Then we emphasized that elusive quality called mental health, psychological expressiveness, knowledge of one's emotional life. The development of moral intelligence is critical if we are to have a moral society. Moral intelligence is how we behave. It's moral behavior tested by life, lived out in everyday experience, says Coles. In his book, Coles provides stories from his personal and professional life that examine good and bad children, and how they became that way.
Coles proposes that children, even infants, have the capacity to learn moral behavior.
Even adults, in the process of teaching children, continue to hone their moral code. Thus, in the sharing of stories with youngsters, parents and children learn alike to be morally intelligent. Abstract formulations and risks are in one ear and out the next, and even if we memorize them, they don't have the flesh of the daily life. Telling stories to foster moral intelligence is a good thing. But telling stories to children and youth will be of limited effect if parents and other adults lay aside the power of their own example in fostering moral intelligence.