One might ask if our conscience helps or hinders us when making moral decisions. Personally, I believe a good conscience helps us to make intuitive authoritative judgements regarding our moral actions. I believe our conscience comes into play as we are children. If we are taught right from wrong through our parents, teachers, and peers, we’ll definitely think about a wrong before we chose to do it. If a child is taught their values in their lives from the teachers mentioned above, they’ll respond to the expressions of values they are taught. This instills in their hearts and their minds what is right and what is wrong. Children know if they lie, it’s wrong, and they’ll immediately feel a sense of guilt, and will display some type of a fidgety symptomatic characteristic triggering a wrong in their mind. I do believe the same applies when they tell the truth, it signals a good feeling of making the right decision. I believe consciences are formed at this point in children’s lives.

As children mature into adults, they’ve already built a foundation of their conscience, but as they mature in their principals, judgements, fairness, ethics, honor, standards, scruples, reasoning, etc., they’ll enhance their consciences to either be a person of good solid moral decisions or if they’ve missed out on building their conscience foundation, they’ll have a hard time trying to differentiate right from wrong. If a person has been taught to be a moral good person, nine times out of ten, they’ll end up being morally ethical. I do believe good moral decisions begin when we are small children. We are examples of what we learn and what is instilled into our minds and hearts. Examples and teachings from others allow children to feel in their minds what is right or wrong. Good examples and teachings build a child/children’s character.

You take a child that has had “no” good upbringing in a home, they’ll usually make wrong judgements because they had “no” good examples to follow in the home place. When a child is never called down on their mistakes and told about their wrongs, they’re going to suffer from these consequences. Most children who are raised in homes where the parents show them “no” examples or teachings, will have a hard time finding what is right or wrong and many times they will make the wrong moral choices.

As we mature in life, we know what is wrong because our conscience will scream at us, allowing us to think before we make the wrong decision. We will stop and think about the moral ethics of what we are doing, i.e., Will this hurt someone? Is this morally wrong? Is this a dishonest deed? Is this called stealing? Are we cheating? If we have built a good mental moral foundation, we’ll know to make the right decision before we act. “We” should teach our children to have a personal sense of their moral content as to their conduct, intentions, or character with regard to their feelings of their obligation to do right and to be a good person.