Introduction

Parenting, and especially parenting well, is a topic I am interested in. In this blogpost I offer a very brief theory related to parenting. It is perhaps not so much a statement of beliefs, although it reflects beliefs of mine, as something to work with, something which might be revised, critiqued and expanded and which is, hopefully, thoughtprovoking and helpful.

A Very Brief Theory

Parents may have and pursue all kinds of goals for their children, including goals of happiness, achievement, survival, ability, resilience, understanding and good relationships. But they do well to pursue the goal of right living as one of their chief goals for their children. Living rightly is at least a matter of (1) living (one cannot live rightly if one does not live), (2) doing right actions and not wrong actions and (3) having right desires and motivations.

Parents can help their children to live in this world by, among other things, (1) providing them with food, clothing, shelter and medical care, (2) encouraging exercise and healthy living, (3) promoting pro-social behavior, (4) striving for beneficial friendships and other relationships for their children, (5) teaching them or otherwise helping them learn skills by which they can earn, produce or find essentials for survival and (6) by helping them to recognize dangers.

Parents can help their children to do right actions and not wrong actions by (1) rewarding right actions and punishing wrong actions, (2) providing ethical instruction and advice, (3) modeling right behavior, (4) exposing their children to moral exemplars, past or present, fictional or real, (5) protecting their children against corrupting influences and (6) bringing their children into relationship with (groups of) people who also reward right actions, provide ethical advice, model right behavior, etc.

Parents can help their children to have right desires and motivations by (1) rewarding right actions and punishing wrong actions, (2) providing ethical instruction and advice, (3) mentioning right desires and motivations, (4) praising right actions, desires and motivations, (5) shielding their children from corrupting influences and (6) bringing their children into relationship with people who also do such things.

Some Issues and Remarks

The theory above is of course far from a complete theory of partenting, but it is related to parenting and does touch on many things parents actually do, perhaps somewhat unreflectively, such as providing food, clothing and shelter for their children, and relates this to a laudible parental goal, namely the right living of their children.

It seems plausible to me that right living invovles both right actions and right desires and intentions, at least if actions is meant in a narrow sense. It is left somewhat unclear above whether or not right living involves only having right desires and motivations. This is something about which I am uncertain. I am also uncertain whether or not right living entails only having true beliefs. Also, beliefs play only a very minor role in the theory above, if that at all, and it should perhaps be expanded at this point.