Troubled Kids Podcast

HSB Practice Lessons 2.

BLOG PODS #49 - HSB Practice Lessons #2 - Lean in, Empathise & Be Kind INTRODUCTION In our last post [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/4d8f071d-e865-4b0f-86ff-f15cd77dd5f9] we began looking at some practice lessons for working with harmful sexual behaviour (or HSB) in children and teenagers - this came off the back of a book chapter I co-authored with my fellow HSB specialist, Sharron Wareham. The points we drew out in the first post were: - Keep in mind that age is not the same as maturity - Harmful sexual behaviour is often developmentally out of sequence - The victim/perpetrator split is a false one, and… - Behaviour has a function, even when it is harmful. Here are the remaining 5 practice lessons. As always, please bear in mind that these are the things that came to mind when I was drafting these posts; they are by no means exhaustive - but I hope they’ll be helpful. HSB Practice lessons (cont’d.) 5. Punishment rarely leads to safety or change A strong theme in our chapter is the damage caused by punitive responses. When it comes to punishment, the obvious candidate is the criminal justice system (CJS); that, at least in part, is its function - to meet out justice implies the victim is recognised as such and the offender punished. But other responses to HSB in children can be equally if not more punitive than prosecution. I’ve lost count how many kids suffer what can only be described as ‘punishment’, but not from the CJS; for example: - Being labelled inside and outside the family as some kind of weirdo, paedo or countless other pergoratives. - Being made to leave their home in order to protect others, albeit that one or some of those same ‘others’ may have been abusing the child for years. - Being kicked out of school and thus bereft of the routine, stability, friendships and positive adults it offers - again usually due to some malformed concept of ‘being risky’ to other kids. …and on it goes. While we-the observing adults-may not see these things as punishments per se, that’s absolutely how children see them. Or certainly, it’s how they feel them. Some of the trickiest hurdles I’ve had to deal with in the treatment of HSB in children, are the complex grief, resentment, bemusement and/or utter rejection felt when these things happen. Perhaps the greatest argument for the suspension (if not outright rejection) of the punishment paradigm, is the distraction it becomes to the treatment process itself. I’ve found myself spending weeks and weeks helping a child navigate the confusing vagaries and painful disruptions of things other than the behaviour itself. While these things happen because of the HSB, they also distract terribly from it - so the child’s focus moves from what really matters, the roots and meaning of the HSB, to the reactions of others to it. ** It’s worth noting, also: - Most children with HSB do not go on to do so again once it’s been discovered and treated* - Outcomes improve significantly when children receive timely, appropriate help and see treatment interventions through (rather than dropping out - this is a risk factor) - Criminalisation often increases shame, isolation and distorted beliefs and adds nothing to the treatment process. - But treatment doesn’t require criminal prosecution in order to happen (depending on the availability of local services to intervene effectively). The worst case scenario is punishment without treatment or with off-the-shelf manualised programmes that don’t/can’t adapt to the individual needs of the child - again, as a developing human, every child HSB intervention is by definition unique as it has to address this child’s journey, no-one else’s (see lessons 1 & 2 in the previous post [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/4d8f071d-e865-4b0f-86ff-f15cd77dd5f9]). 💡 Practice lesson summary: HSB in children should sit within safeguarding and welfare systems wherever possible, not criminal justice responses - which, overall, tend to do more harm than good. The development of countrywide effective, local, pre-court HSB services for children of all ages should be a policy and provision goal of national government, with resources to match. Breathy and meaningful oratory about addressing sexual violence needs to backed by robust legal processes and the cash to treat the abuse, not least in children - that would ensure we make quick and lasting strides towards a society free of sexual abuse. 6. Assumed ability is a serious blind spot Professionals frequently overestimate what children understand about sex, consent and harm. When I was helping to manage a secure children’s home, it never ceased to amaze me that an 16 year old child might not know how to tie their shoe laces. Or know how much shampoo to use on their hair. Or be able to use cutlery properly… So I’m never surprised when children know a lot less about sex, sexuality and sexual behaviour than their age might suggest. This is particularly the case, in my experience anyway, when it comes to teenagers. Younger children attract a more consistent ‘benefit of the doubt’ approach from most adults. But it’s different with teens. There’s a tendency to assume that because they’re out there in the world and have access to the internet that somehow they can assimilate all that into a coherent sense of how this stuff works. They can’t. Not necessarily, anyway. Most abused and developmentally troubled kids will get by and make do and not harm anyone else along the way; but many won’t. And when that journey includes sexual abuse of some kind, we shouldn’t be surprised when a child’s presentation and behaviour goes awry in the sexual domain. After all, how do you safely, consistently and realistically get good information about the nuances, vagaries and subtleties of safe sexual exploration, reciprocity and informed consent when your only counsel is t’internet? I dread to think! Some things to remember: - Sexual abuse can fundamentally distort a child’s internal rulebook. What most kids imbibe and infer from years and years living and observing loving, prosocial adults in the family home, these kids miss out on. So they end up with a deficient (on a good day) or distorted (on a bad day) script about how to conduct themselves sexually. - If the wider context of family relationships is dysfunctional, then the far more complex and granular intricacies of emerging sexuality will remain opaque, too. So even kids who haven’t been sexually abused, but may have endured poor attachments in early development, will struggle to grapple successfully with their burgeoning adolescent selves - including their sexual selves - Learning disabilities, ADHD, autism (and other ND conditions) and trauma all affect judgement and impulse control. Taking account of the broader functional and developmental picture must be a primary focus of any treatment program. 💡 Practice lesson summary: Understanding must never be assumed. It must be assessed, supported and reviewed. I try to make it a rule of thumb not only to ask the right questions, but to dig deeper to ensure that I and the child understand their answers. Children, particularly troubled children, quickly learn how to parrot things adults around them say. Some of them can do this brilliantly as they’re able to fit the words to the context. BUT, we have to ensure they understand the words themselves, lest we fall foul of assumed knowledge that isn’t really there. 