Like Marmee in Little Women, we wish we could offer our children a fairer world: Given our limited power, we nonetheless hope that we will raise them to make the world a better place. To do so, we have to raise children who are caring, socially responsible, fair-minded, and respectful of others. In this final part, I deal with the awesome question: “How can we raise children who will improve the world?” or how do we raise children who are good?” The methods by which we raise moral children are the very methods by which we raise a confident child: So the guidelines already set out in also allow us to important job of raising moral children,

There are four “mind sets” closely linked to moral behavior:

1. care for the welfare of others

2. responsibility for one’s actions concern for the quality of one’s own conduct

As we teach our children to be moral, we do not necessarily teach them what choices to make, but we do teach them to be aware that they will have to make choices, sometimes difficult ones. We teach them that they are then responsible for what they do, and we hope to give them the tools to think about their behavior and assess its consequences. If we coach them in acquiring skills to reflect upon the consequences of their behavior and to change their behavior to get the results they want, we give them the power to be responsible for their behavior. If we coach them to develop emotional intelligence, we give them the capacity to understand their own feelings and the feelings of others. Through this understanding they can understand others’ needs and acquire the tools to care for others. This part looks more closely at how the skills we instill for confidence can be adapted to guide a child to moral maturity.

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