Dear Sribas, I believe that we learn morals and ethics from direct verbal instruction of parents, teachers and significant others; and also through observing the behavior of these people (as Bandura postulates in his social learning theory).  Character building is taught and is caught. Thanks.

Dear Sribas,

I have raised three children to adulthood and am participating In the raising of four little grandchildren. In every case moral conduct is formed chiefly by parental example, rather than through exhortation to conform.  In most cases, the exemplarity is unconscious. Children see, and children do.  Can moral character be trained? In exceptional cases, according to my life experience.

Dear Sribas, I believe that we learn morals and ethics from direct verbal instruction of parents, teachers and significant others; and also through observing the behavior of these people (as Bandura postulates in his social learning theory).  Character building is taught and is caught. Thanks.

Durkheim and Piaget's theories in this regard, to which I agree, argue that till the age of 14 years, children are influenced by  what is happening in home and in the school. This as per Durkheim is mechanical solidarity. Parents have a great role in developing the values in them in this phase of life. I am an agnostic though my wife was religious; I never preached to them about the need to worship. They are both agnostic too; now they are successful academics in the US. After the age of 14, children start forming their own sense of morality and propriety. It is this age when they start developing  defiance about anything they do not like. They need far more understanding at this age. This is what Durkheim has referred to as organic solidarity. 

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=YUhdVqLr5YMC&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq=Moral+development+of+child+mechanical+solidarity+and+organic+solidarity&source=bl&ots=6B66syQ5Yp&sig=MLMQX_6ygs84_nwBWh9KQvSeGks&hl=en&sa=X&ei=a_laVJ2SC8KXuASZ9oL4AQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Moral%20development%20of%20child%20mechanical%20solidarity%20and%20organic%20solidarity&f=false

I think it is through both, my friend Sribas!

Dear Sribas, Even when saying, Children develop their moral character by the exhortation of parents, family and school. But we can't ignore their special experience from their friends, TV and Internet.... We have to deal with the second alternative as an unnoticeable observers.

Character education is about the acquisition and strengthening of virtues which sustain a well-rounded life and a thriving society. Schools should aim to develop confident and compassionate students who are effective contributors to society, successful learners and responsible citizens. Students also need to grow in their understanding of what is good or valuable and in their ability to protect and advance what is good. They need to develop a commitment to serving others, which is an essential manifestation of good character in action. Questions of character formation are inseparable from these educational goals and are fundamental to living well and living responsibly. Character development involves caring for and respecting others, as well as caring for and respecting oneself.  

Students need to decide the kind of person they wish to become and learn to choose between alternatives. In this process, the ultimate aim of character education is the development of good sense or practical wisdom: the capacity to choose intelligently between alternatives. There is nothing ‘soft’ about this process; most schools recognise their responsibilities in this area and therefore some form of character education, implicit or explicit, takes place in every school..

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/thebirminghambrief/items/2014/02/being-of-good-character.aspx

Dear Goswami

Yes, children develop moral characters through exhortation or instruction of parents and teachers or elders, but it will be temporarily. As soon as kids grow and become junior youth (turn to 13) they start to watch actions of parents and teachers who exhort them. If actions (live examples) of parents or teachers are contradicting to their exhortations, children will become worse and this is the reasons of moral degradation among youngsters.    

Not "or", both influences are important. But you have one principle: don´t never hurt or disobey the moral rules, because you are thoroughly monitored and imitated by children and adolescents.

I think both practises are valuable. Sometimes it is not preferable to learn by do it yourself (example: drugs), so we have to exhort properly the children about their reaction to the problem. Other times, a lived experience by means of a close observation (example: city homeless and poverty) would be helpful in order to understand better the situation and create a moral character. Of course it depends on every country's safety standards.

In the process of the formation of character the child begins to show a personality, under which expresses recurring behaviors. For example, the parent who is able to exploit the child in his character more authentic, without loading it with too many expectations and accepting its limitations, will help to stimulate the small and self-esteem necessary to counter shyness. As for aggression, the example must start from the parents, who must first of all try to control their own aggression, keeping it without giving the child the feeling of being overwhelmed. In this way the child understands that it is a natural impulse, which can be expressed without encroaching violence and without losing the affection of loved ones. In the case of obstinacy, often the child uses it to defend itself from the personality too overwhelming for parents and to protect his inner excessive intrusion of a mother or father too overwhelming protective. Towards children who experience this type of personality, parents should adopt a particularly tolerant, flexible and patient, to help smooth out the rough edges of their character.

Finally, it seems to me that the character can be changed from a good family education rather than by the environment or by exhortations.

I believe in the dominance of the nonverbal communication. But this doesn´t automatically mean, that no exhortations are used. Just imagine the "bad face", the demonstrated missing attention and other non verbal techniques to impress the childish wrongdoers.

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her. (George Washington)

@ Dear Roland, I agree with you “Only the good can be happy, and only the virtuous can be good".

It has to be a balance of both.  I only say this because parents are our first teachers before we go to the school house.  There are some children who come from families where the parents are absolutely astounding people but their children turn out to be immoral ( saying this loosely).   What in their upbringing and demonstration by parent turned them to this sort of life, nothing. Some people turn to the moral high ground and others turn the other way living an immoral lifestyle.  Some of these children, I dare say, are never going to share the "normal" way of thinking that we all do as "Normal' citizens who are morally functioning.  A child has to have the innate capability to be a moral citizen whereas the adults help shape and cultivate that.  I do not know that you can teach morals unless the individual is receptive.  We live in a scarey world and I see them when they are young....

