offer the toy to your kid but "accidentally"
drop it out of reach.

Now, give your baby a different toy, and then prompt her to share it with one
of the friends.

Your baby is very likely to share it with the friend who dropped the toy,
rather than the one who withdrew the toy.

The above experiment is based on a 2010 study involving 21-month-olds. It
found that two-thirds of the kids shared with the person who dropped the toy
-- and the other third kept the toy to themselves. Not a single one shared
with the person who offered the toy then retracted the offer. (I talk about
this more in "Experimenting With Babies"
[http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com](http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com))

Not only is this fascinating because it shows that babies act preferentially
toward people who are kind to them ... but it holds true _EVEN IF_ the person
who initiates a kind act is unable to complete it, but demonstrates the proper
intent. Think about the complexity of the cognitive processes that are going
on in that evaluation. It's amazing!

~~~
jcampbell1
I don't understand this at all. At 21 months, a toddler can walk and talk, and
you can play keep away with them for fun. I don't know what it means to drop a
toy out of reach. Do you drop it on a high counter or something?

~~~
jawns
In the original experiment -- see
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424094](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424094)
for the abstract -- the toddlers stood on one side of a slanted table, so that
anything placed on the table would roll down to the other side, where the
adult actresses were. Presumably, the toddlers were not able to walk around
the table.

One way to replicate this at home, albeit imperfectly, is to place your
toddler in a high chair, so that if you drop the toy on the floor, she is
unable to reach it.

~~~
hyp0
I wonder if they controlled the effect of the actresses own response. Although
they might be excellent actresses, being mean to a baby is probably going to
make you feel pretty rotten, at a level it might be hard to control, and the
baby could be picking up on that.

Animals can pick up subtle cues that are not apparent to adults; I'd be amazed
if babies weren't at least as good.

I'm thinking of _Clever Hans_
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans)

~~~
saraid216
Both actions seem to qualify as "mean to a baby" to me. Assuming the actresses
agreed with me, this would cancel out the variable.

~~~
hyp0
I was thinking about that, and the thing is people are often deceptive to
children for their own good, as a way to handle them without upsetting them
(arguably not ideal parenting but let it pass). So that, if you convince the
child you really did drop it, you won't feel bad. But if you are overtly mean
- it's unmistakeable that you deliberately the toy back, then it's hard to kid
yourself that the baby didn't realize. Now _did_ the baby realize? That's the
whole thing we're trying to determine! I'm just saying that the actresses'
model of what the baby will understand and won't will affect how they feel
about it.

This of course all depends on the actresses having a particular model of the
baby's ability to model them.

------
nevinera
Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child
into being who and what you want them to be. 'Tricks' and 'techniques' abound,
and every other article is about 'teaching' your child to
achieve/empathize/compete.

You know what works extra- extra- well? Be the kind of person you want your
kids to be. Treat them like a decent person treats other decent people and
that's the behavior they will learn.

Your kids are _way_ smarter than you think. They know what you're doing, they
know you're trying to encourage certain behaviors, and they eventually know
how to manipulate you much more effectively than you know how to manipulate
them.

Quit treating five-year-olds like they're some kind of resistant clay, and you
have to cleverly shape them into the person they're going to be. That kid is
_already a person_. Treating him like a puppy to be trained will certainly
affect his personality and behavior, but the largest impact will not be the
one you intended. You're teaching them how you want them to be, and you're
also teaching them that the way to get what you want is to manipulate people
into giving it to you.

~~~
Taek
I felt a lot of this when I was growing up. A lot of times I could feel my dad
trying to mold me into the best type of person possible. Not that it was
unwelcome or that he was doing the wrong thing, but in a lot of ways it felt
weird and unnatural. Sometimes it felt like he was a lot more guarded around
me, like he couldn't be who he really was because he was trying to set the
best possible example and be the best possible parent.

In hindsight, I think that left me unprepared for a lot of challenges I faced
in college. A lot of times, I would ask him a question and get only half of a
response, because answering truthfully would involve revealing less-than-ideal
character. I wish that there had been more heart-to-heart and less 'raising
your kid the right way'

~~~
gohrt
Indeed, your father had trouble because we was trying to sculpt you without
actually being a role model, and you noticed the different between his words
and actions. The article discusses this phenomenon.

~~~
Taek
He was trying to be an actual role model. In many ways, he did a good job. In
places where he wasn't perfect though, he hid that fact instead of being
upfront.

