Morality

I know, I have no children and my qualification to talk on the subject is there is a child being raised in my house, and not particularly well, but one think I don't think many parents get is teaching their child morality. As a parent you need to teach your child two main things constantly: What is right and what is wrong, and that is always better to do the right. Particle theory is also good, but those are the main ones.

This means you must never, ever pass an opportunity to tell you child when they are doing something wrong. And you must never do anything wrong yourself. No smoking in front of your child, as it can't be justified. No swearing. You swear, you tell you child swearing is okay. "I'm older" is NOT, absolutely NOT an excuse. Kid's brains are not that well developed, but they are well developed enough to know that that is not a reason. "There are times you can swear and times you can't" is a reason, but "I'm older" is not. You're older so you should know better! "I'm older" is a feasible excuse for drinking reasonably, as your liver is better developed to process the alcohol correctly, and you understand the risks to your health enough to make an informed decision. Tell your child that, when something is good or bad, tell them why, explain it to them.

My mother did this so well for me. I'll tell you a little story. I once stole a piece of card from school. Yeah, a piece of card from the materials tray. She told me off and made me put it back the next day. Yeah. I never stole again. Okay, it isn't important that your school get their card back, on any level. What is important is that your child knows that stealing is wrong. When you turn a blind eye to your child stealing her friend's hairpin, you turn a blind eye to your child stealing from you. From shops. From banks. From old ladies. From houses. Are you going to wait until your child mugs helpless old women to teach them stealing is wrong? Or are you going to let them know as soon as they take olives from the fridge without asking?

It works all the way around. You let your child be rude to you, or your friends or other children, you are teaching them that it is okay to be rude. Okay to be rude to their teachers, their bosses, casual acquaintances, enemies, shop assistants. Everyone. If you let them insult some people and not others you are teaching them that is okay to be rude to some people, sometimes, or worse. Let your kid kick a dog, you are letting them kick a person. The morality they get from you must be absolute. It must be very, very clear. And don't just shout at your child, make examples of people. Make sure they know that everyone has a responsibility to be good. Daddy is not allowed to take office supplies from work, not while you have children.

Teaching them that you should do what is good is hard. Teaching them what is good is easy.

One more thing: Never really yell at your child for a first offense. If your child says crap or bloody or something else you don't like, and you yell at them, you are teaching them that the world is full of random traps they can trigger unsuspectingly. If you tell them politely that you should not do what ever it was, explain why, make sure they remember, and THEN yell at them whenever they do it, they learn not to do that thing.

Somewhere, my parents and teachers did this awesomely for me, I am completely incapable of doing anything even remotely immoral.