Rearing Children in a Culture of Peace—Do Toys Matter?
Dr. Joanna Santa Barbara

 

The year 2000 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of the Culture of Peace.  It begins the UN declared Decade of the Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World.  This is as good of time as any to consider how to translate this into action.

How do children develop moral capacities, especially in the areas of peace and justice?  An important pre-condition for good moral development is that the child needs to experience a secure nurturing relationship.  Sometimes the memory of a previous nurturing relationship will carry a child through a more deprived period without interrupting moral development.

Humans can be thought of as being born into the world with two important potentials - the potential to pursue one’s own needs to do what is needed to survive, including the possibility of aggressive acts against others; and the potential to become a member of a social group- understanding and complying with the wishes of the group (initially the family) and doing what is needed to remain accepted by the group.

These potentials are life-long, and find changing expression at different ages.  They are enormously elaborated by learning.  Quite often the self-caring tendency conflicts with the group- needing tendency, and in adulthood we learn to balance them in a variety of ways. 

The moral development of a child will depend on how parents balance and foster these tendencies.  The self-caring motivation needs respect, but parents teach inhibition of it in favour of behaviours that foster good social interaction (which the child also needs and wants) and a developing sense of justice and reciprocity.

“Say ‘thank-you’.”

  “Take turns.”

“Share your toys.”

“Don’t grab.”

Inhibition of toddler aggression is part of this process.

Children are astonishing learners.  Through early childhood their moral capacities expand rapidly as they learn social rules.  When they see their important adults show kindness to others, this is learned and later reproduced in the child’s behaviour.  Particularly powerful is the practice of guiding a young child in his or her own acts of kindness to others and contribution to the family.

“Here, you can tear up the lettuce for our salad tonight.”

 “Help Mom carry these groceries over to Mr. Ling’s place, because he is sick.”

Skills in moral behaviour expand in childhood.  These include the skills of good communication- active listening and clear statements of feelings, vital for a child to learn how to resolve conflicts.  Skills in self-control, quiet reflection, creativity and a sense of humour are part of the repertoire of moral skills.  Especially important is the capacity for empathy.  Parents can guide the growth of this by drawing attention to it at relevant moments.

“Look at your sister’s face.  How do you think she feels when you won’t give her a turn?”

As the child gets older their understanding to the world expands, and accordingly, their moral capacity.  They learn from their caring adults how to “tread lightly on the Earth”, about human diversity, how to relate to others who are different, about global problems- poverty, power disparities, diversity intolerance, nuclear weapons.

Values expand.  The child learns a sense of responsibility.

Every experience moulds a child.  Most salient are those in the family.  The quality of respect and love in adult relationships will provide a lasting model. Nonviolent disciplinary methods using verbal guidance, empathy induction and natural consequences will lead to a child’s internalizing moral teaching as his or her own.  Hitting children tends to lead to transient obedience only when likely to be caught, and provides a model of violent coercion.

Whether adults entertain themselves with violence on TV and video screen will be relevant in values development.

The child will be further influenced by all its social relationships, especially with admired adults such as teachers, and with older children.  Religious leaders, leaders of leisure groups such as Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, YM and YWCA may play important roles. 

The social structures around the child also contribute to developing moral values.  In family and school, are these steep hierarchies of relationships, with some dominating and others subordinate?  Can some express their feelings and desires but not others?

Finally we come to the realm of play and entertainment in children’s lives- sports, media, toys.  Stories have immense cultural value.  The stories of our childhood convey values we retain forever.

Plato said, “Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?”

Consider the values conveyed by the stories for children on television.  Some show caring, sharing, helping, respect for diversity.  These have been shown to strengthen these moral values in children.  Many convey themes justifying the use of violence and disrespect for diversity.  These stories are accompanied by repeated messages to consume more things.  These themes too have been shown conclusively to affect children.  The violent themes cause children to behave more aggressively with others, to justify the use of violence in resolving conflict, to be more callous about the effects of violence on others and less likely to help someone in need.  The invitation to consume things of course trains children to become avid consumers.

Video games are probably worse.  We learn more intensely when we are actively engaged.  Video games actively engage children in blowing others up.  The world is divided into “us” (good) and “them” (bad).  The game is structured as a moral imperative to blow “them” up.  This is exciting and rewarding (points are scored).  For many children there is an addictive quality to this activity.

According to military psychologists, it is difficult to train young people to kill other humans.  Special methods must be used.  Some of these methods bear a close resemblance to video games.

Other toys too convey values.  A Barbie doll conveys values of what women should look like, and which gender should focus on what activity.  A gun conveys that its purpose i.e. killing, is acceptable.  Other war-toys convey the same value.

Sports convey values.  Values of trying hard, practicing, cooperating with a team would be considered admirable by most.  But the value of incapacitating an opponent through violence, present in a surprising number of sports and especially in hockey, is condemnable to many thoughtful people.  It falls to parents to check what values will be conveyed by the coaches of their children’s sports.  Of course parents’ inquiries will influence what transpires.

Some of these cultural influences convey a dangerous message- that the world is divided into “good guys” and “bad guys” and life is about the “good guys” destroying the “bad guys”, usually with high technology.  This crude oversimplification of the world plays itself out when we (good guys, of course) are involved in an actual armed conflict.  The media reproduces the video game.  Empathy for those suffering beneath the high technology bombardment is rarely elicited.

Why would we expose our children to such influences that so seriously undermine their moral development?  Everyone who has reared children knows how difficult it is to counter these influences.

Children are relatively powerless in most societies.  Guns symbolize power to make others do what you want and to destroy those who get in the way.  This fantasy is very attractive to the powerless.  For some weapons symbolize masculinity, often a tenuous quality for a growing boy.

We all love stories and we have a seemingly endless appetite for hearing them.  TV is a story machine, churning them out every hour, day and night.  It is immensely compelling.  It further seduces children and adults with attractive bodies, fast movement, loud noises-stimuli to which we naturally pay attention.  It is tragic that those who produce the stories, for children and adults, apparently care little about the moral harm they cause.  Beyond parental censoring of young children’s exposure, and discussion of moral content with older children, adults need to seek to influence networks, sponsors and producers.  It is our children’s minds and moral development they are manipulating.

Some adults argue that they were reared with guns, toy or real, and they haven’t become murderers.  Obviously human populations comprise differences on many dimensions.  No one influence will produce one result.  But there is quite a large body of research showing the relationship between the use of violent media, violent toys and real-life violent behaviour.  These firm data deal also with the argument that children distinguish reality from fantasy and will not play fantasy stories out in reality.  It is simply a fact that some do, and that all of us are influenced to some extent by the fantasy and fiction we choose.

Parents despair about trying to teach non-violence in a culture that applauds violence.  They note their children constructing Lego guns and enjoying their friends’ violent toys.  Children will always be exposed to mixed moral messages.  Which ones prevail will depend on the strength of the relationships with important adults, and other uncontrollable factors.  Parents can only do their best.