7. Gender shapes how children are responded to by systems - and by individuals Responses to HSB are not gender-neutral. I’ve worked in two places in my life that illustrate this point well: - the criminal justice system and - the mental health system. Where I live, in Wales, there are no prison beds for women and girls; there are hundreds for men and boys, though. In the low secure mental health unit downstairs from my office, it’s rare to see boys; but girls proliferate. I realise this is an over-simplification, but the point stands, I think: we tend to categorise boys’ aberrant behaviour as criminal and girls’ as health related; ergo, one is punished (or at least dealt with in a more punitive system) and one is treated. Think about that. Boys are much more likely to end up in prison for sexual behaviour, whereas girls are more often dealt with in hospital or community-based services. In truth, for most children displaying HSB, neither of these places is ideal for helping them process what’s happened to them and move forward to better days. In short: Boys may be more likely to be viewed as dangerous and therefore get punished or, at the very least, get made subject to a more punitive system. Girls’ HSB may be minimised, mislabelled and perhaps seen as something ‘in them’ that needs fixing (though there are significant outliers where girls’ HSB gets an even more punitive response than boys’. There’s a detailed case example of exactly this point in our book chapter [https://amzn.eu/d/04q0p55c]) Gender stereotypes, particularly in the sexual domain, can obscure both vulnerability and risk in boys and girls equally. This connects to the point made in section 3 above - the victim/perpetrator split. Boys are more often tagged as a offenders (forgive the phrase but it reflects the system vernacular and helps for brevity!) and girls as victims. Whilst the offender stats around prevalence and gender attributes support this broad bifurcation, both these terms are a little odious to me as they bring to mind toxic generalities of predation and paralysis respectively - neither of which does anything like justice to the complex nature of the HSB problem. 💡 Practice lesson summary: Professionals must actively reflect on how gendered assumptions shape assessment and intervention, resisting the enmeshed in-built biases of male/female and victim/offender which are so ingrained in our systems. Subscribe now [%%checkout_url%%] 8. Culture matters, but it must never excuse harm Children develop within family and community cultures that influence beliefs about sex, power, gender roles and relationships. For the purposes of this post, I’m thinking about wider cultural parameters like nationality, ethnicity, language, sex and religion as well as the practical, lived-experience of these in an individual family home. In our practice, there are some basic principles it’s useful to have in mind - they are i basic but no less important for it: Cultural humility is essential - it’s easy to slip into assuming we know everything we need to know about someone else’s culture; we certainly don’t. In fact, even if we share the same culture, we grew up in a different home at a different time with different people - these factors alone make cultural humility a necessary prerequisite for our work. Cultural stereotyping is dangerous. Following on from the previous point, if we flagrantly assume we understand the broad range and granular nuances of how another culture may have impacted a child, not only are we open to major mistakes and misunderstandings, we’ll almost certainly never be able to help to optimal effect. Harmful experiences must never be minimised in the name of culture. The question is not one of excuses but of explanations. Examining the influence of wide and narrow cultural drivers on the emergence of HSB in a child is necessary in order to understand it better and treat it more effectively. It is never OK to minimise, play down or some how excuse it. In our poly-cultural societies, those of us haling from hegemonic groups have grown used to tailoring our language and assumptions so as not to offend. Such social complexities and allowances are helpful and respectful as well as, in my view, ensuring we enjoy and benefit from the delightful and multifaceted cultural traditions around us - the total is far greater than the sum of the individual parts. But, we must never allow politeness, sensitivity or the eagerness not to offend others to lull us into ducking the very real issues in play. While it can be tricky to navigate the space between honesty and openness about what’s going on and differing cultural experiences and viewpoints, navigate it we must. Better to confront the issue/s and find oneself on the receiving end of an angry service user or worse still a complaint, than to balk at the challenge, be distracted or diluted in our practice and find that we missed something. Or worse, find that a child was not kept safe, that HSB wasn’t assessed and treated properly and/or an adult abuser went unchallenged. When religion and gender expectations converge, things can be very hard. But I think returning to our practice principles can help us here. Asking about things with a genuinely open desire to learn and understand, can really promote trust in situations where people in the cultural minority will not expect humility or respect. Demonstrating both in spadefuls can be a bulwark against knee-jerk reactions from all concerned and help relationships coalesce into something that can promote healing. 💡 Practice lesson summary: Something can be culturally familiar and still harmful. Not assuming we know enough and instead taking time to ask about things in a firm but gentle way, will help us to understand more and to practice better. In the end, though, safeguarding responsibilities always come first. First and foremost this is not a deaf child, a christian child, a same-sex parented child, or a Sikh child (for example); above all they are a child and they may well be in need of our protection, regardless of cultural heritage, preference or choice. 9. Early warning signs are often missed Many children show indicators of distress long before behaviour escalates. Sexualised behaviour in younger children is often silenced or redirected: Parental discomfort to notice and address sexual play that is out of sync developmentally or resistant to correction can prolong the behaviour, intrenching it and increasing treatment resistance later on. Systems frequently wait until harm to others occurs before intervening. Again, I’ve lost count how many kids have had to precipitate numerous incidents before someone decides to ask the ‘why’ question. Schools, social workers and others often do not call a strategy meeting or even consider whether they should look more closely - which they should. Opportunities for early recovery are lost. Most so-called HSB will never develop into that if we’re prepared to talk more openly, intervene more readily and do so earlier. The earlier the better, too, as children’s problematic conduct is most effectively resolved if it’s brought out into the open and addressed honestly, with kindness at the first opportunity - we do not need a pattern of HSB before we can justify getting involved; if fact, the opposite is true. Many local authority areas have good systems in place - partnerships with specialist services that can advise-formally or informally-those with a statutory duty of child protection. But many do not, so practitioners, teachers, social workers, foster carers and others are left to flounder for information and guidance about what to do and how to do it. Early intervention is key. 💡 Practice lesson summary: Early, curious and developmentally informed responses reduce harm and prevent escalation. HSB responses and system expectations should form part of all worker inductions, particularly in social work, foster care and residential care, but also for health visitors, youth workers, YOT teams, support staff, as well as those running sports clubs, Sunday schools, play and youth groups and many more. Know the signs and do something straight away - there’s no better intervention than an early intervention. For information on this see the excellent resources [https://www.csacentre.org.uk/research-resources/] produced by the CSA Centre for Expertise [https://www.csacentre.org.uk/]. What good HSB practice with children looks like Across the book chapter, and more so in these two posts, I’ve tried to summarise what effective HSB practice consistently involves if it’s to avoid a legion of pitfalls and optimise our service to the child and, through them, to their family and the wider community. Here’s a bullet-point distillation: - Avoid punishment and advocate for it’s avoidance wherever possible - Never assume a child has the knowledge or ability their age might suggest - Sex and sexuality are inseparable from gender - always consider it - In formulation and assessment generally, ask how culture might have contributed - Intervene as early as possible and train others to do so Useful treatment foci In their qualitative systematic review of HSB teenagers (all boys unfortunately!) Campbell et al (2020) identified 5 key themes as critical components of successful