Good and Bad Behavior

An idealized view of a child portrays a delightfully innocent creature who responds favorably to kind words and wise direction. While children are not “little adults” with well-practiced vices, they do come complete with a mix bag of good and bad tendencies. Children are often guilty of bad behavior. They disobey parental rules and they lie to protect themselves from punishment. Most children and adolescents commit minor felonies at home and in the community.

Human populations display a range of characteristics. In any group, you can find nice people and you can find bad people at all ages. All human characteristics are present in each human as a variable mix that changes over time. We recognize that one individual will move through different states and may display contradictory behaviors and express contradictory ideas.

We also recognize that humans young and old are competitive and strategic and that everyone will sometimes lie, cheat and many break laws routinely. We recognize that the tendencies of predators remain in the deepest layers of the human mind and are expressed spontaneously by children in their play and in their day to day behavior towards others. 

The exploration and explanation of bad human behavior is not as simple at it might seem. You could argue that bad people are distinctly different from good people and can be identified by a combination of biography and diagnostic tests. Good people, however, sometimes display bad behaviors and, if your sample their behavior at the wrong moment, you will come to the wrong conclusion.

Children are especially vulnerable to overly harsh judgments when they make mistakes and break rules. Children are in the process of learning how to behave in an acceptable manner and must make mistakes to learn. The learn the wrong lessons from angry parents who punish them often and excessively.

Empathy is an important ability of good children who gradually become skilled in sensing and appreciating the needs and feelings of others.  Empathy is, however, selective and unstable. Children and adults tend to follow group rules; a normally empathetic child may be callous toward a child who has been rejected by his or her friends.

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Children and Family

The  Psychology & Philosophy series was developed by Persona Digital Books. The books are copyright and all rights to reproduction by any means are reserved. We encourage readers to quote and paraphrase topics from Children, Adolescents and the Family published online and expect proper citations to accompany derivative writings. The author is Stephen Gislason MD.  Published 2010. The URL to this book description is Children and Family.

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