Setting Not Giving Up Caring Dr. Borba welcomes your questions daily on Oprah's Moms Online. For over two decades I've worked with hundreds of troubled kids as a teacher and educational consultant, and am concerned with the marked increase lately in kids' aggression and cruelty. While most know their horrific deeds are wrong, they can't feel for their victims nor stop their cruel actions, too often because they never learned critical moral behaviors that would have helped them do the right thing. That's what moral intelligence provides. I wrote the book to provide practical ways to build kids' moral capacities, so they act right, treat others with respect, and have the strength to turn away from risky behaviors and violence.
Moral intelligence protects our kids' moral lives.
You say there is a crisis of character in American kids. There's a number of troubling signs that reveal all is not well with our children's moral intelligence. In two decades, hyperactivity and attention deficits has risen 700 percent. In the last four decades, adolescent suicide has increased 400 percent, and depression has risen 1,000 percent. Kids are clearly troubled, and one big reason is we've neglected to build their moral intelligence.