I don't know what would have been best, but especially as I got older I would
have preferred complete transparency. He was a good man, but I wish I had
known more about his flaws. It would have given me more insight into my own.

~~~
Xcelerate
There's certain opinions that my parents hold that I do not. As one (fairly
non-controversial) example, I don't believe in the death penalty, but my dad
does.

We were having a debate about it one time, and I asked my dad how it was that
we disagreed on these topics. He replied that he raised my sister and I to
have what he felt were more ethical viewpoints on various issues than what his
own perspectives were.

I was astounded when he told me this. He doesn't hide what his real thoughts
are, but he recognizes that some of them aren't the most kind or moral and has
actually raised me to have different views than himself.

------
jostylr
Father of recent 3 year old. Big believer in modeling. I see other parents
tell their kids to clean up, put stuff away, etc. I simply embrace cleaning up
and my daughter follows suit quite often.

We also do whatever we can to enable her to participate in what we are doing
(sadly computers are a big problem in that regard, much more than say chopping
with a knife). Our kid is very well-behaved and cautious (except for
tired/hungry breakdowns, of course).

I am also a big believer in the see-what happens school of action. Other
parents are always encouraging (yelling at) their kids to share, particularly
in support of aggressive children trying to take from their child. We believe
in letting children experiment and realize that sharing leads to fun,
greediness not so much. We demonstrate the power of choosing not to play
others which is really the best way of handling unpleasant people/situations.

But at the heart of it all is simply being, authentically, the kind of person
you want your child to be. They are programmed to learn actual behavior from
their parents who 1) have been successful enough to reproduce and 2) have a
similar genetic makeup meaning their behaviors are likely to be compatible
with the kid's abilities.

So be a better person and relax. Oh, and look into Sudbury education for your
kids which really teaches them how to be moral in a community.

~~~
jawns
From Wikipedia: "At a Sudbury school, students have complete responsibility
for their own education, and the school is run by direct democracy in which
students and staff are equals. Students individually decide what to do with
their time, and tend to learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather
than through coursework. There is no predetermined educational syllabus,
prescriptive curriculum or standardized instruction. This is a form of
democratic education."

Hey, I'm open to using a child's own interests to help them learn ... but
Sudbury takes a good thing way too far.

You say that Sudbury teaches kids how to be moral in a community. Maybe ... if
that community is "Lord of the Flies."

~~~
jostylr
The wikipedia quote is correct. Your assessment seems to be not based on
anything. Ask yourself, what is harder to learn: (1) knowing who you are and
how to work with others or (2) solving an algebraic equation?

They pretty much all learn how to read, write, do arithmetic. Those who want
to go to college (about 80%) do so without difficulty, learning what they need
in a few months. They are serious, engaged students in college because they
know why they are there. They find college kids goofing off to be quite a
mystery. They are free to become themselves when they are supposed to --
puberty. That's what that stage is for. Most schools prevent the self-
exploration that is necessary to allow for that. So then it gets delayed until
people's 20s.

\--

Visit such a school and you will see that they are much less nasty than those
in a public school. Bullying is virtually unheard of. They work together as a
community and take responsibility for it. They are collectively responsible
for all the policing and judgement of others as well as themselves. They
adjudicate quite fairly.

I saw 8 year olds wrestling with determining an appropriate punishment for
their friend vs. their own desire to help their friend. They really struggled
to find a balance. 8 year olds. This is an issue that a lot of adults struggle
with.

They also write themselves up when they break a rule. They all buy into
building a community. The school I visited was full of energy and respect.

So you can either choose to believe the fiction of "Lord of the Flies" or
believe the results of forty years of actual experience with the model.

