Introduction
Value according to Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary is beliefs about what is right and wrong and what is important in life, cultural, social and moral values. Moral value is a standard or principle of good behaviour, a belief about what is right and wrong and what is important in life, especially in matters of sexual relationship while immorality or immoral behaviours not considered to be good or honest by most people for example, it is immoral to steal or not following accepted standard behaviour.
According to Awake (2011), some parents try to follow up their teens by staying close to them and monitoring their movement, which help some parents to drive their teens underground. Their daughters and sons become adopted at hiding the very conduct the parents try to prevent. A basic measure is to have ongoing discussions with their children and to start when they are young. Then when they enter adolescent keep talking as a parent, you should be your teenager’s primary source of reliable information because as they are growing, teenagers need to know more about sex than just the fact of life and also teenagers have to be trained to distinguish both moral and immoral values, when questioned, they may readily answer that pre-marital sex is wrong.
The implication of immoral values is that it leads most teenagers to unwanted pregnancies which are unprepared for and most youth in an attempt to prevent the social stigma involve in the pregnancy usually result to abortion which is usually illegal and that can lead to death. As those who engage in pre-marital sex destroy their characters (Omagbemi, 2011).
Conceptual framework
Values tend to influence attitude and behaviour for example, if you value equal right for all and you go to work for an organization that treat its managers much better that it does to other workers, you may not produce well or may perhaps leave the company . It is likely that if the company had a more equalitarian policy, your attitude and behaviour would have been positive (Santrock, 2007).
Types of values
- Personal values
- Cultural values
- Religious values
- Social values
- Economic values
Personal value
Personal values according to Morris (2007) are formed during three significant periods;
- Imprint period from birth to seven (7) years of age.
- Modelling period from eight to fourteen (8 – 14) years of age.
- Socialization period from fifteen to twenty-one (15 – 21) years of age.
Personal values provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable, constructive, etc. Values generates behaviour and help to solve common human problems for survival by comparative ranking of answers to questions of why people do what they do and in what order they choose to do them. Over time, the public expression of personal values that the group of people find important in their day to day lives, includes custom and tradition (Johnstone, 2008)
Personal values in this way exist relationship in cultural values, either in agreement with or divergent from prevailing (existing) norms. A culture is a social system that shares a set of common values in which such values permit social expectations and collectives understanding of the good, beautiful and constructive etc. With normative personal value there will be no cultural reference against which to measure the virtue of individual values and so cultural identity would disintegrate. According to Paul (2007), criteria are used to the standards on which an evaluation is based, values relates then to what order one wants them. Criteria can only refer to the evidences for achieving values and as a comparative standard that one applies in order to evaluate whether goals have been met. Values are obtained in many different ways. The most important piece for building values is a person’s family. Family is responsible for teaching children what is right and wrong long before there are other influences. As a child starts school, help some to share the values of children. Then there is religion that the family introduces a child to play a role in teaching the right and wrong behaviour.
Cultural values
Culture has values that are largely shared by their members. The values of a society can often be identified by noting which people receive honour and respect. Uche (1980) in sociology of education says values refer to the aspect of the culture that is practiced by people. It also consists of the objects and acts which are values by a particular society is out to preserve because tradition has high regards for them. The society values some aspects of the culture than others that is why some people suggest that belief in God is a value. There is difference between values clarification as it helps people clarify what their lives are for and what is worth working for. Students are encouraged to define their own values and understand others values. Cognitive moral education is based on the belief that students should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops educationist (Chomsky, 2002).
Morality
According to Gert (2008), morality is a manner, character and proper behaviour that is, a sense of behavioural conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (for example moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Immorality on the other hand is the active opposite to morality while morality is variously defined as an unawareness of indifference towards or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.
Importance of values to teenagers
According to Danney (2002), your values or belief or attitude about what is good, right, desirable, worthwhile, etc. and your value system (the way you organize, rank, prioritize and make decisions base on your values) provide the foundation from which you make your personal and professional judgements and choices. They are your beliefs about what is important in life. Some values refer to how one should act (for example, to be honest, self-disciplined, kind). Other values refer to what one wants to accomplish or obtain in life (for example, to want a lot of money, security, fame, health, salvation, wisdom).
Your values exist as a complex set of interweaving personal policies or priorities that serve as a guide for decision making. Values may be based on knowledge, aesthetic consideration, practicality, moral grounds or on a combination of these, much of what we value is not concerned with our sense of morality or ethics so not all values can be called moral ones because most of us value money, status, personal fulfilment and freedom (Green, 2004). For the sake of this study, we call these non-moral or instrumental values, thus the probable major four types of value are listed below.
