Raising Moral Children

There was an interesting platform talk (a.k.a. sermon) today about the biological bases for ethical behavior. The speaker, Arthur Dobrin, talked about some of the latest research in other animals/primates that supports the idea that ethical behavior is needed for survival.
But what we know more and more is that while humans have neurons that can organize themselves in a bunch of different ways when we're born, we have to be taught and exposed to things in order to learn/become them. Language is one example: most babies can made the neural pathways in their brains that allow them to learn and use language, BUT they have to be exposed to language in order to do it.
Morality is the same way: we can all become moral people (and most of us do) BUT we must be exposed to caring, compassionate, attentive care as children in order to make the neural connections that allow us to see ourselves as worthwhile beings. Attachment is the basis of morality. Attachment is the process that occurs as parents care for infants, responding to their needs in a timely, compassionate way. Mirroring emotions and helping to calm infants when they are upset are also huge parts of attachment. And all these things teach babies that they are important, can affect their environment and are worth being protected and cared for. And that is the basis of moral behavior -- treating others as we want (and believe we deserve) to be treated.

Why Be Ethical???

We spent the day in ethical pursuits: an Ethical Society colleague and I are developing a Sunday School curriculum based on the ethical issues in the Harry Potter series. We met this morning to discuss the curriculum. It will be available from the American Ethical Union, aeu.org, later this summer. Then I taught Sunday School -- Why do bad things happen? is the theme of the class. We discussed the idea of the Grim Reaper and how death fits into life. We talked about how you might think about death depending on whether or not you believe there is an afterlife.
But when we got home, we did the most ethical thing of all -- we took a couple of trash bags and went for a walk in the beautiful, 60-degree weather and picked up trash and recyclables. The kids got into it. My son Joe especially was willing to risk getting wet, dirty or worse to get trash out of the stream near our house. My daughter Jeannie is getting very good at flattening cans. Why did we do this? Because, as my daughter put it, we have to take care of our home, the earth. No god needed; no fear of punishment needed.