Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing

One of the more encouraging developments in the concern about the character and behavior of our young people has been the publication of books designed to bring the research of social scientists and educators to the public in a format and context that could be easily understood. Thomas Lickona accomplished this in 1981 with his outstanding book Raising Good Children, and William Damon also in 1988 with his The Moral Child. Michele Borba has continued that tradition calling on both the latest research findings as well as her extensive experience as an educator and visiting consultant and her knowledge base as the mother of three sons. She has written a remarkably thorough and yet completely accessible book on the whole topic of building moral intelligence, focusing on seven essential virtues she has identified, that teaches children moral behavior. I wondered how she could possibly succeed at covering such an extensive topic. She does it by presenting interesting scientific data, by skillfully summarizing much of the complex and sophisticated research results in this field, and by innovatively interspersing the science with useful and entertaining experiences and anecdotes that illustrate each virtue and each desirable behavior or issue. The useful general and scientific references are found in her notes at the end. Dr. Borba never strays from her theme and purpose, and in doing so has written arguably the most comprehensive and useful book yet available on the important subject of how we as parents, family members, teachers, and members of the health professions can evaluate and help children to build their moral intelligence. I work with children in a mental hospital, and I only wish that their parents had read or will read this book. It would/will make a critical difference. If you could only afford one book on moral intelligence, this is definitely the one to pick!

Very well written. Practical applications for implementation in your own family. I did not know how i was going to effectively teach our values to our children outside of trying to lead by example. This spelled it out for me. I have seen it work, my children are embracing these values and are developing characters any mother would be proud of. Even when they do wrong, they are usually aware of it and do apologize sincerely.

this book has helped our whole family get back to the basic core values. It is our responsibility to teach our children these essential moral virtues and the book makes it easy. The author gives ideas to teach the virtues and ways to do them. This needs to be taught in kindergarten...it's as essential as the alphabet!

This is more of a book for parents and their children and I was looking for resource material for Religious Education classes for Universalist Unitarian kids. Not really what I can use.

I really like this book.

Great info reaction. Product was excellent

Fascinating, well thought out and extremely useful for parents and teachers --- and clergy, too!Every one of Michele Borbas books is well written and an indispensable resource. I've become a fan of her work.

This is a book that is well organized and easy to read. I love the simple ideas and the explanations. All parents, educators, leaders of youth should explore and implement these basic concepts.

Get your whole family on board and work together to read and practice this book.

A great book! I enjoyed reading!