intervention for these kids. Here they are in brief - there’s a link to the full paper below**): - The key role played by the relationships between the young person and the practitioner - The significance of the role played by the parents and carers - The importance of taking account of the wider context in which the HSB took place - The role of disclosure during the intervention process - Children need to be equipped with skills as well as knowledge Time and space won’t allow me to unpack these in more depth here (may be there’s another post in this for later?), but you’ll be able to see that there’s some crossover with the content outlined above and in last week’s post. As I look back over this now before hitting ‘publish’ I’m struck by how much more could be said on each point, as well as a number of others that could be made. But I’ll stop there…for now. FINAL THOUGHTS Children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour are, obviously, children and young people first. Their episode/s of HSB should not be allowed-either by us or by the system-to define them - they are so much more than that! But when HSB takes place someone nearly always suffers detriment or harm. As practitioners, therefore, we have a duty to maintain the complex and sensitive balancing act that involves promoting safety for all while providing treatment that will avert future recurrence. This is often referred to (including by me sometimes) as ‘risk management’ and ‘treatment provision.’ This is not a binary choice that demands we choose which child to manage and which to treat; along with the victim/perpetrator split mentioned previously, this is spectacularly unhelpful - but it still happens. All HSB kids have suffered, usually some form of sexual abuse, but not always. Implicitly they are all victims in some form or another. If they have gone on to display HSB later on, then they have all in some way or another put others in harm’s way. So, let’s do away with stigmatising tag lines and unhelpful tropes in favour of seeing the child in the big picture of their lives so we can help them make changes and learn lessons that improve their life chances moving forward. For me, it helps to keep these things in mind, so I don’t become part of the problem, adding to the iatrogenic systems around us all. As always, when in doubt and not sure what to do, I revert to my tried and tested maxim: lean in, empathise and be kind! See you in the next one. Listen on SPOTIFY here [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=729b0c89360a4773] Listen on APPLE Podcasts here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubled-kids-podcast/id1779885894] Listen on YouTube here [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS] More information: See Jonny’s temporary website - here [https://jonnymatthew.notion.site/JonnyMatthew-com-ef4e7f73db2d4cc3b24034f38d27b477] - BOOK: For a great book covering the range of issues around HSB in much more depth, see the excellent: Allardyce, S. & Yates, P. (2018) Working with Children and Young People Who Have Displayed Harmful Sexual Behaviour (Protecting Children and Young People). Dunedin Academic Press. (Link [https://amzn.to/4b3n5gu]) - BOOK: Cultural Responsivity Book 1: Treatment of Sexual Violence (Ours is chapter 4 - link [https://amzn.eu/d/07xRQsVn]) - WEBSITE: Child Sexual Abuse Centre for expertise - brillaint website with tons of useful resources and information (link [https://www.csacentre.org.uk/]) - BOOK: Children as ‘Risk’ - Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Children and Young People by Anne-Marie McAlinden (link [https://amzn.eu/d/0dOnNHqa]) - PREVIOUS POST: For more on moral development see Theory Bites 6a - Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development (link [https://open.substack.com/pub/jonnyvm/p/theory-bites-6a-lawrence-kohlberg?r=1q21iy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]) - *PAPER: A meta-analysis of trends in general, sexual, and violent recidivism among youth with histories of sex offending by Lussier et al (2024 - link [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/15248380221137653]) - **PAPER: Young people who display harmful sexual behaviors and their families. A qualitative systematic review of their experiences of professional interventions - Campbell et al (2020 - link [https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/preview/1352558/24664.pdf]) Subscribe & Follow? You can join the email list for this blog publication here [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe]. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily. You can also “Like” this site on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/jonnymatthewcom/] or connect with me on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/JVMcom] or Twitter [https://x.com/JonnyMatthew]. The voiceovers are also on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=354c89cf317e49e8] and Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubled-kids-podcast/id1779885894]. ©️ Jonny Matthew 2026 Get full access to Jonny Matthew’s Substack at jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

HSB Practice Lessons #1

BLOG PODS #48 - HSB Practice Lessons #1 - Bucking the System and Avoiding Knee-Jerks INTRODUCTION I’ve published a few things in my career so far; not a lot, but a few (see more here [https://www.notion.so/Bibliography-3e525f1067f045f6a663cf671781d2d7?pvs=21]). But I never get tired of the buzz I feel when something new comes out! This month, a chapter I co-wrote with Sharron Wareham was published in Cultural Responsivity (Book 1): Treatment of Sexual Violence [https://amzn.eu/d/08Ld0gxH]. I know - not one to leave around on the coffee table, right! :0) Our chapter lays out 3 detailed case studies of children who’ve run foul of the law because of their harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). Sharron and I use these examples to highlight systemic failings and encourage responsive and sensitive practice that takes full account of childhood as a developmental work in progress. Anyway, as I’ve been on on a roll writing about HSB, I thought I’d lay out some basic practice ideas that can help keep us from making these mistakes in our own work. Check out the book on Amazon here... [https://amzn.eu/d/06JOp9Ny] Bucking the system Despite huge progress over the last 25 years or so, work with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) still sometimes gets pulled towards risk management, control and, perhaps most of all, adult assumptions about intent and psychopathology. Iatrongenic harm is still rife. All too often, reactions are still knee-jerk in nature. Tabloids still rush to stick children with adult labels. It’s still easier for the common mind to assume inherent pathology than it is to pause, look for longer and see the story behind the behaviour. Most specialist practitioners navigate this work in an appropriately child-centred way. But the vagaries of wider systems like safeguarding and youth justice don’t always do so well. As we’ve said, knee-jerk reactions, defensive practice and, occasionally, assumptions about adult risk patterns, can wind things back to the bad old days. The trouble is, when fear dominates, development gets lost - children are, by definition, developing, so we must do everything we can to keep HSB (as with every other kind of ‘offending’ behaviour in kids) firmly in the child first zone [https://yjresourcehub.uk/what-is-child-first/]. Simply put, our chapter [https://amzn.eu/d/07a0gc9B] argues for something simpler and more demanding than easy tropes and regressive risk ideas: we need to understand sexual behaviour in children through a developmental and trauma-sensitive lens, not a criminal one. What follows are some practice lessons for anyone working with children and young people where HSB is a concern - especially those who share our passion for bucking a system that doesn’t always serve these kids-or the public good-very well. HSB Practice lessons I’m going to lay out the first four here and then complete the list with five more next week. 1. Keep in mind that age is not the same as maturity Chronological age tells us very little about a child’s actual capacity. The baseline maturational processes of brain development, particularly the complex stuff around executive functioning, doesn’t complete until much later than was previously thought. ‘Brain childhood’ continues well into the mid-20s with some studies now saying as late as 28 years old. Trauma, neglect, abuse, neurodiversity and disrupted education can significantly delay this development such that children may possess much less capacity to understand their impulses and control their behaviour than their number of trips around the sun might suggest. Age does not equal maturity! Physical appearance often masks emotional, cognitive and moral immaturity [https://open.substack.com/pub/jonnyvm/p/theory-bites-6a-lawrence-kohlberg?r=1q21iy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]. Many 15 year olds look like they’re 20; but many of them may be delayed in their development and functioning like primary school kids. Add to this the biologically turbulent and mesmerising forces of pubescence and things get tricky pretty quickly. For me, the best thing to do here is to pause, step back, take time to properly scan the long view for this child, manage the risks and then begin the work of encouraging some developmental course corrections to get things back on track. 