- Knowledge based value e.g. I value philosophy because it gives me great inspiration into life.
- Aesthetic based value e.g. I prefer classical music because it sounds better than country music.
- Instrumental value e.g. I must have a job because it allows me to achieve certain extrinsic goals.
- Moral value e.g. I believe it is wrong to lie because lying shows disrespect for people.
Note this last sentence involves both a moral judgement and a moral rule. This is important; “I believe it is wrong to lie” is a moral judgement and to support this judgement, a reason could be; “because lying shows disrespect for other people”. All moral judgement must be grounded in a moral life. Values conflict occurs when an individual experiences uncertainty about what he really believes or wants or when it is not clear how to rank his or her values. When moral based believes or wants or when it is not clear how to rank his or her values. When moral based value conflict, then a moral dilemma arises. One is metaphorically speaking between a rock and a hard spot. A person cannot have it all or be all things when values conflicts, choices must be made. Ranking or prioritizing must be stabilized since this is one of the best ways to help decide what our primary value and to assist in making judgement (Dickson, 2011)
Those values which you consistently rank higher than others are called your core values. Courses in moral values are your beliefs about what is important in life. Some values refer to how one should act (be honest, altruistic, self disciplined) while other values refer to what one wants to accomplish or obtain in life (a lot of money, fame, family, friendship, world peace). Setting your priorities often lead to values conflicts. You want to be successful in your career but you may also want a more relaxing lifestyle and more time to spend with friends and family (Awake, 2011). Here the values of success may come into conflict with the value of family. This is just one example of an important value conflict you are experiencing in your life. Some examples of moral values are; integrity, respect, caring, justice, civic, virtue and openness.
To understand and solve a moral dilemma, you must figure out which values are involved in the conflict, prioritize them and act upon the primary value. The act must be grounded in a moral rule and the moral rule justified or defended using normative ethical principles that are part of a normative ethical theory. To direst you in creating your moral rule and later in justifying the rule, consider the following; what is the difference between a moral rule and ethical principles. An example of moral rule is; “one should not lie” whereas an ethical principle could be “one should respect other people”. Ethical principles such as those found in the theories Kant and Mill helps us justify or defend our moral rules as well as decide between conflicting moral rules. A moral rule is very specific, it is acting and guiding; it tells you what to do in a specific situation and it applies instead of another moral rule. Our moral rules are often the outcome of religion, social morals, politics or culture (Schivone, 2007).
Ethical principles on the other hand do tell you how to decide among competing moral rules. Generally, it can be used in many different situations to help decide which rule to act on in a specific situation.
List of moral values
Naraginti (2002) underlisted the following as moral values;
- Kind heartedness
- Compassionate
- Considerate
- Generous
- Understanding
- Forgiving
- Self reliance
- Responsible
- Independent
- Industrious
- Self-confident
- Humility
- Polite
- Admitting ones mistake
- Friendly
- Mutual Respect
- Respect and loyal towards parents
- Respect for the elderly, teachers, peers, leaders and neighbours
- Respect for king and country
- Respect for basic rights
- Respect for beliefs and cultures of various races.
- Respect for individual rights
- Adherence to the rule of law
- Adherence to time (punctuality)
- Value wisdom, experience and deeds
- Value manual labour
- Value self respect
- Love
- Love for life
- Love for environment
- Love for country
- Love for peace and harmony.
- Justice
- Just
- Fair
- Freedom
- Freedom within the law
- Freedom within the democratic system
- Courage
- Brave
- Stand up to the truth
- Resolute/resilience
- Responsible/accountable
- Cleanliness of the body and mind
- Physical cleanliness
- Environmental cleanliness
- Well-mannered in words and actions
- Healthy and constructive thoughts.
- Honesty/integrity
- Trustworthiness
- Speaking the truth
- Sincere
- Diligence
- Courageous
- Pro-active/resourceful
- Dedicated to work
- Determined
- Hardworking
- Co-operation
- Spirit of brotherhood
- Collective responsibility
- Helping one another
- Tolerance
- Common good
- Unity
- Moderation
- Moderation in reconciling personal needs
- Not excessive in words and actions
- Gratitude
- Thankful
- Grateful
- Appreciative
- Rationality
- Able to form judgement
- Able to reason
- Open-mindedness and able to think logically
- Public spiritedness
- Subscribing to consensus
- Subscribing to the spirit of neighbourliness
- Subscribing to social issues in the community
Importance of moral values
According to Naraginti (2002) modern mass society present a sharp contrast as the young grow up. They are faced with confusion, decay and discontinuities. Adolescents in particular are uncertain about themselves. Some are in conflict with themselves, bewildered and insecure.
