Moral Development In Cousin Alex's State Of Development

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Morals are a major part of who we believe we are. From the moment we are born we are interpreting the world and developing our ideas about what we see. As we become toddlers we experience our first interactions with moral decision and what it means for us. From this moment our moral development does not stop changing and advancing. I have been able to see moral development in my cousin Alex go through moral development. I have been babysitting him since he was two. He is a little eight-year-old boy with a mom, dad, and baby sister. Over the years I have been able to observe how he’s changed including how he lies and deals with rules. Using theories of moral development we can better understand Alex’s state of development by applying these principles to his past and present actions. The social learning theory explains our moral development through reinforcement and modeling. This theory explores how parents reward and punish children for certain behaviors. If a child …show more content…

It proclaims that children begin to see moral issues in a much more flexible way rather than how they’ve been taught. Occurring around the same time is the concept of merit, which begins to form at about seven years old as well (Kuther 2016). Children can determine that someone deserves more of a reward because they did more work. Many times Alex has demonstrated his understanding of merit as well as his changing perspective on dealing with issues. Alex has discussed with me how he feels he should have gotten a higher grade than another classmate because he did more work. He understands that you earn your rewards and he did not see this situation as fair. In other situations Alex has been able to understand that rules aren’t always unbreakable. Alex had watched his mom break the rule that you can’t have dessert before dinner. Instead of getting upset that a rule was broken, Alex simply felt he should be allowed to have a dessert early

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