~~~
notahacker
I can't help wondering whether the Sudbury School model would work quite so
well in encouraging moral behaviour if it was filled with problem kids with
gang affiliations rather than the offspring of well-to-do parents with a deep
interest in finding their kid a suitable environment.

~~~
jostylr
I think you are right that that is an issue. But what school does handle that
well? Also, the value of Sudbury is community. If someone is in a gang, they
already have that (I presume).

They do have experience with "troubled" kids doing just fine and thriving, but
these are a small number injected into an otherwise pleasant environment.

They also do occasionally expel students. But I also remember a story from the
Jerusalem Sudbury school in which one of their students left and fell into
drugs, etc. Later, the founder of the school asked the kid if they had failed
him. He said "failed me? You were the only ones that didn't fail me. You are
the reason I sought rehabilitation instead of dying on the streets. I always
carried you and the school with me, voices of support." Take from that what
you will.

The most important thing is to have a good environment for students to come
into. People adapt to their environments, for better or worse. If you were to
take a single gang member away and put them in a strongly functioning Sudbury
school, I would give them great odds of succeeding. But if you plopped a
number of gang members into such a community, I bet that would be a major
problem.

The hardest part for a Sudbury school is starting and dealing with huge influx
of students. It takes time to assimilate to such an environment.

There is also another big question along these lines. The students at Sudbury
learn the R's quite well on their own. But their parents are generally well-
educated, demonstrating the value of those skills. Would kids from homes
without those values do so well? Again, injecting a single kid from such an
environment into a Sudbury school would be much more likely to succeed than
having a majority of the school from such an environment.

But, as far as I know, no one has attempted it. Perhaps someone should.

------
mcv
Man, I just learned to compliment actions rather than talent, and now I have
to do it the other way around.

I get why, though. Moral actions are choices. Being smart isn't. If you praise
a kid for being smart, he won't be able to choose to be smart. Instead, he'll
assume he's smart and won't have to work so hard. I suppose praising an innate
tendency to work hard might be more effective.

~~~
Taek
Having worked with kids a lot (long term, I would work with the same kids for
4-5 years and get a long term image of their development), it really seems to
me like praising a kid for being smart is going to be better than praising a
kid for working hard.

This sort of gets coupled with the idea of 'work smarter, not harder.' When a
child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like
staying up all night studying for a test. When you emphasize being smart and
not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves such that
they can land good grades without needing to study.

And this usually manifests as greater attentiveness in class, greater emphasis
on figuring out exactly what's going to be on the test, etc. But you also see
behaviours like emphasizing getting the right teachers.

And the same thing applies to sports. If you emphasize effort, you might get a
child practicing repeatedly something that they are already good at. When they
are really bad at passing, you get thought patterns like 'at least I'm
trying.' When you emphasize being good, the child is more devastated by the
idea that they are bad at passing, and they focus their energy on being not
bad.

The point is that things like being 'smart' and being 'good' are things that
you can actually learn, and a lot times, working on what's important is much
more important than the overall volume of effort.

~~~
vanderZwan
I'm sorry, but what you are saying just does not match my personal experience,
nor what the empirical studies suggest, which is the _exact opposite_ :

> When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things
> like staying up all night studying for a test. When you emphasize being
> smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves
> such that they can land good grades without needing to study.

The way I've heard _and_ personally experienced it, kids who get praised for
being smart are more likely to procrastinate ("eh, I already get that
anyway"), then try to cram everything in in the last minute.

> And the same thing applies to sports. If you emphasize effort, you might get
> a child practicing repeatedly something that they are already good at.

Similarly, studies suggest that by praising talent, you teach kids to stick to
what they are good at immediately ("that's what I'm talented at"), instead of
putting in the effort to learn stuff that they don't get immediately.

EDIT: Perhaps it depends on whether you praise below-average, average and
smarter-than-average kids?

~~~
Taek
I don't mean to de-emphasize effort, it's still important to try hard, but
I've seen a lot of cases where effort was focused on as the only thing that
counts. For the smartest kids, that's not usually where the parental emphasis
lies.

It depends on how you emphasize being smart. If you emphasize overall
smartness, the kid will be more self-conscious about their weak points, which
is what I wanted to convey. If you emphasize particular moments where they are
good, they will be encouraged to repeat that specifically. It's a difference
between emphasizing being good at [subset like shooting hoops] vs being good
at [basketball as a whole]. Academically, the emphasis should be on the grades
instead of on being good at taking tests. Or if you're more high-level, the
emphasis should be on learning what's going to be most useful to you later in
life as opposed to specifically effort or grades.

As for procrastination, in my experience the smarter kids procrastinate
substantially more. But for the most part this doesn't come back and bite
them. They leave exactly as much time as they need to pull off the good grade
and most of the time it works out.

