Question: how would you stop kids becoming evil ?

Luna Munoz answered on 18 Mar 2011:

Hi sophie, I think the best thing to do is to start early. One thing that seems to be working is providing rewards for good behaviour. If a child is always doing good things to get a reward, they have no time to do the bad stuff. Also, you make sure that their friends give them kudos for good behaviour and that reinforces the positive outcome.

Another way is to get parents involved early, when the children are 2 years old. Using rewards instead of time-out is much better for children, and especially for children who might be at risk for being cold and uncaring. Also, parents need to be encouraged to explain other people’s behaviours as related to their own thoughts or emotions. For example, “don’t tell dad that we got him a present because we want him to be surprised” (focuses on someone else’s emotion). Another example, “the dog is barking because he sees his reflection and thinks it’s another dog in his territory” (focuses on thoughts).

Finally, my research shows that children who are cold and uncaring have trouble knowing when other people are afraid, and eye-tracking shows it’s because they don’t look at people’s eyes. So, we probably need to tell parents to get down to the child’s eye level when they are talking to their child, especially when it involves an emotional discussion. All of this should help with the emotional understanding that children have.