Aristotle examined the human condition and came to a remarkable conclusion. He said that, “Only the good can be happy, and only the virtuous can be good.” This is one of the major breakthroughs in philosophy. Imagine! You can only be happy if you are a good person, and you can only be a good person, and you can only be a good person if you practice the virtues that are associated with goodness.

http://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/success-factor-moral-character-a-good-person/

Sribas; my dear friend:

I think genes are involved in the development Moral Character (of course I think genes are involved in everything). Genes, Environment, Life Experiences, and Perception of Life Experiences. I have seen many siblings with very different Moral Characters. My brother and I are only a year apart; yet very different in our Moral Character. I have read many scholarly articles that find education and peer influence to be a big factor in Moral Character Development. I think Moral Character is developed at a much younger age. I have seen two 4 year olds in a hamburger hut; where they get a free toy with their hamburgers; one grabs the other's toy, throws it on the ground and stomps it to pieces. So, genes and very early childhood environment, in my opinion play a huge part. But, there is so much to study in this area. Early childhood nutrition (Breast vs Bottle), IQ (?), Single Parent Home; Spirituality, etc.  

However, I feel very strongly that early childhood praise is one of the most important elements in the development of Moral Character. Modeling Random Acts of Kindness have a huge impact on a child that notices and questions. 

--Marilyn

Basically children develop their moral values through day to day living experience and associated interaction with the society. Although, parents can play a major role in inculcating major values in children of their own.

The children develop moral character both through exhortation and through lived experience. In my opinion this development is done both ways. Children live, see and observe surrounding them world. They learnt from different examples. Those examples could be good and bad. They see and they repeat certain behaviors and adopt certain values. But, also exhortation can change them. If they do something bad, by the exhortation we may influence on their behavior. We can tell them what was bad and what was good and in this way they are able to get the idea about proper behavior.

The truth is, in my opinion, that live experience is more effective in development of children’s moral character but some kind of exhortation also can be very helpful.

In order to achieve happiness and become a good person, you must know that character is the greatest success factor of all. If you want to change your outer world, you must go to work, like a computer programmer at a keyboard, to reprogram your subconscious mind, your world of values, beliefs, and inner convictions so that the person you are inside is exactly the mental equivalent of the life you want to enjoy on the outside.

Your reputation is your greatest asset. Your reputation can be defined as how people think about you and talk about you when you’re not there.  As you know from your own experience, when people talk about you in either positive or negative terms, and you find out about it, it has a major impact on your thinking and your emotions, either positive or negative.

Because of the Law of Attraction, as you develop a moral character, and live more and more by the highest and best virtues that you know, you will become a happy and good person. You must always strive to exercise this success factor and develop a moral character.

http://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/success-factor-moral-character-a-good-person/

As morality is proved to be also inherited,  I‘m afraid that the influence of parents and teachers by persuasion and communication is diminishing and the influence of computer games is in the lift.  The school level can never be fully adopted at the intellectual and emotional level of the children, many are escaping into games without any propagation of values, on the contrary, the good and the bad are too sharp represented and the brains are too much focused on the game without any reflection of what is really happening.  It is the game industry which uses the models, taking over from psychology.,Tthey know the weakest elements in inducation.

I agree Rita,

I saw a teenager in his front yard playing basketball with one hand and texting with the other. It was like watching EMDR. It would be a great study to look at associations between constructs or morality and the participants' choices between games. I know some teens that get so addicted to World of Warcraft that they stopped practicing personal hygene. According to the American Psychological Association's (DSM-5) "The “gamers” play  compulsively, to the exclusion of other interests, and their persistent and recurrent online activity results in clinically significant impairment or distress. They experience symptoms of withdrawal when pulled away from gaming" (By listing Internet Gaming Disorder in DSM’5 Section III, APA hopes to encourage

I wrote in my previous answer that „ The children develop moral character both through exhortation and through lived experience. In my opinion this development is done both ways”. This is truth. Both ways are important. But the role of the environment is to teach children by the example.

The pope, Paul VI said “the modern people listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers; and if they even listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses at the same time” (Speech during general audience on October 2th 1974). And this is a very important message. Similar situation is with children. It is not enough just to tell them what to do? They will not listen to us. We need to show them the proper behavior by the example of our life. This is the best way to develop their moral character.

There are numerous, compelling justifications for Character Development. The primary one is the clear and urgent need. The long and disturbing litany of trends such as increased youth violence, bullying, vandalism, plagiarism, cheating and disrespect for authority point to the need for renewed efforts to focus on developing character. Character Development is one way to combat this growing “ethical illiteracy.”

Second, the transmission of values has always been the work of civilization. The world’s great intellectual authorities, such as Plato, Aristotle, Confucius and our nation’s founders, all emphasized the importance of the development of character. Socrates, for example, suggested that the mission of education is to make people become both smart and good. Our nation’s founders clearly recognized that in a democracy there is a special need to develop responsible, moral adults.

Third, there is no such thing as virtue-free education. The question is, "Which virtues will schools teach?" Although parents will forever remain their children’s first and most enduring moral teachers, parents and the school together can even more effectively further the instillation of essential human virtues.

Fourth, even with the immense diversity of our country and intense differences over certain moral issues, there is a consensus of shared virtues and ethical common ground that defines our humanity.

http://www.chapinschool.org/Character-Development

In my opinion,children develop moral character through exhortation and also through lived experience.