Are they really that cruel at 6 years old? 2026

Last summer's last outing took Adrián and Alba's family to a stream. Before the parents had finished spreading the picnic blanket and unpacking the tortilla, their boys were already running towards the water, where there were more children fussing and laughing. However, shortly after, the youngest of the family returned and sat next to her mother.

- What's happening? Why are you coming back so soon? Have you had a fight with a child?

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– No...

–And what did you play?

– To crush fish, but I don't like that game.

The father got up to investigate and, sure enough, the kids, all between six and ten years old, more or less, had found some small fish and were killing them, putting them on a large stone and crushing them with a smaller one.

At what age does moral conscience awaken in them, that inner voice that tells them what is right and what is wrong?

Jean Piaget, the great Swiss psychologist to whom we owe the main observations on child development, believed that "the child under six years of age is too egocentric to understand another person's point of view and incapable of caring about others." And also Sigmund Freud placed the awakening of human moral conscience around the age of six.

However, many parents have observed that younger children are capable of expressing genuine concern for the pain of others:

• "My two-year-old son Gorka was playing ball - says a father - and he accidentally hit a girl on the head. He immediately went to caress her, saying: "Does your hair have a pupa?"
• Another mother tells us that, around the age of three, Miguel had the habit of offering a glass of milk (he liked it a lot) to anyone who seemed sad to him.
• Some five-year-olds even anticipate the needs of others. Like Marián, when her mother falls asleep on the couch, she runs to cover her with a blanket.

But we also come across others who crush fish, tear off the wings of flies, hide the balls of balls from their grandmothers (and on top of that they lie saying that it wasn't them), trip up their partner or, at the very least, are happy that a ball falls on someone else's head and not on their own.

Why do some children react in one way and others so differently? It is due to the quality of communication they have with parents and other people around them.

How to talk to them

They tend to distinguish between good and evil or, in the worst case, at least understand that there are acceptable behaviors and others that are not.

Little by little, they learn to also calibrate the nuances. What we cannot yet expect is that they will have the courage to assert their ethical opinion in front of others (perhaps larger or stronger). That civic courage requires a poise that many adults would like for themselves.

Children want to be taken seriously and, when we talk to them, we have to do it appropriately. Yelling or lecturing by always repeating the same thing does not reach them.

They only understand that a message is serious when we transmit it to them through their senses. We have to look children in the eyes, take their hands or put ours on their shoulders and tell them: "Look, I don't want you to do this. It's wrong because...". What follows will have to be very specific.

If the child tries to get away from physical contact, it means that he is angry with the parents. In this case, a look and a calm and serious voice will suffice.

When the parents are the ones who are very angry with the child, it is advisable to postpone the reflection until later.

The transmission of ethical values ​​works better the stronger the emotional ties between both parties: a child who loves his parents, who feels safe and confident in their presence, will try to imitate his parents' behavior and respond positively. Therefore, it should not be said that at this age moral conscience awakens, but rather that it is when we can count on the first fruits of the ethical education that we have offered to our children.

Children check daily whether we speak politely or shout, whether we help each other or trip ourselves up, whether we pay religiously or appropriate other people's property. However, example is not always enough; Sometimes they also need some explanations.

In general terms, the least ethical and common behaviors in some children of this age are:

• Cruelty. It is difficult for a child who has learned to feel empathy (the ability to put himself in someone else's shoes) to have cruel impulses. But little ones will only feel that empathy for others if their parents also feel it for them, if they understand their tears, their anger or their joy.

When a boy mistreats an animal, he may do it out of a desire for research (especially in the case of insects) or, really, out of cruelty. In the first case, it will be enough to explain that it is causing pain to the animal; In the second, we must assume that he has a problem and that he pays for it with an innocent being. It is essential to find out the underlying reason.

• Other people's evil. In the cinema (and in cartoons) there are many gags that aim to make us laugh with the misfortunes that happen to the protagonists.

The child who sees that a clown (a happy figure) gets tangled in his shoes and falls (a sad fact), receives a contradictory message and will look for the mother's or father's gaze to know if he has to laugh or cry. Boys who don't get adequate answers laugh as much at the crushing of a drawn cat as at the fall of a real lady.