From the role of television and religion to the importance of discipline and table manners, William Damon has strong views on the best ways to raise children. He shared some of them with Stanford during an interview in his campus office. Excerpts:
Is raising kids harder today than it used to be?
Oh, sure. You're surrounded by a culture that undermines all of the core goals and values that you need to impart to kids. And by "culture" I'm not talking about some abstract, distant thing. I'm talking about that television set every kid watches four hours a day -- where virtually every bit of programming for kids portrays adults as clueless nitwits, where there's an incredible amount of gratuitous violence and sex and where the solution to the problem is to have the bigger gun or the faster draw than the next guy.
What was better about the old days?
If you went back to the time when you and I were growing up, most of America was structured in a way where, if the neighbors felt they saw a kid do wrong, they'd call the parents. And the parent would not then act like a lawyer. Adults need to support one another, not undermine each other.
Do you believe in spanking?
I'm against it, but I'm in favor of discipline. Discipline is very important, but corporal punishment is unnecessary and risky. There are lots of better ways to discipline a child, including withholding privileges, which is my favorite. At every age, there is something -- at 2 it's dessert, at 6 it's television, at 12 it's the party on the weekend. And when you withhold one of those privileges, the child has a chance to think about what went wrong without the hot emotional hurt of being spanked.
How can we teach manners to our kids?
Three things are important. First, there's setting a good example. Second, there's expecting good manners from the child. When the child eats with his fingers or yells at his mother, you don't let it go. You say, politely, "We expect better of you." The third point -- and this is a long-term thing -- is that you need to help the child develop an intellectual understanding that manners are not just a convention, but that the purpose of manners is to show respect for others.
What role should religion play in raising moral children?
Religion is a positive experience for kids and a great resource for parents. Kids who have a deep religious belief are often less vulnerable to the risks of adolescence. That's because [religion] often comes with a community of people who share the same basic values and are communicating them to the kids -- because there are some moral absolutes in any religion. And I'll say this -- it's controversial, but
I'll say it -- kids need moral absolutes. It's a mistake to think that you can raise a child in a morally relativistic way. It just confuses kids. You can make a philosophical argument for relativism at some postgraduate level and have an interesting discussion on it, but a 14-year-old needs to have some guidance as to the difference between right and wrong. Religion often defines that in a helpful way.
-- T.G.