💡 Practice lesson summary: Never assume understanding, intent or responsibility based on age alone. Functional maturity must always be assessed. Current functioning is best seen in light of the child’s journey so far - which is why, in my view, life-course case formulation must be central to all assessment processes. 2. Harmful sexual behaviour is often developmentally ‘out of sequence’ When children show sexual behaviour that is clearly outside what would be expected for their age, something has usually gone wrong earlier in development. This is one of the many things I’ve long learnt to assume is happening - i.e. I screen it in until I have good reason to screen it out. Many children with HSB have learned about sex too early or in unsafe ways. For example: Being eroticised early due to long, frequent and severe exposure to pornographic material long before they have anything near the maturational wherewithal to filter and understand it. Having grown up being abused sexually (and/or in any other way) such that the child’s concepts of care, relationships, adult behaviour and their own role in the family are terribly skewed. Sexual behaviour may reflect copying, confusion or survival strategies rather than sexual intent. In my experience, there is almost always some element of abuse-reactivity going on - why wouldn’t there be? When it comes to sexual behaviour that is out of sequence, pre-pubescent sexual behaviour is particularly significant and should never be dismissed. It’s very presence alone-nevermind the details of type, severity, frequency, etc.-should be enough to sound the alarm. 💡 Practice lesson summary: If behaviour doesn’t fit the child’s developmental stage, the key question is not, ‘what did you do?’ but ‘what happened to you?’ Ask yourself questions like: why does this HSB make sense for this child, what role does it play for them, where did they learn it in the first instance and how do they feel before, during and afterwards? 3. The victim–perpetrator split is a false one Systems often divide children into two camps: the harmed child, seen as vulnerable and deserving of care the harming child, seen as risky and responsible It’s this latter group that most often fall foul of adultifications and over-reactions. I’m with Anne-Marie McAlinden [https://amzn.eu/d/02vT7yuq] here, that this split is a false binary that is deeply misleading at a conceptual level and completely unhelpful at a practice level. Even if we were in possession of all the necessary information to determine whether the weight of a child’s behaviour places them more in one camp than the other, what would it achieve? What matters here is how this child got to this place, what meaning this has for them and those affected, and what we can usefully do to mitigate all this and move forward. Children who cause sexual harm often have their own histories of abuse, neglect or exploitation Protecting one child while ignoring the needs of another increases long-term harm, labels the ‘offending’ child (obviously!) and may actually increase future problems - not least if the child’s sense of who they are begins to form around what they’ve done. A child can pose risk to others and be at risk from others. They can do things that are harmful and simultaneously be frightened, unsafe and traumatised - to split the two is to split the child. We should be working for coherence and a positively unified sense of self, not a clearer label to satisfy some vacuous and utterly useless systemic taxonomy! 💡 Practice lesson summary: Safeguarding and treatment must include all of the children involved, including those whose behaviour is causing harm. Keeping in mind that the reason they are now causing harm is almost certainly fuelled by the harm they themselves have endured at the hands of others, is key here. Let’s reject the victim-perpetrator split as an unhelpful falsehood. 4. Behaviour has a function, even when it is harmful Sexually harmful behaviour in children is rarely about sexual pleasure. Pre-pubescent kids may well experience physical pleasure in bodily contact, but this is manifestly not the same thing as adult sexual sensation - because it lacks the maturity of thought and meaning, it lacks context and reciprocity. Our problem, as adults, is that we can struggle to assimilate our own associations of sex and pleasure from abusive behaviour that is sexual. So we ask understandable but nevertheless nonsensical questions like: ‘how can they possibly get any pleasure from doing that to someone?’ Wrong question. A better one, in my view, is to ask where the behaviour might have originated and what function might it have for the child now (if any). Sexual behaviour in children, particularly in those with sexualised histories of one form or another, often serves other purposes, such as: regulating fear, anxiety, distress or other difficult feelings gaining a sense of mastery (over the self or their feelings or over others) seeking connection, reassurance or attention reenacting learned and skewed relationship patterns, messed-up displays of affection or downright abusive behaviours Whether we’re assessing or treating, having a sense of how the child ‘sees’ the behaviour, what their expectations of it are and how they learned it (origins!) it critical. Personally, I would always want to ask: what did you think would happen (if you did this), how did you think the other person would feel when you did this and where do you think you learned this behaviour from? Or some such. Obviously when and how we ask these questions is based on our understanding of and relationships with the child concerned - timing is everything. 💡 Practice lesson summary: Assessment must explore what the behaviour does for the child and where it came from, not just what it does to others and how to stop it. Having a focus on behavioural function helps with this. What good HSB practice with children looks like Across the book chapter, and more so in this post, I’ve tried to summarise what effective HSB practice consistently involves. Here’s a bullet-point distillation: - being mindful of how systems confuse children and responses to HSB - take care to avoid unhelpful terminology - remember age doesn’t equal maturity - maintain a child-first, trauma-sensitive stance - push for developmentally sensitive formulation-based assessment - manage risk, don’t judge the child Final thoughts Children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour are not telling us they are dangerous. They are telling us that their development has been disrupted, needs have gone unmet and they need our help to sort through it all and begin moving on. If we respond with fear, punishment and labels, we risk reinforcing the very conditions that shaped the behaviour in the first place. For us, we must strive to ‘see’ the child themselves and, preferably, take the long view of how they came to where they are now - who influenced that journey, who disrupted it (and how) and where has that left them in terms of relationships, knowledge and readiness to navigate a complex sexual world. If we respond with curiosity, compassion and developmental understanding, we can create the conditions for safety, recovery and change - all the