Advanced moral development

Fast learners, gifted children are advanced in their ethical and moral development as well as in their thinking. They can be very judgemental at an early age and they expect everyone to keep their word, act ethically at all times and see the long term consequences of their decision as they do themselves. One of the most difficult things they have to learn is that not everyone is like themselves. Although they nearly always think they are right they have to learn that humans fail and they can fail too. Forgiveness is an essential learning for them. Some need to learn to fail so that they can achieve their full potential. Fear of failure, because your self image is tied to excellent performance, stops them from trying things that would really extend them. Some play safe and do less.

Kohlberg’s stages is one way of looking at ethical development. Others would judge by a religious principle or a secular humanist model. It seems that the highest ethical levels in Kohlberg are reached by only a few.

Stages of Moral Development {Adapted from Kohlberg, 1964)

Stage Issue of Moral Concern

Selfish Obedience

I Rules followed to avoid punishment; obedience and concern for physical consequences.
Doing things for others because it will result in others doing things in return; concern for reward, equal sharing and benefit to self.
You see this stage in the infant school. However gifted children are beyond this by the time they come to school. They may have been past this before Kinder time. Their generosity and consideration of others is already operational. They expect more from their friends and they expect integrity from their teachers and the Principal. Stars for good behaviour or performance work because they like rewards.

Conforming to Traditions

Whatever pleases the majority is considered morally right; other Viewpoints can be seen, conformity is prized, desire to do things for others.
Group authority, law, duty and rules of society prized; concern for maintaining social order for its own sake; social disapproval avoided emphasis on the inherent ‘rightness’ of rules and duties.

Here you have the peer pressure of the upper school. You are ‘in’ or ‘out’ .

Friendships are not real buddies but rather power complexes. Gifted children may be left out of all this or keep to a very small group unless they are confident and successful sportspeople as well. If they are conforming on the outside they are still lonely on the inside. Most are introverted, about 70% so they don’t reveal what they are thinking and feeling.

Moral Principles Beyond Conformity

Internal commitment to principles of personal conscience; concern with individual rights within standards set by consensus; emphasis on fair procedures for reaching consensus and for evaluating principles and rules.

By late primary school most gifted children are already beyond this stage even though many adults don’t t reach it. They make their own decisions based on their ethical principles. If the groups doesn’t go along they will do it themselves. They learn to make the most of adult contact and endure the childishness of their age peers. They don’t join in the really silly teenage things such as ‘Schoolies Week’ or get drunk.

The really lonely and desperate ones may consider suicide. This is because they are so empathetic to other people in the whole world- the prisoners of conscience, the starving due to poverty, the injustices of governments spending on armaments and letting their own people go without water, the frustration of seeing stupid or wicked adults vote and they cannot, their youth making them ineffective for the time being..

Concern with universal ethical principles and abstract morality, affecting all beings regardless of conventional views; emphasis on universality, consistency, and logical comprehensiveness.

Now they are prepared to suffer for their ethical principles. This is not just on their own behalf but for others. They are big picture thinkers and want “Utopia”. It is not age but maturity that matters.