Values are usually influenced by the changing philosophical ideologies, cultural and religious perspectives, socio-political and geographical conditions. In modern emerging society, there has been revolutionary change in the field of values due to many factors in addition to the influence of modern culture, industrialization, modernization, urbanization, globalization and multinationals. Values are the guiding principles, decisive in day to day behaviour as also is critical life situation (Paul, 2005). Values are set of principles or standard behaviour. Values are regarded as desirable, important and held in esteem by a particular society in which a person lives.
Educational values mean inculcating in the children a sense humanizing a deep concern for the well being of others and the nation. This can be accomplished only when we instil in the children a deep feeling of commitment to values that would build this country and bring back to the people pride in work that brings order, security and assured progress. Values education refers to a programme of planned educational action aimed at the development of values and character. Every action and thought of our lives leaves an impression in our mind. These impressions determine in our behaviour at a given moment and our responses to a given situation.
According to Mokwuneye (2009) in Okowa (2010), citizenship education is the conscious process of inculcating certain values, habits, skills and attributes which the society considers desirable and essential for its survival as a unit and for its development. He further added that teachers and school counsellors should try to achieve the main educational objectives. The student should be assisted to develop acceptable habits, skill and competences needed for their personality and national development through various subjects or courses offered in the educational system.
Osakwe and Itedjere (2009) are of the view that citizenship education is a systematic process through which young people acquire or internalize the values, sentiments and norms of the society in which they live and actively get involved to ensure that the common good of the citizen of the society is cared for including resisting anti-social and unguided youthful exuberance (Okpwa, 2010).
The implications of this definition are that government, parents, teacher and counsellors musts must endeavour to provide the citizens with all round education. Education must go beyond classroom interaction. It would involve physical, social, emotional, moral and spiritual transformation for personal and national development. It would also include creating more opportunities for the students to acquire their cultural values through extra-curriculum activities e.g. cultural dances, dressing, etc.
The roles of citizenship education
Okowa (2010) stated the following as the roles of citizenship education;
- The helps in the development of fundamental values, attributes and skills necessary to survive in the society.
- It helps to awaken students’ awareness and understanding of evolving social and physical surroundings.
- It helps to indicate a sincere belief, decency and fair play forbearance and respect for others.
- It helps the student to know his or her responsibilities not only to his or her immediate family and friends but to the society in general.
- It helps to produce good citizens in the society
- It helps the students to develop positive emotions and aspiration for success in life.
- Citizenship education tends to proffer solutions to a wide variety of societal problems ranging from ethical and religious to moral and political
The sums total of our impressions is what determines our character. The past has deteriorated the present and even so the present thoughts and actions will shape our future. This is a key principle governing personality development; the human values are resolved having lasting impact necessary for bringing about change in thought and conduct. According to Gandhi, if there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in character; if there is beauty, in character; there will be harmony in the home; when there is harmony in the home; there will be order in the nation and when there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world (Naraginti, 2002).
At teenage hood state, individuals’ physical development is conserved; during manhood, intellectual and spiritual values start dominating the corporal values. Therefore while impacting moral education, educators must keep in mind that the young must be educated. Prizes must be given to the deserving person for showing honesty, bravery, truth etc. The award should be given during school gathering and contests are organized on values of life (Fernandez and Marshal, 2003).
According to Ghandi, “if wealth is lost, nothing is lost”, “if health is lost, something is lost”, “if character is lost, everything is lost” best of all is character. It is very important to have a strong value system so as to be able to go through the entire cycle of life as a good human being. Whenever you see that children are into bad habit, like stealing, it only shows that the value system of those children is not good or was never incorporated (formed) ever, which is why they are indulging in all kind of bad habits.
Moral lesson should be taught from the very early age so that the children tend to understand and like them better. It is always imperative for all parents to begin instilling the moral habits and lessons in their little ones from day one. In fact there are parents who believe in doing so before their little ones are born for the only reason that they should have strong moral values which will make living their life easy and a good experience unlike that rest who end up running themselves only due to the fact that their moral background is not too well developed (Paul, 2005). Begin by telling them short stories that could mythology related or even the regular ones that will help them understand the right and wrong immediately. It is always good to teach your young ones what can easily differentiate between the good, bad and better.
Chomsky (2002) opined that moral lectures and stories help children to decide right from wrong. It is the best way to make them understand what their various duties towards their parents, grandparents, school teachers and friends and once they know all their duties, it will be easy for them to abide by them to be able to lead a life full of principles. Such principles help our children of today to know the meaning of their existence and many other aspects which assist them to rise higher in the way they think and live. It is therefore imperative to have such lessons taught to your little once so that you end up making them perfect children, citizens and individuals too.