time using our relational skills to engage the child with warmth, acceptance, good humour and empathy. That is not being soft on harm. It is being serious about healing now and prevention later. Five more practice lessons coming in the next post. See you in the next one. Listen on SPOTIFY here [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=729b0c89360a4773] Listen on APPLE Podcasts here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubled-kids-podcast/id1779885894] Listen on YouTube here [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS] More information: See Jonny’s temporary website - here [https://jonnymatthew.notion.site/JonnyMatthew-com-ef4e7f73db2d4cc3b24034f38d27b477] BOOK: For a great book covering the range of issues around HSB in much more depth, see the excellent: Allardyce, S. & Yates, P. (2018) Working with Children and Young People Who Have Displayed Harmful Sexual Behaviour (Protecting Children and Young People). Dunedin Academic Press. (Link [https://amzn.to/4b3n5gu]) WEBSITE: The CSA Centre for expertise has a brilliant website - it’s a mine of information on all aspects of sexual abuse (link [https://www.csacentre.org.uk/]); there’s also good information of HSB there, too; check it out here (link [https://www.csacentre.org.uk/?s=HSB]) BOOK: Cultural Responsivity Book 1: Treatment of Sexual Violence (Ours is chapter 4 - link [https://amzn.eu/d/07xRQsVn]) BOOK: Children as ‘Risk’ - Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Children and Young People by Anne-Marie McAlinden (link [https://amzn.eu/d/0dOnNHqa] - this is a corker!) PREVIOUS POST: For more on moral development see Theory Bites 6a - Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development (link [https://open.substack.com/pub/jonnyvm/p/theory-bites-6a-lawrence-kohlberg?r=1q21iy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]) JOIN NOTA: Thus is the U.K.’s only professional affiliate organisation supporting those working with sexual abuse - it’s brilliant. Check it out here and I hope to see you at the next event (link [https://nota.co.uk/]) Subscribe & Follow? You can join the email list for this blog publication here [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe]. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily. You can also “Like” this site on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/jonnymatthewcom/] or connect with me on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/JVMcom] or Twitter [https://x.com/JonnyMatthew]. The voiceovers are also on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=354c89cf317e49e8] and Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubled-kids-podcast/id1779885894]. ©️ Jonny Matthew 2026 Get full access to Jonny Matthew’s Substack at jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Theory Bites 6b - Lawrence Kohlberg

BLOG PODS #47 - Theory Bites 6b - Lawrence Kohlberg: Stages of Moral Development INTRODUCTION In our last post, we began looking at Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. we saw where it (and he) fits into the theorising of his time and the basic structure of his theory. For professionals working with children, especially those recovering from developmental trauma and/or who offend, understanding Kohlberg’s theory can help us think about and guide more effective interventions and foster a healthier morality in kids. It can allow us to drill down beyond the surface behaviour or obvious presentations of a child and look more broadly about how their experiences may have impaired their moral development. Doing this means we can avoid falling into quick judgments or unhelpful heuristics; it can help structure our thinking and gain a degree of objectivity that’s essential for ensuring we serve this as well as we can - if our assessments and intervention planning are better, the child will do better and we’ll optimise the change they can make. The stages and levels again - briefly Kohlberg organised his theory into 6 stages in 3 levels (for more detail on these see the previous post [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/publish/post/158749053?back=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fdrafts]): 1. Pre-Conventional Level (Typically in early childhood) Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation Rules are ‘fixed’ and decisions are made to avoid punishment. Stage 2: Self-Interest Orientation Actions are driven by self-interest and immediate benefits; others might benefit but it’s still mainly about ‘me’; but if they benefit, fine. 2. Conventional Level (Typically in adolescence) Stage 3: Interpersonal Accord and Conformity Focus on being a “good person”, meeting expectations, prioritising relationships and social approval. Stage 4: Authority and Social-Order Maintaining Orientation Emphasis on law and order, duty, upholding societal rules and maintaining a functioning society. 3. Post-Conventional Level (Achieved by some adults, if at all) Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation Awareness that rules and laws exist to serve society but can be changed if unjust; decisions are based on fairness and human rights. Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles Guided by abstract moral principles like justice, equality and dignity which supersede laws. Applying Kohlberg’s Theory in Practice For children recovering from developmental trauma, their moral development may be delayed, impaired or disrupted. Trauma can create trust issues, boundary problems and emotional dysregulation - as well as a raft of associated behavioural and presentational issues. In my working world of youth justice and forensic mental health, a child’s ‘offending’ is simply the official recognition that something they did broke the law, or may have done. For us, though, being able to zoom out and look at the broader developmental context for the child’s current functioning is critical if we are to avoid adding to their problems through criminalisation and punishment, when kindness, understanding and treatment are what’s needed. Kohlberg, like lots of theoreticians, can help us think more clearly and non-judgmentally, giving kids the best chance of emerging from the justice system-or any system-unscathed. Here are a few thoughts about practical ways Kohlberg’s theory might help guide child care professionals: 1. Build Trust and Safety First Create and encourage consistent, predictable environments where children feel secure - safety is a bulwark against reactivity, which is so often the driver of problem behaviours. Be transparent about expectations and consequences. There’s so much talk about ‘restorative’ approaches, but there has be something to restore kids to! Often there isn’t, so let’s start by working on that. In Kohlbergian terms, if a child is to begin identifying with a group such that they have incentives to conform and do their bit for social order (stages 3 & 4), then the group has to be worth investing in; safety encourages this. 2. Address Emotional Regulation Trauma can massively undermine safety and impair emotional control, so supporting children to recognise and manage emotions effectively is key. Children will not be able think about never mind employ more complex socially interactive skills like theory of mind and empathy, if they’re still trapped at the beck and call of their own feeling states. Gently and empathically leaning into what they’re feeling, applying word labels to feelings and appropriately sharing our own feelings in relation to events and situations can all help kids begin getting a sense of what emotions mean, what causes them and how to self-soothe. Strategies like this that provide a kind of emotional coaching can begin to allow children to settle in themselves; once they do, they’re much more likely to begin acting with a little more deliberation, rather than reacting - essential if truly moral behaviour is to develop. In my view, it’s the lack of overt recognition of this in Kohlberg’s theory that lets it down a bit for me - it seems to assume children have facilities like theory of mind and meta-cognition, when many are still pin-balling between emotional states they have little insight into. Addressing this early on is important. 