Young children constantly push themselves to master new skills despite their fears of getting hurt. For example, a toddler will persist in getting up and trying to walk even though he repeatedly falls and lands on the floor. This inner push toward growth and achievement despite bumps and bruises is an early form of courage.
The more a young child confronts physical challenges like learning to run or climb, the more capable she feels, and the more likely she is to take on new challenges in the future.
What Parents Can Do:
What's the Goal? Build your child's confidence and willingness to confront her fears.
Like younger children, preschoolers demonstrate courage by taking on new physical challenges. They'll summon all their inner strength, for example, to ride down the big slide at the playground or hang unassisted from the monkey bars. But children this age also begin to confront fears that are less tied to the physical world. Their growing cognitive ability, which causes them to picture imaginary threats, also helps them overcome fear.
What Parents Can Do:
What's the Goal? Give your child emotional strategies and skills that will help him continue to confront difficult challenges in the future.
At this age, children begin to cope with increasing independence and
display a new level of courageous behavior. For example, a child who
walks into her kindergarten classroom for the first time has to face a
host of unknowns: Will her teacher be nice? Will she make friends? How
will she find the bathroom? Will reading be hard? As she learns to
handle these fears, she gains courage.
Children this age can also start to temper physical courage with common sense-that it's brave to learn to ride a two-wheeler, for example, but it's foolhardy to race down too steep a hill.
What Parents Can Do:
What's the Goal? Increase your child's confidence in her ability to be brave in the face of challenging situation.
Middle-years kids may start to display a different kind of courage--moral
courage, the drive to do the right thing despite fear of negative
consequences. Two developmental milestones occurring at this age make
moral courage possible--the awareness of others' perspectives and a
sense of right and wrong.
What Parents Can Do:
What's the Goal? Lay the foundation for your child to expect moral courage in others and himself.
Preteens are in rebellion against their parents, while also increasingly
under the influence of peers--not exactly a recipe for moral courage. If
taking a stand is likely to provoke a negative reaction from friends,
a preteen may be unable to carry it through. However, moral courage has not
disappeared--it's merely in hibernation. Below their surface cool, kids
are keenly aware of life's injustices. Often, a child this age will
quietly assert his independence by refusing to do things that violate
his ethical sense.
What Parents Can Do:
What's the Goal? Maintain your child's commitment to doing the right thing, even through it may be hard for him to express.
As kids hit the teenage years, they are capable of a higher level of
moral reasoning. Though still self-absorbed, teens are aware that their
actions affect others, and they feel a sense of responsibility to
advance the social good. A 17-year-old is likely to stop a buddy from
driving if he's had too much to drink--despite the possibility of being
labeled "uncool." Teens are more analytical and tend to question
authority, which helps them take an independent stand on issues.
In the classroom, learning about historical events in which people showed moral courage--such as the Germans who defied Hitler--or studying heroes like Gandhi and Martin Luther King advances ethical standards.
What Can Parents Do?
What's the Goal? Provide your child with a safe place to reason through morally difficult situations and conclude that moral courage is the best solution.