------
MarkPNeyer
i had to learn the opposite message here. our society tells us so much stuff
about being kind and caring, and there are very few messages about being able
to stick up for yourself, being able to make reasonable requests and being
able to say no to people who are not treating you fairly.

i had a roommate who didn't pay rent. i couldn't bring myself to confront the
roommate because i felt like i "made of lot of money" and they didn't make
much money and they had problems. i imagined them arguing with me and was
scared and hurt by this image; i have no way to tell someone 'i deserve what i
have and you don't' because i know i was born into a loving family that raised
me and took care of me and pushed me to succeed. i can't take credit for those
things.

i finally had to tell myself "it's not just ok to put yourself first. you have
to insist on it; if you don't get rent from your roommate, you're letting them
take from the people you love took; when your roommate doesn't pay rent, they
are ruining your mood which hurts your friends and family."

it's hard. i finally said 'fuck being a good person, i'll do what i want and
what benefits me and those i love.' this doesn't mean i go around being an ass
to people all the time; i'm still generous when i tip and i try to look out
for people.

but now i'm different. if i sense someone is trying to abuse or push me around
at all, i see them as a predator. when homeless people asking for money used
to make me feel like a bad person for being successful, now i see them as
predators who use negative emotions to try and take my positive feelings away.
yes, they're suffering. but i can't help them, and giving them money doesn't
help them either.

show your kids how to be good, sure. but for god's sake teach them to say no
to people who make unreasonable requests, and give them practice asking for
things they are owed.

~~~
gohrt
Don't go so far as to say "fuck being a good person", but understand that not
everyone deserves unlimited trust and good faith. --which is I think what most
of your comment is expressing.

Your story is the topic of one of the most famous West End /Broadway songs of
recent years:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6h1eBEmY6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6h1eBEmY6U)

    
    
        Even if you find that life's not fair, it
        Doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it
        If you always take it on the chin and wear it
        Nothing will change
        Even if you're little you can do a lot, you
        Mustn't let a little thing like little stop you
        If you sit around and let them get on top, you
        Might as well be saying you think that it's OK
    

> homeless people asking for money ... i see them as predators who use
> negative emotions to try and take my positive feelings away.

Or they are asking for money who using asking for money as a way to get money.
Your "predator" description fits panhandlers with manipulative stories, but
not all "homeless people asking for money". Also, it's worth considering , if
someone is telling you a story that upsets you, but is a _true story_ , maybe
the negative feelins you feel are appropriate, and there is something wrong
with economic inequality.

~~~
tunap
Quote: Your "predator" description fits panhandlers with manipulative stories,
but not all "homeless people asking for money."

The genuinely needful have long been run out of the public spaces/territories
that have the most pay-out. The 'predators' in traffic making more than
working at 7-11 don't abide threats to their income and will defend it
unscrupulously. _Stop and walk on that center median sometime and see what
response you get.

Edit: _I'm referring to occupied PH zones, I'm also half kidding. Be prepared
for a confrontation if you do that.

------
taybin
Oh good. More ways I can mis-raise my child. I complimented the object instead
of the subject in a sentence! Oh shiiiiiiit.

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/new-
par...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/new-parenting-
study-released.html)

~~~
sergiotapia
Don't know why you're being downvoted. As a parent, every single time I read
something about 'raising your kids X', Dr. Lipschitz (from The Rugrats) comes
to mind.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTesmh1wpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTesmh1wpI)

~~~
jamesaguilar
I would say that, no, parents should not be expected to internalize all of the
thousands of different things we're finding out about the best ways to raise
kids. It's far too much to know, and the knowledge is currently too tentative.
But, it's also pointless to bring that up every time a new study comes out,
because these things _are_ good to know. That's probably why the GP is
catching downvotes.

~~~
taybin
I've seen how parents can get amazingly OCD with these studies. They'll form
cliques and look down on parents who don't perform what the current best
practice is. Because of that, I think it always bears repeating.

------
amirmc
Reading this, I'm pretty sure I can apply it to adult contexts too. Think
about all the cases in organisations where 'values' are touted but the
behaviour of people tells you how you really get ahead. Everything here is
useful if you care about the organisational culture you want to create.