Problems of inculcating moral values
According to Omagbemi (2011), it has been observed that sex education is a topic that is not commonly discussed in the home between parents and children because majority of parents seem to oppose the teaching of sex education, they assume the knowledge is harmful and will make their children to be promiscuous, for these reasons most adolescents would prefer to turn to peer group than to discuss with their parents.
The time children exhibit a radical range of behaviour, often including fits of bad temper and this period is so frustrating for parents that it has been termed as terrible towards them because it is frustrated with both himself and his parents as he struggles with his own conflicting feelings. He may want to be away from you, yet he wants to be near you to bewildered parents little seems to make sense and even less seem to work. So during this difficult period, parents should hold on to the rein of authority. If they do so in a firm but loving way, the child will adjust to his new role and the stage will be set for future marvels of growth (Awake, 2011).
- Discipline: It is important not to compromise but at the same time, a parent should not be dogmatic or rigid because sometimes when the child is truly sorry, the parent will feel that it is best to be reasonable and lighten the discipline.
- Consistency: It is important for young children to understand that if a certain type of behaviour is wrong today, it will always be wrong. If parent are not consistent, the child will think that dad and mum are unpredictable, that their decisions depend on their mood, but if parents stick to their principles, children will know that what is wrong is always wrong and this is one way parents provide security and love.
Children can take advantage of situation in which parents seems to have choice but to give in to a request such as when other people are present, if my answer is no i.e. (that is the parent) say so from the beginning and will not listen to consistent pleadings and both parents need to present a united fronts, if both parents do not agree on something they both need to talk about it in private because children can detect when parents are not united on an issue and they will try to take advantage of the situation, but when a child knows his parents are united and that they cannot be manipulated, he has security and know what to expect whether he is obedient or disobedient (Green, 2004)
The role of parents in imparting moral values
Santrock (2007) stated that it is very important to be adequately equipped with the knowledge of what life is all about and to have a factual information, which will be useful to make responsible decisions about matters relating to sex in their lives. Parent should also try to prepare their children, adolescent or young adult to become responsible members of their family by helping the adolescent to understand his/her development biologically, psychologically and socially to full maturity as a man or woman.
He further added that parents should encompass i.e. arrange those biological, social and cultural factors, which influence the knowledge, attitude, habit of the children towards attaining standard essential to their full performance in the establishment and orientation of healthy life and parents teaching their children moral character. To be successful, parents have to live by example whether formal or informal and through the kind of life they live. Youngsters can learn that love and sex are based on respect and parents should teach their children personal hygiene and how to have respect for elders. Parents should also be conscious of the type of films their children watch.
Implications of inadequate moral values among teenagers
Adolescent is the stage in life between childhood and adulthood. It is a stage in which one undergoes dramatic changes physically, emotionally and socially and at that period in time, parents should be their teenagers’ primary source of reliable information which can help to prevent their teens from dangers of premarital sex implications (Awake, 2011).
Premarital sexual activities were traditionally a taboo in our society and in other cultures, most youths especially females of Owa-Nta Community took to prostitution which led to increase in teenage pregnancies and an increase in illegitimate children as well as even stealing in the city and village. It has been observed that adolescents mature very early, they spent more time in the school, which encourage their relationship with their peers. Most of these youths, as soon as they finish the secondary school, and before gaining admission into the tertiary institution indulges in premarital sex which lead to emotional problems, for example disobedience which include unwillingness to carry out particular orders and even showing lack of respect and drug offences which are characterized with/by smoking of either Indian hemp or cigarettes, self medication, snuffing of tobacco and taking of alcoholic drinks.
Not enough information from parents about having inadequate moral values by their teen and also lead to some teenagers in school in dodging classes and unauthorized movement from the school. Health consequences of premarital sex according to Chomsky (2002), is that sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS are the most common or serious health hazards of HIV/AIDS is common and presently on the increase. When premarital sex leads to pregnancy, abortion is the usual choice, of most teenagers, criminal abortions are carried out most of the times by quacks and these constitute one of the leading cause of maternal deaths and when the adolescent decides to keep the pregnancy, she often drops out of school and may not be able to further her education after delivery. Most of them conceal their pregnancy and therefore might not see or made themselves available for the usual medical care.
Complications of drug used for abortion
Common and sometimes very serious; body of teenagers is sometimes fragile. The birth weight is low and the babies are likely to experience developmental and learning problems later in life. Young mothers who deliver healthy babies safely unfortunately do not have the opportunity to give the baby the required emotional supports. Young boys or fathers usually do not suffer the adverse consequences of unprepared pregnancies but lead them to premature marriages and stress of child bearing and early parenthood (Johnstone, 2008).
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