The Moral Intelligence of Children

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The question is more relevant now than ever before: what makes someone a moral person?

Child psychiatrist and Harvard professor Robert Coles has dedicated much of his life to exemplifying, teaching, and writing about the moral life. Here, Coles illuminates the ways in which children become moral or not so moral adults, drawing on case studies, talks with parents, visits to nurseries and classrooms, and interviews with children. No subject could be more important and more timely—for all Americans, but especially for parents. In the tradition of such bestsellers as Cultural Literacy and Emotional Intelligence, The Moral Intelligence of Children identifies a new type of intelligence essential for success and fulfillment in life. It will be used by parents and teachers for years to come as the authoritative guide to children's moral development.Preface

I. Moral Intelligence
1. The Moral Imagination: Witnesses
2. The Good Person
3. A Not-so-Good Person: Moral Undertow
4. Moral Crossroads - Bad Behavior, Bad "Witnesses"

II. The Moral Archaeology of Childhood
1. The Early Years
2. The Elementary School Years: The Age of Conscience
3. Adolescence

III. Letter to Parents and Teachers

Appendix
Index

“An inspiring book that is full of stories, examples, and provocative ideas that help the reader think differently about the important role adults play in shaping a child’s moral intelligence. Cole’s style of writing and use of case study examples and personal experiences is a delightful and effective way to illustrate such an abstract concept. This book should be read by parents, teachers, and clinicians.”—Valerie Maholmes, The American Journal of Psychiatry
 
“Written with his customary acute perceptiveness, this important inquiry will enlighten parents, teachers and caregivers concerned with children's moral intelligence.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Coles' energy and intellectual reach by themselves have earned him public notice, but other qualities—such as clear prose and good taste in the prose of others, especially Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor—have attracted a far wider audience than the jargon-spewing social scientists and language-hating literary critics of present-day academia could ever hope to enjoy… With unaffected reverence for the Golden Rule, Coles, as it were, lifts the child off the analyst's couch and deposits him back in the home. He urges us—particularly us parents—to see our children as morally educable, even when they're babies, and not just as primitive masses of conflicting emotions and needs.”—John R. MacArthur, Los Angeles Times
 
“There are two especially noteworthy features to Coles’s argument. First, moral character is shaped from infancy through adolescence through witnessing the conduct and caring of others and through moral conversations. In this way, certain moral qualities, such as empathy, are nurtured or thwarted.”—Larry Hultgren, Metapsychology
 
“Intelligent, accessible and compelling, The Moral Intelligence of Children effectively captures the challenge, for children and parents alike, of struggling with life’s ironies and ambiguities.”—PeopleRobert Coles is professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School and a research psychiatrist for the Harvard University Health Services. He has written over 50 books, including the Pulitzer prize-winning five-volume Children of Crisis and the bestselling The Spiritual Life of Children. The James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard, he also teaches at Duke University during the spring semester, where he devotes much of his energy to the magazine DoubleTake, which he founded in 1995 and which is still based at Duke's Center for Documentary Studies.