Instill civility in children

Group discussion

Participants: Dr. Sekar srinivasan, Dr. Parvathi, Dr. Balasubramanian, Mrs. Vijayalakshmi menon and Azeez

Topic: Instill civility in children

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¶ Let's define civility:

It is the behavior that recognizes the humanity of others – a key element of sociability.

It is to recognize and to appreciate.

¶ Psychological elements of civility:

Civility demands restraint and an ability to put the interests of the common good above self-interests. 

It requires us to treat others with decency, regardless of our differences. 

The psychological elements of civility include self-awareness, self-control, empathy, and respect.

¶ Is Civility on the Decline?

• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: Strictly saying it is not on the decline.  

Most of the observations on civility is from vested media propaganda. 

In reality with the enormous population and in the rural sides it exists as a core human value.

• Azeez: True to some extend. Because it is impossible to know if civility has declined because it is difficult to measure scientifically. 

But by all subjective measures, most of us  measure civility by hearing stories daily about ridicule, bullying, and simple rudeness – and these stories are happening in homes, classrooms, on social media, and even street corners.

• Dr Parvathi: Now a days people have started to be reserved as much as they can because the environment around them has become challenging, more of selfishness, lack of trust, truthfulness and people are not concern about the harm they are doing to others knowingly and unknowingly as the situation is demanding them to do certain things and in doing so they dnt even think of their sanskriti, culture, values etc. So you can say civility is lacking in  people now a days but as there are 2 sides of coins so there are some people in this world still who think of others and are scared of doing harm to others.

• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: The reasons for non civility is the availability of shortcut or otherwise not straightforward processes and procedures. For a country like India the human race evolved and rich cultural heritage and performances as observed in literature strongly uphold our points. Yet by invasion of others made us develop a slavery mindset and the dividing rules had fueled this.

But our young students settled in different parts of our globe explicitly depict our esteemed civility in all spheres bringing trustworthy charecter across their fields. True emancipation of civility to be well demonstrated during assembly and recognised even in small levels. 

It forms the basis of social networking and vasudeivika kudumbam.

In short civility is like pranav which is all inclusive and like prana in human body where the real life enlives.

• Azeez: There are several reasons for this seems to decline. But truly not, and it can be brought once again into the power. 

Some ethics scholars suggest that as society has become more informal, there are no longer agreed-upon rules for respectful behavior. 

The borders of societal norms have become more broad and fuzzy.

Shows like “The BigBoss” and “Live in together” highlight back-stabbing behavior as admirable and winning qualities. And above all our social media.

• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: Our generation had seen both. With the advent of making (mocking only) pseudo equality amongst people with vested interests and even in public domain without responsibility speaking ill of others in the seige of freedom of speech this undesirable culture evolved. The social set up had spoiled even basic family values. Yet a ray of hope still lingering in our minds if literature studies are made in proper ways the recovery may be accelerated.

• Azeez: Basically, we all, children included, are exposed to rudeness, vulgarity, and violence that would have been unthinkable in previous generations. 

That isn’t going to change anytime soon. But if we are truly a world turning away from civility, we may be in for tougher times ahead.

Studies show that incivility leads to violence, unhealthy communities, and societies paralyzed by conflict and political division. 

It’s not exactly the kind of world we envision for our kids.

Our next generation children are systemically connected to everything around them. 

The world is their learning environment. 

We are their teachers. And as parents, teachers, coaches, politicians, social media producers, and others who impact children’s lives, we have a responsibility to foster civility in children so they grow up with less, not more violence and ridicule.

Unfortunately, there is no neatly organized curriculum for Civility because civility is learned through respectful relationships. 

The truth is, we are all teaching a class in civility to children – parents, teachers, youth mentors, and everyone who comes into contact with kids. 

So what can we do? We can teach kids the foundations of civility every day in the way we communicate with them.

• Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Menon: Agree, to your point. Children are innocent and gullible. What they see and hear is gospel for them and they inculcate it. They are exposed to many things good and bad and unless they are guided they will go astray.

• Azeez: Some of foundations  what we do communicate with our kids are as follows:

We can teach kids the foundations of civility every day in the way we communicate with them and others, including the following:

• Think about the impact of words and actions on others before you use them.

• Apologize when you are wrong.

• Set ground rules for civil behavior at home and in classrooms.

• Teach kids how to become engaged citizens.

• Treat children and adults with the respect that you expect from them.

• Demand civility of politicians and public servants.

• Use respectful language when you disagree with someone.

• Don’t let anger and emotion get in the way of listening to others.

• Be tolerant of people who are different from you.

• Teach character strengths, like respect and empathy, at home and in classrooms.

• Challenge people’s views, but don’t attack the person.

• Acknowledge others for their civility and respectful behavior, regardless of their viewpoints.

• Remind kids often why they – and you – should be civil.

• Empower children to take a stand against bullying.

• Lead by example.