Yuanming Hu
Seminar
11/4/2014
Children influenced by their parent
As society develops, people are having a better life than before. Nowadays
children are starting to go to school earlier. Compared to previous generations.
Therefore children’s first teacher are not only their parents but also are those
instructors in school. They are more thoughtful and educated than before. Children
will questioning their parents’ behavior and moral standard. Their parents’ attitude
and behavior will decide their children’s attitude and morality.
Robert Coles who is a famous author and a psychologist found out some problem
after interviewing some children. What problem that Coles states is that children get
confused when they receive different moral instruction from home and school. Amy
Tan an America born Chinese who made up a story that based on her experience. In
her story a little girl named Jing-mei Woo. Woo mother’s behavior affect her
daughter’s motivate a lot.
When children were born, some parents always consider that they are the gift
from god; they are the Angeles; they are the most beautiful decoration of the world.
Those assumptions from parents are incorrect. As Coles says in his article <I Listen to
My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe> that “We do not see that our children
also make ethical decision every day in their own lives, or realize how attuned they
may be to moral currents and Issues in the lager society.” Parents are always ignore
children’s hunger of morality. They hardly pay attention on what their children asking
them those moral question and even sometimes parents teach wrong morality to their
children.
An eight years old children in Appalachia whose father is the owner of a coal field.
When an explosion happen in her father’s factory and cause two workers dead. Her
father did not shoulder his responsibilities but try to escape from duty. When her
daughter asking her daddy what happened, he just described it as a sample accident
which cause by those worker’s careless. Of course, none of parents will want their
children to know their parents will do something wrong. Parents want their children
to know that every decision they make are all right. They do not want their reputation
going down in children’s mind when they doing things wrong, so that they try to find
some excuse to escape from duty. In addition, her farther try to escape the
responsibility because he do not want to be arrested or fine from government. No
matter what is the reason that his father had, as a result, it made his daughter getting
confused about her un-shaped morality when she went school. Teacher and
classmates are questioning her perspective about this accident. All she can do is felt
sorry about those worker without any statement on whether her father is right or
wrong. Furthermore, the girl have her answer in her heart, she felt her father did
wrong, but she was confused that why there are many different answer surround her
and making she confused. In some situations, parent will protect their reputation in
their children’s mind by hiding some fact and duty, but they forgot their children have
their own though, their though are not developed but it still exist. Those “white lie”
will not save parent’s reputation but making children to get confused, because as
society developed, children also get instructed at school and receive information from
media. To avoid making children to get confused about moral question, parent should
tell their children what the fact is instead of hiding something.
Parents should not mandate moral standard to their children, especially those
standards that against social ethical standard. Nowadays, immigrant are more and
more popular in the world. Many countries are combined with several color people,
especially America, the country of liberty. Americans are admire freedom, this country
has many advantages policy to welcome other color people settled in America and
seeking their dream. However, there are also many racial problem exist in society and
barrier the harmonious of different color people. Why will those situation happened?
Do people born with racial discrimination? The answer is no. People who become
racialism may because they accept the false moral assumption by society or parent when
they were young. Coles in his second interview described that in 1960, when the society
was transferring from desegregation to more equal. One ardent segregationist’s father try
to establish his racial moral standard to his son. The father’s morality is conflict with the
law just published in the state. As a result, when he was parenting his son with his racial
ethic that there should only be one color at school, the color is absolutely white. But his
son found out that what his father telling he at home is different from what he saw at school.
He saw many difference color people in school, did the same things as the white children
did. The son was getting confused about how this situation happened and asking his
parents. In this particular age, children are just like a blank paper. Children do not shaped
their conception of the world. They absorb various information from school and parents.
When his father told him that other races people should not go to school with white people.
The child become uncertain when he saw many other color children in school. The little
boy told Coles “When I went to school the first day I didn’t know what would go on. Would
the school stay open or would it close up? We didn’t know what to do.” From what this 9
year old boy saying that not only he was unsure about whether other races people can go
to school with white but also other white children have the same question, because he use
the sentence “We didn’t what to do. When parent parenting their children morality which is
opposite from what children are instructed at school. It may fail to help their children to
shape a positive moral assumption. In this example, this little boy was outgoing enough,
because he accept the interview by Coles. He didn’t refuse to communicate to other people,
so when he saw the fact was different with his father’s saying. He is asking question and
try to observe what other color do in school. He found out that there are not differences
between the white and the colored. However, some of the children may not outgoing
enough, they may listening to their parent. They may refuse to communicate with colored
children in school. Because their parent already told them what to believe in, what to not
believed in. If those children didn’t think and observe enough, they may passivity accept
the wrong moral assumption from their parent. Parent should helping their children to seek
their own moral standard instead of telling children what 5they should believe in, what not
to believe in.