Twisted -
Sorry for the late response... Too much candy to sift through this weekend and "test" to make sure it was good. LOL
Believe it or not... this is SUCH a hard question to answer!!! I will make my feeble attempt...
It certainly is a shame that the public school system feels the need to teach our children things other than math, science, the arts and so on... that somehow, we need them to be teaching our children about morals, who is a good person and who is bad.
However, what it does give us hands on parents the ability to do, is to open up conversation with our little ones to show them that there are different perspectives out there and that we don't need to accept them as truth, but as another way of seeing things.
Let's take the example of candy! What child hasn't gotten their halloween candy bag and hid in a closet and eaten it all at once until they are sick!?! Does that make the child a bad person? They know it makes them sick to eat that much candy, but they do it anyways. Is that a bad child or is that a bad decision? What's important is when the time arises again, do you sit in the closet and eat all of the candy, or do you remember the last time, and space out your candy over a weeks period and enjoy each piece, never getting a stomach ache?
In a child's perspective on being judgmental, let's take the playground. Johnny comes home every day and complains that Billy is constantly beating him up on the play ground. Johnny begins to believe that Billy is a bad person and he should get what's coming to him. But Dad explains to Johnny that it is possible, that Billy gets hit by his dad at home. Or his mom doesn't give him hugs and kisses. Billy, acts out his lack of love and attention at home, by beating up on kids on the playground. Does that make Billy bad?
Most children will respond: No. It makes me sad that Billy's mom and dad don't love him.
We all make choices and choices are a result of being presented with a problem or task and figuring out the best way to proceed. Those choices, wrong or right, do not make us bad people. And we all encounter people who make bad choices, but it is our ability to put ourselves in their shoes, that keep us from being judgmental.