3. Assess Moral Development Stage Use Kohlberg’s stages as a framework to understand where a child currently sits. There are no rigid taxonomies here, but a look over the stages will give us a sense of where a child may be on their journey of moral development. Adjust interventions based on whether the child operates at a pre-conventional or conventional level. i.e. are they in a childhood mode of moral functioning: simplistic, ego-centric, maybe with a sense of others’ welfare emerging, but it’s still mainly hedonistic and self-seeking? If so, they probably in the pre-conventional level somewhere, look at the stage descriptions (1 & 2) to drill down more specifically. Or are they showing some maturity in their ethical thinking: looking for social approval in some things and interested in being thought of as a ‘good person?’ In which case they’re likely more in the conventional level somewhere (stage 3 or 4). 4. Tailor Interventions For example, for children at Stage 1 (Obedience and Punishment), focus on building trust, creating structure, building safety and security - make this the priority. Keep your appointments (where, when and how you meet) as consistent as possible. For those at Stage 2 (Self-Interest Orientation), we can focus on and comment about the feelings and experiences of others; asking questions about how they think someone else might feel or think, can encourage kids to actively ‘go there’ and begin building empathy and mentalising others. If this is tricky, start by helping them articulate their own feelings, thoughts & subjective experiences before introducing comments about the same in other people. Once we have a sense of where the child might be in their progression and development, we can think more clearly and specifically about how we can augment and encourage this along. 5. Create Ethical Dilemma Discussions Use age-appropriate moral dilemmas to encourage children to think critically about right and wrong. Chatty and informal conversations that look back on choices made, situations encountered and explore ideas are easy but useful. Helping kids run different fun scenarios (e.g. the old one about if there was a beggar, a bank manager and a bride swimming towards a two-person lifeboat, which two would you rescue and why?), is another easy way of' ‘intervening’ positively to propagate moral growth without it feeling like an intervention at all. Discussing real situations that might arise for the child in future, giving opportunity to think in advance about their options and the pros and cons of each, is not only useful in terms of mental preparation, it also focuses them on the moral meaning of their decisions and the possible impact not only for themselves but for others, too. 6. Foster Perspective-Taking Use word and picture work to help children understand the emotions and experiences of their own and in others. I used to do this a lot using a pile of cuttings from newspapers and magazines of people with different facial expressions. To start with we can work with the child to match up feeling faces and feeling words - this is useful if kids have had poor attachment experiences and lack the linguistic labels for feelings and body states that most kids begin learning from attachment figures in the pre-verbal stage. As they progress, use some pics that just show the face and others that place the person in context, then chat about how the person is feeling and why they may be feeling that way? How might we be able to help them feel differently (calmer, happier, less upset, etc.) can help link emotion and action, fostering empathy. Use storytelling, group discussions and role-playing exercises, when kids are ready for it, to build empathy by learning from others. And on it goes - let your creativity loose and have fun! 7. Set Clear, Compassionate Boundaries Boundaries must be firm but communicated with care. Here we’re looking to strike the balance between a more Durkheimian educative, pedagogical approach to moral learning and the more autonomous group moral osmosis of Piaget (in general terms I guess this is a tension between sociology and psychology? But I digress…). Kids need to know where the edges are-this far and no further-and these will need to flex and evolve as they grow, of course. But children who may have lacked clarity on what’s OK and what’s not will need us to be clear so they know the extent of the arena they have to work and learn within. Eventually, of course, they’ll need the freedom to explore ideas, disagree with ‘authority’ and rehearse trying out their own possibilities - don’t all teenagers do this; shouldn’t all teenagers do this?! The key is to tailor the parameters within which they function-the boundaries, the edges-such that they can do the early learning they may have missed and in doing so start to feel safe and settled, Then they can do the moral and ethical exploration all kids need in order to arrive at and cement their own preferential morality into place. Using punitive approaches when the boundaries get crossed can hold kids back in terms of moral growth - stalling them in stage 1 (avoidance of punishment) rather than encouraging a growing sense of belonging and, eventually, group identification and a sense of the greater good. 8. Reinforce Positive Behaviour Praise and celebrate ethical decision-making and small moral victories. Even if there’s loads of room for further progress (which there always is), the very fact that a child has thought about something and/or made a good decision is reason enough for celebration. Be cautious not to make the praise too lavish and take care to target the effort rather than the talent, as this avoids the praise itself feeling overwhelming or running contrary to the child’s more negative sense of self, in which case they may reject it. It’s the action (decision, choice, conduct) we want to highlight for encouragement (Carol Dweck is very good on this - see link below). Encourage persistence even in small moral dilemmas. Change always comes incrementally, so helping the child to understand this by taking a ‘one-step-at-a-time’ approach, is wise. Big change comes off the back of accumulated small ones; so making our expectations, language used and practice applied around this will help guide kids through big leaps in a series of baby steps. 9. Address Trauma Impact on Moral Development Recognise that trauma can stunt the progression of moral reasoning. Abused children get trapped in the fear and harm caused by what they’ve been through. Spending their formative years in way too much fight and flight sets up the body and emotions to be stuck in a quasi survival mode. The Kohlbergian ideas of group identity, social and legal conformity, personal duty and working for the common good get subverted by the need to feel safe and get through the day. Without opportunity to settle into safety, learn from the patient compassion of others and adopt a more positive sense of self, kids remain stuck such that progress to stages 3 and 4, never mind the higher moral ideals of stages 5 and 6, remain Herculean. Identify and address traumagenic functioning as a priority. If sleep is disturbed, relationships are fraught, routine is elusive and/or emotions are labile, anything approaching a normative cognitive development remains impaired; ergo moral reasoning is stalled, too. Noting these kinds of symptoms, looking for patterns, getting advice where necessary from clinical colleagues will all help us keep the historical context of the child’s presentation in view. Taking the child out of the trauma is pretty straight forward; taking the trauma out of the child takes time - but this is time they need if their wider cognitive and emotional progress is to be re-started which, in turn, will allow progress in their moral development, too. As always with these thoughts about application, it’s crucial to tailor everything to the individual child and to remain flexible so that our approaches and the interventions we employ can pivot as their needs become clearer and evolve over time. Supporting Child Care Professionals: Self-Care is Crucial Working with traumatised children is emotionally taxing; sometimes it can feel downright overwhelming. To have any chance of hanging in there for the long haul, we must prioritise our own well-being to remain effective; consider: Regularly assessing your personal stress levels - the ProQoL [https://proqol.org/proqol-measure] can help with this. Maintain healthy boundaries - while we all use appropriate self-disclosure and self-deprecation in our work to some degree, maintaining a sense of balance in this is important. This will ensure we can keep a healthy separation between our personal selves and our working selves. Reflect on your “why” to stay motivated during challenging times. When progress is slow-which it very often is with troubled kids-it’s easy for our mojo to get slowly depleted. If you notice this, it can help to revisit why it you do what you do and reinforce your sense of ‘mission.’ We all have our own ways of keeping well in the work. But when work strays into areas of morality-whether it be criminality, violence and/or mental distress and it’s correlate behaviours-the toll on us can be greater than usual and stretch our ways of coping, too. Remaining vigilant to the impact of our work and the potential for vicarious trauma, makes a commitment to getting and staying well all the more important. FINAL THOUGHTS So there it is - Kohlberg’s theory of moral development and some ideas about how we can allow it to inform our practice. In my view, he offers a useful framework for understanding moral development in children. For child care professionals, it provides a roadmap that can really help to structure or thinking and thereby usefully inform assessments and interventions, helping us to include children’s ethical growth among the many other factors we take into account along the way. However, we must always remind ourselves that each child is unique and interventions must be flexible, compassionate and trauma-informed as we seek to tailor everything for this child and their individual needs. The goal is not just to help children make better decisions but to empower them with the reasoning skills and emotional resilience needed to navigate life’s moral dilemmas. And right now, as always, there are lots and lots of those! I hope that’s helpful. See you in the next one! Listen on SPOTIFY here [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=729b0c89360a4773] Listen on APPLE Podcasts here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubled-kids-podcast/id1779885894] Listen on YouTube here [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS] More information: COURSE: Jonny’s self-care course, ‘Looking After No.1’ (link [https://trmacademy.com/selfcare/](https://trmacademy.com/selfcare/]). Get the book for £3.97 here [https://amzn.to/42sLtS9]. QUESTIONNAIRE: The Professional Quality of Life Measure - a questionnaire to help you get a sense of your current stress levels and work satisfaction. The measure is tailored for those in the helping professions and is FREE to download and use (link [https://proqol.org/proqol-1]) WEB ARTICLE: Read the opening pages of Kohlberg’s ground-breaking doctoral thesis here (link [https://www.proquest.com/openview/c503bf59d762abe5818e1b24c484d41a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y]) PAPER: Moral Development: A Review of the Theory by Kohlberg & Hersch (1977 - link [https://yoannbazin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/kohlberg-hersh-1977.pdf]) This one has a useful education focus. BOOK CHAPTER: Moral Education in the Cognitive Education Tradition: Lawrence Kohlberg’s Revolutionary Ideas (link [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Snarey/publication/283422616_Moral_Education_in_the_Cognitive_Developmental_Tradition_Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_Revolutionary_Ideas/links/5637c32b08ae51ccb3cbea56/Moral-Education-in-the-Cognitive-Developmental-Tradition-Lawrence-Kohlbergs-Revolutionary-Ideas.pdf] pdf download) - an involved but useful summary of the man, his context and how he worked with and between the ideas of Durkheim & Piaget. WEB ARTICLE: Summary of Kohlberg’s theory from Simply Psychology (link [https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html]) WEB ARTICLE: A more in-depth and detailed pdf of Kohlberg’s theory - again from Simply Psychology (pdf download link [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387751558_Kohlberg's_Stages_of_Moral_Development]) *PAPER: A Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham Maslow (1943; see p.371 for reference to ‘prepotency’ - link [https://www.excelcentre.net/TheoryHumanMotivation.pdf]) PAPER: Moral Development, Religious Thinking and the Question of a Seventh Stage by Kohlberg & Power - a religious and philosophic take on it al… (1981 - link [https://www.zygonjournal.org/article/id/11963/download/pdf/]) PAPER: Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development and Its Comparison with Ethics from the Perspective of Shia Islam - interesting read this for those who want to dig deeper into the role of religion in moral thinking, esp. the ‘moral nature of man.’ (link [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amir-Qorbanpoorlafmejani/publication/357420365_Lawrence_kohlberg's_theory_of_moral_development_and_its_comparison_with_ethics_from_the_perspective_of_Shia_Islam/links/61cd846cda5d105e55088c5d/Lawrence-kohlbergs-theory-of-moral-development-and-its-comparison-with-ethics-from-the-perspective-of-Shia-Islam.pdf]) More in the Theory Bites series: Theory Bites 1. - Urie Bronfenbrenner: Ecological Systems Theory (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-1-urie-bronfenbrenner?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 2. - Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of Human Needs (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-2-abraham-maslow?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 3. - Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Stages of Development (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-3-erik-erikson?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 4. - Sigmund Freud: Psychosexual Stages of Development (link [https://open.substack.com/pub/jonnyvm/p/theory-bites-4-sigmund-freud?r=1q21iy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]) Theory Bites 5. - Steven Porges: Polyvagal Theory (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-5-stephen-porges?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 6a. - Lawrence Kohlberg (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/a5a604e3-a53d-4126-98db-672db5ba3f88]) Subscribe & Follow? You can join the email list for this blog publication here [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe]. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily. If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below. You can also “Like” this site on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/jonnymatthewcom/] or connect with me on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/JVMcom] or Twitter [https://x.com/JonnyMatthew]. The voiceovers are also on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS] and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=354c89cf317e49e8]. ©️ Jonny Matthew 2026 Get full access to Jonny Matthew’s Substack at jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Theory Bites 6a - Lawrence Kohlberg

BLOG PODS #46 - Theory Bites 6a - Lawrence Kohlberg: Stages of Moral Development INTRODUCTION Why do kids do what they do? What drives their sense of right and wrong? Can you teach this stuff or is it imbibed by just being in the world? What role does education have in the moral development of children? Before, during and after the turn of the 20th Century these were some of the big questions exercising thinkers in psychology, sociology and philosophy. Lawrence Kohlberg, building on Jean Piaget’s work, revolutionised contemporary understanding of how children and adults develop moral reasoning. He proposed that moral development happens in six distinct stages, and can be grouped into three levels - the stages progress as individuals mature, encounter real-life moral dilemmas and develop their thinking. For professionals working with children, especially those recovering from developmental trauma and/or who offend, understanding Kohlberg’s theory can help us think about and guide more effective interventions and foster a healthier morality in kids. But before we get into that, let’s back up a bit first… Context Simply and very generally put, Lawrence Kohlberg did the hard work of theorising required to progress the thinking of Emile Durkheim [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim] and Jean Piaget [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget]. Writing at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, Durkheim’s emphasis was on the moral impact of society on the developing child. The child growing up in society, internalises its norms and expectations such that the society becomes represented in the child. He was interested in the role of education in explaining the morality of society, and thereby reinforcing it*.