Toddler Moral Development

Video Transcript

"Hi, I am Doctor David Hill, today we are talking about toddler moral development. Now, toddlers are learning a tremendous amount about the world and they are growing and developing very rapidly. So one good question is, "What should be reasonable for a toddler to understand about right and wrong, about what is and what is not aloud?" The lessons we are teaching are very simple at this time. Probably the single most important lessons is we do not hurt other people. Toddlers are just coming into an understanding that they and other people are separate entities, so that if they hit somebody else for example that person will hurt the same they are hurt when they are hit. It is reasonable to explain to a toddler, "No that hurts," and then remove them immediately from the situation. Toddlers do not really do well with long explanations, they do not get that so keep it short and simple. No that hurts. It is okay to put a toddler in time out it is actually a very effective discipline technique, if it is being used properly. A toddler does not have a terribly long attention span so if a child is one year old they can be in time out for two minutes by the time that two minutes is over they are going to have forgotten what they went into time out for in the first place. Time out should not be some place that is fun to be or it really kind of loses is purpose and toddlers will often decide they are just going to get up and leave time out at which point you might have to put them back there or even hold them there, you do not want to do anything extreme like tying them to a chair, but you do want to help them sit still for a couple of minutes so that they know what they have done is unacceptable. A couple of other things that toddlers need to learn is for example not to run out into traffic do not do something that is unsafe. Again it is going to take a lot of teaching for them to get the hang of it and again be immediate, be direct. No, you stay when I ask you to stay. Bring them back to where they were explain that it dangerous you could get hurt, you are going to have to do that a lot before a toddler learns. Maybe a few years honestly, but there is nothing wrong with starting to teach the lesson. Last, this is a time when children start to play with other children and so you are trying to teach them to share, this concept if you have known any toddlers is completely foreign to a toddler, this is mine why should I give it to anyone else? It is okay to take that thing away and explain we share, and then make sure eventually that the toddler gets it back preferably unbroken so that they learn that things that they give to other people will some back to them. So talking about toddler moral development, remember they can learn not to hit, they can learn to share, they can learn not to run out into traffic. More sophisticated lessons might need to wait until they are a little bit older but if they have got these three they have got an awful lot. Talking about toddler moral development I am Doctor David Hill."