Remember the little devil and angel that we often see depicted in cartoons and movies? You know the ones. They look just like the person whose shoulders they adorn. The devil whispers temptations into one ear while the angel whispers moral dictates into the other ear to counteract the temptations.

Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it be nice if there were clear voices telling us what seems attractive but more importantly what is morally right to do?

Well, in a sense there are. In fact in two senses there are. On one hand, we have our parents and others who see it as their duty to foster our character development. They are constantly reminding us of what is right and wrong.

On the other hand, eventually, if all goes right with our upbringing, we internalize those voices and form our own internal voice. Our conscience.

When Jiminy Cricket reminded us to let our consciences be our guides, he didn't just mean to do what we were told is the right thing to do.
Certainly that is part of it. But there is more to it than just following orders. Even morally justifiable orders.

For all of us, including our little children, will inevitably face moral problems for which no one has told them what the right response is. Perhaps the problem is novel and was not anticipated. Perhaps it is so ambiguous that the right answer is not clear. Perhaps different valued people have given us advice that is contradictory. Perhaps it is a true dilemma where there is no clearly preferable action.

But we still need to make a choice and still need to act.

So we all need the ability to think on our feet. We need to be able to figure out what is right and wrong. And sometimes we have to do it alone. Other times we may be able to get advice. And this all applies to our children as well as to us adults.

It is our job as parents to help our children develop the capacity to reason about right and wrong. To figure out what to do in an unclear moral situation. This is called moral reasoning. And we do that by giving them opportunities to grapple with moral problems, by respectfully debating such issues with them, and by modeling openness and thoughtfulness and reflection.

Just this morning my son called me on the phone before he went to school (I had already left the house) and asked me "Dad, do you think it is wrong for same-sex couples to adopt children?" Talk about a heavy difficult question to hit me with when neither of us are fully awake. And he called when I was in the florist shop buying flowers for the secretaries who work with me (it was National Secretaries Day), so he was interrupting the purchasing process and I was already close to being late for a meeting with a colleague. But I knew it was important to have this discussion and spent a few moments helping him analyze the ethical issues involved. Doing so is an investment in his ability to reason well on his own.

I generally try to make my answer to such questions as "How do you spell...?" or "Do you think it is right to...?" or "Why do people. ..?" begin with "What do you think....?"

We are typically more proud of our children when they figure out on their own what is right and do it than when they simply follow our instructions as to what to do. We are intrinsically honoring the importance of effective autonomous moral reasoning in our children.

But we need to do more than honor this important part of character. We need to nurture its development as well. We will never live in a reasonable moral world if our children can't reason morally.

Dr. Marvin W. Berkowitz, a developmental psychologist with expertise in child and adolescent moral and character development, is the Sanford N. McDonnell Professor of Character Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He can be reached at berkowitz@umsl.edu.