~~~
truelson
Funny you should say this. The author Adam Grant is an organizational
psychologist at Wharton and has a book called "Give and Take" that talks about
a lot of this. And unlike most business books, it's all backed up with well
researched data.

~~~
tunap
I know of three people who have been severely injured from a project I walked
off last year. The Fortune 20 company's guidelines(and national safety codes)
were ignored in their entirety. The project manager who was going to save $4.5
million at the risk of others' welfare is now shopping for bids to "do it by
the book". Apparently his plausible deniability has sprung a leak or one or
more of the injured have lawyered up. Vindication is bitter-sweet.

------
sharemywin
I didn't get the don't be a cheater part. seemed like that would cause shame
instead of guilt and confilted with the rule praise the child as a good
person. expect them to do better when they do bad and seperate the bad action
with fromt the good person. With hard worker being a good trait.

~~~
mherdeg
Sure, so the author's advice boils down to:

(1) If your child does something good,

DO tell them that they are showing traits of a person who does good things
(praise character).

DON'T let them think that they're merely a person who did a good thing (praise
behavior).

(2) If your child does something bad,

DON'T tell them that they are showing traits of a person who does bad things
(shame).

DO tell them that they did a bad thing (guilt).

The situation is vaguely reminiscent of that old social psychology favorite,
"fundamental attribution error", which is about how when other people do bad
things, we blame internal traits, but when we do bad things, we blame external
factors.

~~~
jawns
This is a good breakdown, but to address sharemywin's question:

When you tell your child "don't be a cheater," the focus is on character. You
don't want them to do things that a person with bad character does.

When your child cheats, on the other hand, you say, "I'm disappointed, because
I know you have a good character, but your action didn't reflect that." So,
the focus is on the bad action, rather than the character.

Is some of this mere semantics? Possibly. If a person who does bad things can
be a person of good character, and a person who does bad things can be a
person of bad character, then how do we tell the difference between a person
of good character and a person of bad character _except by their actions_?

But, if we're merely talking about what strategy is effective, then we can
indeed say to focus on character when praising and on the action when
admonishing.

~~~
Terr_
Yeah, it's a matter of past-vs-future. Identity is important, but when a child
makes a mistake you don't want to "lock it in" by confirming it as an
unalterable quality.

------
breitling
There's a lot of overlap here with what Paul Tough says in his book "How
children succeed". Basically he also emphasizes the focus on a child's
character, but to an extent that they regularly get graded on their character
not just their performance academically.

It's a great read: [http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity-
Charact...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity-
Character/dp/0544104404)

------
softatlas

        Act according to that maxim whereby you might
        will that it should become universal law.
    

Active and passive forms are quantifiable, testable under contextual and
relational analyses (highly frequent circumstantial virtuous, altruistic
behavior versus less frequent) of Self and Other. Kant is providing à la
Spinoza a chart for the geometry of ethical behavior, so we can treat ethical
behavior in terms of non-locality to specific norms — whereas Spinoza does
this in terms of a calculus of the emotions w/r/t Self, or the Ethical Self.

By Bernard Williams's standard, the amoralist cannot even conceivably have an
intermittent feeling of sympathy[0]. The person is at minimum embedded within
and embodied by sympathetic behavior (to self or to other), but this is not a
necessary condition to morality.

At the same time, the kinds of experiments we run, and the types of questions
we ask, potentially distill or deauthenticate the model with the widest
representation of moral truth — however the narrative of science may belie
institutional refactors at meta-ethical descriptions.

–

[0]:
[http://bobnoxiousthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/08/challenging-b...](http://bobnoxiousthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/08/challenging-
bernard-williams-amoralist.html)

------
jboynyc
Just for the record, J. Philippe Rushton, whom the op-ed draws on as a classic
source of this kind of work in psychology, was a white-supremacist race
"scientist" who argued, among other things, that black people have narrower
hips because they have smaller brains.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a file on him:
[http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-
files/pro...](http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-
files/profiles/jean-philippe-rushton)

While that doesn't invalidate all the findings outlined in the op-ed, it's not
exactly confidence inspiring either, as this essay persuasively argues:
[http://africasacountry.com/the-racesciencefiles-the-new-
york...](http://africasacountry.com/the-racesciencefiles-the-new-york-times-
edition/)

------
hypertexthero
One can start by not associating oneself (and thus one's child) with words
such as 'Israeli', 'British', 'Catholic', 'Hindu', 'Communist', etc.

