Parenting for Character: Teaching Justice and Compassion (4)

This series of blogs is taken from articles by Charles Debelak in the Birchwood School of Hawken's Clipboard during the 2017-18 school year. The purpose of Mr. Debelak's Clipboard articles is to provide parents with information about sound educational principles and child development issues gleaned from history, contemporary research, and Mr. Debelak's 40+ years educating, coaching, and counseling children, young adults, and parents.

Last blog I examined “justice toward others” as it relates to one-on-one relationships. This blog I will broaden this definition to include a child’s behaviors and relationships to social groupings of which he is a member. It includes family, peer groups, and social institutions such as those at school, on sports teams, in orchestras or ensembles, in theater productions, or service groups. In these settings children are called to understand and embrace their social role, and behave in a manner that benefits the individuals in the group and the group at large.

In today’s world, children do not often learn about their responsibility to others. Too often, teachers and parents ask children if they are happy, if they are satisfied, if they like being in a particular social group. Perhaps the inquiries are necessary but this perspective spoils children. It robs them of nurturing one of their basic human needs: meaningful relationships with others in a committed social group whose goals are greater than themselves. In this relationship a child not only benefits personally through group membership, but also becomes a meaningful and productive member of the group at large. In this definition of “justice toward others” children discover the joy of helping others. They experience the human bonding that occurs when they work well with others. In this commitment they also discover how much they gain personally while working for the good of all.

Without a healthy sense of justice toward others, children miss out on the give-and-take that is the cornerstone of functioning social groups. And they miss out on learning lifelong lessons of how to work with others, how to be a team player, and how to accomplish tasks as a member of a productive group. Without a healthy sense of justice toward others, children eventually become a problem to their social groups. Their selfishness weakens the group’s purposes and, ironically, the group will be less able to meet the child’s own needs.

Children must learn to assume responsibility for their part in making the social group strong. They cannot hope to step in and out of these groups, taking whatever they can, and then give nothing back in return. With this attitude and behavior, children undermine the group, and eventually find themselves excluded from the group.

Productive social groups are constituted by individuals who make personal sacrifices for the health, vibrancy, and efficacy of the group. Individual members of an effective group understand the collective importance of the group for all its constituent members. Individuals also understand that the strength of the group, its collaborative power, and its benefits to the individual rests on the cumulative measure of individual sacrifices for the well-being of the group.

When a child learns to evaluate and act upon what he can do for the group, when he determines what personal sacrifices he will make to forge a stronger group, he will discover a new kind of personal satisfaction, one that is not measured by his self-centered likes and dislikes, but upon the special joy of contributing to something greater than himself. He will discover the joy of making his family better, his classroom more productive, his sports team more successful, his school band more harmonious, and his theater production more accomplished. He will find a deeper sense of happiness and satisfaction. He will discover the sublime joy of living, in part, for the benefit of others, and he will enjoy the meaningful human relationships that follow.

From the 2018 February Birchwood School of Hawken Clipboard 
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