Ethics 101: conversations to have with your kids

by Michael Parker

Would you rather your child was smart or good? Academic achievement is not the only important aspect of raising children. We also need to think consciously as to how we develop the next generation to be ethical thinkers and decent members of society. Ethical thinking has brought the world many democracy, freedom of speech and the end of slavery together with Monty Python, bikinis on Bondi Beach and Free Range Eggs. It is vital to the continued development of our world. The main place children learn basic morals and ethics is not from school or religion but from their parents in the home. Conversation is vital, and Ethics 101 Conversations to have with your Kids prompts discussion by posing 101 ethical questions and their logical progressions. The questions are perfectly pitched to the world of the 10 to 15 year from friendships, sport, parties and bullying, through to animal rights and climate change.

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 14, 2012

About the author

Michael Parker is the Headmaster of Oxley College in Southern NSW. He received Arts and Law degrees from Sydney University and worked briefly in a corporate law firm before turning his attention to Education. He has a Masters Degree in teaching Philosophy to children and has written six textbooks in the areas of Legal Studies, Philosophy in Schools, and English.

Michael joined the Jane Curry Publishing team in 2012 with Ethics 101: Conversations to have with your kids. A great success, the book has since been published in the USA in August 2013. The second book in this series, Talk With Your Kids: Big Ideas, was published in May 2014, along with a second edition of Ethics 101, aptly renamed Talk With Your Kids: Ethics.

Michael’s talents don’t just lie in the world of Education publishing. He has had two novels published, including a Young Adult Novel Doppelganger, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award in 2007, and a children’s picture book, You Are A Star, which was published with Bloomsbury in the USA in September 2012.

He is married and has two daughters.

Reviews

[Thomas Edmund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ethics 101 is presented as a resource for teaching your children ethics, but in all honesty I think this could simply be a lesson in ethics for anybody. When I started the book, I was worried that the lessons were a little on the average side, but very quickly the issues became so absorbing, I have found myself questioning more than I expected.

The only dull parts were a couple of interludes where Parker tries to be a bit funny (and IMO fails) but they are brief and easy to skip.

Muchly recommended.