"The function of education is to help you from childhood not to imitate
anybody, but be yourself all the time." \-- Jiddu Krishnamurti

[Think on These Things, Chapter 1]([http://www.jiddu-
krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1...](http://www.jiddu-
krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1963-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-think-
on-these-things-chapter-1))

[Some info from UNSECO Bureau of Education on
Krishnamurti]([http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/krishnamu...](http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/krishnamurtie.pdf))

------
freditup
"A couple of weeks later, when faced with more opportunities to give and
share, the children were much more generous after their character had been
praised than after their actions had been. Praising their character helped
them internalize it as part of their identities. The children learned who they
were from observing their own actions: I am a helpful person."

Probably true, but there's an alternate explanation I think. Praising their
character invokes a feel-good, I'm a good person, pride response. Praising
their action doesn't nearly as much. People like the reward of the 'I'm a
great person' feeling and thus are more likely to be nice if this is the
result.

------
Taek
What stood out the most to me was the distinction between guilt and shame.
When you belittle a child and insult their character, they're less likely to
make amends and more likely to withdraw.

I draw parallels to the way we treat criminals in our society. We cast them
out and question their character and distance them from ourselves. This dumps
a lot of shame on them, and might produce the same results as seen with the
children; rather than feel guilt and make amends, they feel shame and
withdraw.

------
ldubs16
I find this article very interesting because it suggests that the effects of
moral attribution to the self vs. the event has the opposite results of
achievement attributions. There are numerous studies that show when you praise
a child for being smart instead of working hard, they become less curious and
motivated. Perhaps this dichotomy is because of the commonly-accepted
distinction between talent and work ethic, whereas being good and doing good
are largely the same.

------
oliyoung
That made a lot of sense, especially when illustrated with the "that was a bad
thing to do" rather than the "you're a bad person for doing that"

~~~
dulse
Yes, that part seems really important, defining the separation between the
things that you do and your sense of self identity sounds like it's a critical
part of creating a healthy sense of self esteem.

Looking inward it feels like I still struggle with this pattern of thinking
sometimes, as I suspect many people do (the feeling of "that project failed"
vs. "I'm a failure, this project is evidence of this fact" is worlds apart).

------
bdg
For anyone who wants to know more about the topic: Adam Grant (the author) has
been doing a lot of work around this concept of "givers" as a personal trait
and how behaviors around the actions of giving/taking/matching results in
various levels of success or early indicators for other things. This article
is really a subset of his research applied to just this one case.

~~~
a2kadet
I just finished his book Give and Take. It was a great read.

------
Im_Talking
Haven't read the article as it's probably full of psycho-babble. Just live
your life with integrity and the kids will follow. And don't force-feed
religion on the poor kids, morals are not from fairy-tales; morals are real.
My kids see the value of being moral via me and then these morals are
confirmed as they wander thru life.

------
trackofalljades
I find this article directly interesting, as a parent, but also sort of "meta"
interesting as someone who's always been fascinated by the differences between
shame-based societies and guilt-based ones. I'm not discounting the author's
insights, but they are very clearly influenced by western thinking.

------
mrcactu5
I grew up and live in New York City - where people are not very caring. But
how do we measure that?

    
    
      In an Israeli study of nearly 600 families, 
      parents who valued kindness and compassion 
      frequently failed to raise children who shared those   
      values.
    

How do you quantify kindness and compassion?

~~~
VLM
Confusing "valuing" and "are". For mere valuing a simple survey should be
adequate.

An analogy would be valuing wealth while being poor. Or innumerable examples
of reportedly valuing a certain religion's beliefs, yet ridiculously bad,
often opposite, implementation of those beliefs.

------
mathattack
There is some irony of an article about generosity coming from a Wharton
professor. :-) I do like the outcome though - model the behaviors that you
want your kids to follow.

------
gregwebs
Why limit these concepts to raising children? It seems like they should apply
to adult interactions as well.

------
jessriedel
Has anyone see discussion about the relation of these kind of empirical ideas
to virtue ethics?

------
jgalt212
I would like to raise a moral child, and I aim to do so, but I'm sure they'll
be less successful for it.

In today's oligarchy it seems like the great majority of successful people
today are either criminals or general pieces of shit.

Now, of course, being a success is not the end all and be all, but seeing your
skills greatly outdistance your results can be quite frustrating.

~~~
abarringer
That only makes sense if by "being a success" means having more stuff then the
next guy.

I'd prefer to define success differently. If I had all the worlds goods/power
and treated others like dirt I'd chalk myself up as a total loss.

------
Fasebook
This is not an article I would go to NYTimes to read.

~~~
__david__
Why?

