Preschoolers and Morality

As of tomorrow, all of the children in the Frog room will be at least two years and nine months old. This is quite a milestone, since according to the Massachusetts Department of Early Care and Education, children who are 2.9 are officially considered "preschoolers".
Based on what we've observed with the children in our care, this is not an arbitrary decision. We see many differences between children who are in their second year and children who are on the verge of their third. Perhaps the biggest reason that EEC considers 2.9 to be the age where one could reasonably expect a child to function safely in a larger class group is that three year olds are beginning to monitor their own social behavior based on their internal sense of empathy and an emerging moral code.
The emergence of a sense of morality and the exploration of moral rules vs. social rules is a huge part of the third year of life. We see the Frogs testing out social rules and piecing together the moral reasoning behind those social rules over and over again during the second part of our school year. It certainly makes for some fireworks, but it also means that we get to witness children making their own decisions about how they are going to interact with one another based on their own sense of what's right and wrong. This is incredibly rewarding.
What a happy coincidence that a story about this very topic aired on NPR this Morning. If you're interested, you can listen to it here.