Parents are the primary educators of children who are responsible for providing primary moral education. The parental influences on the psyche of children’s’ moral development play a huge role. Let us understand the process of value inculcation through parental influences;
- Induction (Initial Experience) – Philosophers often argue that the behaviour of parents is what shapes up the behaviour of children. Thus, parents need to practice what they preach and then preach what they practice.
- Nurturing and support – Authoritative Parenting is essential in order to foster self-awareness, respect and social sensitivity along with authority and respect for rules.
- Modelling – This requires the parents to teach their kids by setting an example. For instance, respecting the kids is essential to teach them respect.
- Enforcement Mechanism – Good behaviour of the child must be rewarded but only with intangible things such as Hugging, Appreciation etc. This will keep him motivated and will help him stick to being at his best behaviour always.
- Democratic parenting – It helps in the development of cognitive reasoning in the child so he could make reasonable choices at present or in future.
- Moral lessons – It has long lasting impact on children psyche and also helps in the development of moral reasoning thereby one could differentiate between morally appropriate and inappropriate behaviours. For example, telling stories from Mahabharata, Ramayana etc.
- Family structure and social influence – In joint family gatherings, child learns the basic family values such as courtesy, respect, mutual care and affection etc.
- Traditional values – Practice of traditional values by family member is learned by children through observational learning. For example, Honourable treatment given to female members of family inculcates the value of treating women fairly in the child.
Challenges/Limitations
- Source of regressive values – Family, being an informal institution is largely a source of regressive values. For examples, In India, Parents teach their kids to be in the company of similar identity (Religion, caste etc.)
- Conflicting values – Different moral lessons by various family members may lead to conflict in formation of value system. For instance, orthodox in a family will take conservative values whereas democratic will preach liberal values.
- Pretending Parents – Parents due to various reasons fail to adhere to teaching themselves that they imparted to their kids. Children easily recognizes this hypocrisy and lose faith in the preaching imparted by parents. For example, Parents teach the value of love and care but they themselves fight with their relatives over petty issues.
- Decline in joint family – Change in Family structure is weakening the process of value inculcation through family. Parents spend very less time with their kids, in addition, rise of technology has significantly decreased the interaction between parent and child.
- Lack of emotional and spiritual values – In todays’ world, parents are imparting value of meritocracy in brute sense while neglecting emotional and spiritual aspects of human development. This has causing unbalanced human development.
- Lack of Democratic Parenting – Lack of autonomy granted to children due to prevalence of authoritative parenting impacts the process of value inculcation. This leads to only external acceptance of values but not internalized process which leads to the development of weak value framework.