~~~
pnut
because subliminal liberal mind control, duh!

------
thesigil
Hi, I am not a parent, but I think I have to put across this point of the way
of looking at morality being independent of "free will", because "free will"
is an illusion and the illusion of "free will" is also an illusion. The non-
existence of free will should not be confused with fatalism
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism).
Morality and love and compassion can still be quantified without free will.
What goes away are actually the negative feelings like hatred, anger and pride
and shame.

Let us take a simple thought experiment. Let me ask you to choose a book. Let
us make it simple, let us remove all the books that you do not know about, and
just consider the books that you are aware of being great. If you have already
chosen one, drop it as it is wrong, don't ask me how, but I know, and this
time be sensitive to the process of choosing a book. This is the most freest
of choice that you ever will get to make, so free will better be here or else
it is no where. Do you observe that there is a certain gap from the time I ask
you to pick a book, and then there is certain gap and then suddenly there are
a list of books in your mind. There is no way you can explain why you didn't
think of The Godfather even though you know it is a great book. Let us say you
thought about Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, Surely You're Joking
Mr.Feynman and Seven years in Tibet. You have just finished one book in the
series of Harry Potter and you are not interested in reading fiction again, so
eliminate that, then you are only left with Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman
and Seven years in Tibet, say you like reading biographies so you chose Seven
years in Tibet and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, now when you have only
these two options and there is no coherent opposition that is present in the
system, only then comes the free aspect. There is still no way you can explain
why you did not think otherwise, of choosing another book in the series of
Harry Potter and reading more fiction. So where is the free will here? All of
this still does not eradicate the feeling of love and compassion we feel and
does not make everyone guilty by reason of insanity.

All of this is much more well articulated by Sam Harris who holds a Ph.D in
neurobiology and graduate in Philosophy. He talks about the delusion of free
will at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk)

Here is another piece of his work where he promotes scientific thinking and
argues that moral questions are best pursued using, not just philosophy, but
methods of science.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape)

~~~
aaronem
Either you're doing a lousy job of putting Harris's thesis across, or the
thesis itself is gibberish. Whichever is so, you would've added more to this
discussion by not posting this comment at all, than by doing so in its current
state.

(And, having just spent a year in academia and seen "methods of science"
firsthand, I can only assume the suggestion they be applied to questions of
morality represents a blatant grab for funding on the part of Dr. Harris, who
no doubt envisions himself as a PI presiding over such investigations. On the
other hand, if he were all that good a grant writer, I doubt he'd have gone to
the trouble of publishing in the popular press.)

~~~
thesigil
Thanks for pointing out that am doing a lousy job of putting across Dr.
Harris's work, :) And I think that is mainly because of the way am putting the
thought experiment across without a lot of premise being set, which is clearly
set in the talk he gives. Many people misunderstand that non-existence of free
will means everything is predetermined, which is not the case we all know. It
does not matter if you have a lot of skills, but it matters if you use them.
It does not matter if you have not understood some subjects, rather than
blaming someone else about it, it matters if you improve on them. And he is
not the only one whose work lead to the conclusion of free will being
incoherent, there are many other biologists who prove the same. Now what is
remarkable about Sam's work is that he also takes care of proving that the
illusion of free will is also an illusion. When Harris is saying methods of
science being applied to look at morality, he is not the first one to propose
so, there have been many prominent schools of thought, to name one Hindu
philosophy, which have also spoken the same. The way Harris is speaking about
methods of science is that every individual can apply it for themselves and
see it for themselves. There need not be any investigating authority other
than the privacy of our mind :) I have applied methods of science myself to
what Harris is saying and then coming and posting here. Please do not
criticize him or his work without even looking at it :) Methods of science
mean that results of an experiment being verifiable by all.

------
lightyrs
IANAP, however, the entire concept of performing 'experiments' on your child
is repugnant to me.

~~~
vectorpush
Why?

~~~
lightyrs
Because a child cannot give consent.

~~~
smtddr
Note that in reality, all parents are experimenting. Nobody __knows__ the
right way to raise a child. I'm the father of a 3yr daughter but I dare not
claim that my way is the right way...

~~~
lightyrs
There's a difference between 'experimenting' and experimenting. The explicit
variation is what I'm referring to — and I don't think it's a matter of
semantics. It's the intention that I'm taking issue with.