* Critics, including Kohlberg, felt this approach to be too pedagogical or ‘teachy.’ Writing a bit later on, Piaget included the child’s developing morality in his staged theory of cognitive development. He emphasised the need for children to discover morality for themselves, rather than being taught it - which, he thought, robs the child of fully understanding it. Then, into the fray, comes Lawrence Kohlberg who published his doctoral thesis in 1958 with a focus on thinking (cognition), morality and education. He asked a big group of adolescents for their views on various moral dilemmas; the classic one being: ‘should Heinz steal a drug to save the life of his wife or should he obey the law and let his wife die for the lack of the drug? Why or why not?’ He then followed the same group over the next 20 years, continuing to test them and observing the development of their moral reasoning. Kohlberg said this development changed in a predictable pattern that progressed with age, increasing in complexity and scope over time - his theory seeks to articulate this progression. Principles of Kohlberg’s Theory Before looking at the developmental stages themselves, there are some broad principles that will help us understand the theory, it’s structure and children’s progression through it: Sequential Progression: Moral reasoning develops in a fixed order, and individuals cannot skip stages - Maslow called this ‘prepotency.’* Cognitive Development Link: Advanced moral reasoning relies on cognitive growth; the more mature the cognition, the more advanced the moral reasoning. Universal Stages: The stages are universal across cultures, though the pace of progression varies (as does what constitutes ‘moral, immoral or amoral’, of course!). Focus on Reasoning Over Action: Moral development emphasises the reasoning behind actions, not just the behaviours and/or decisions themselves. Discombobulation Drives Growth: Encountering and grappling with challenging moral situations and dilemmas promotes movement to higher reasoning. Perspective-Taking: The ability to see situations from others’ viewpoints is essential for advancing through the stages (obviously, this requires meta-cognition and other exec functions like empathy - see 2 above). The Six Stages of Moral Development As with all the theories we’ve looked at, this one is broad and zoomed out; it can’t be applied rigorously and specifically to an individual child and be expected to nail it every time, faultlessly explaining what’s going on. That said, it can give us a useful overview of human development as it deals with issues of morality, conscience and ethical thinking. And, like most theories, it can help structure our thinking and save us from lazy tropes and unhelpful practice habits. So here goes; a quick overview of Kohlberg’s stages of moral judgment or justice reasoning (6 stages in 3 levels): 1. Pre-Conventional Level (Typically in early childhood) In this stage children make choices that respond to labels or rules of right and wrong, good or bad, but these are interpreted in terms of the pros and cons for them and/or the power of those making the rules. Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation Decisions are made to avoid punishment. Rules are viewed as fixed and unchangeable. 💡 e.g. a child doesn’t take biscuits without asking first because they fear being told off. Stage 2: Self-Interest Orientation Actions are driven by self-interest and immediate benefits. Awareness emerges that others also have interests. 💡 e.g. a child helps to tidy their room because Mum has promised them a treat if they do. 2. Conventional Level (Typically in adolescence) The child understands and wants to behave in ways that maintain the expectations of the ‘group’ (e.g. family, society, country) to which they belong - not merely out of an expected imperative to conform but a personal desire to do so. Stage 3: Interpersonal Accord and Conformity Focus on being a “good person” and meeting societal expectations. Moral reasoning prioritises relationships and social approval. 💡 e.g. a child takes on a sponsored run because his friends will be impressed Stage 4: Authority and Maintenance of Social-Order Orientation Emphasis on law and order, duty, and upholding societal rules. Actions are justified by maintaining a functioning society - serving the greater good. 💡 e.g. a driver doesn’t park on double yellow lines because that might block emergency vehicles. 3. Post-Conventional Level (Achieved by some adults, if at all) The individual makes a clear effort to define and conform to principles that are valid aside from ‘group’ and aside from the individual’s own identification with the group. Such principles need to be logically comprehensive, univeral and consistent, not merely the vagaries of someone’s thinking in the moment. Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation Awareness that rules and laws exist to serve society but can be changed if unjust or need updating (practice changes, thinking moves on, etc.). Decisions are based on fairness and human rights. 💡 e.g. someone decides to risk arrest at an illegal protest because demonstrating against human rights violations serves a higher cause. Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles Guided by abstract moral principles like justice, equality and dignity. Laws are secondary to these overarching principles & exist to serve them. The idea that moral choices are based on moral principles - and sometimes the principles may cause a person to make choices in service to those principles that supersede convention/laws. 💡 e.g. the selfless, principled actions of people like Rosa Parks (who refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person); Alexei Navalny (challenging systemic corruption in Putin’s Russia) or Harriet Tubman (who smuggled hundreds of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad) might be examples of this stage. It’s worth noting here (and remains a mystery to me if I’m honest!) that although Kohlberg thought stages 1-4 were universal to all people and across cultures and societies, he felt that adults rarely achieve moral development to stages 5 and 6, saying that only around 10-15% of people did. More recent research has suggested that around 20% of people reach the post-conventional level. Whatever the truth of it, it’s unlikely any of us will know whether we have or will attain stage 6 until our personal circumstances confront us with the kinds of stark choices, the like of which Parks, Navalny and Tubman encountered. Whatever the truth of it, it’s unlikely any of us will know whether we have or will attain stage 6 until our personal circumstances confront us with the kinds of stark choices, the like of which Parks, Navalny and Tubman encountered. 💡 e.g. recent events around the senseless killings of bystanders/protestors against the work of ICE agents in the U.S. show how suddenly circumstances can change and present moral dilemmas - do I protest this or not; am I prepared to put up with this or not? None of knows how we’ll react till it happens….) FINAL THOUGHTS So that’s the theory laid out in all its glory. Like the others we’ve covered already (links below), Kohlberg is staged and sequential, and it assumes a degree (at least) of prepotency at each stage. But where does that leave us in our efforts to help the kids we work with and care for? In the next post, we’ll look at this a bit more closely to see what Kohlberg has to offer us in our work. In the meantime, knowing a little about how children might develop this side of their functioning is useful, not least because it helps to shape and bring form to how we see an area of their lives that can easily add to their woes-as they encounter the wrong side of the law, for example-and how we can respond in ways that take account of their relative maturity when it comes to ethics, other-awareness and morality in general. I hope that’s helpful. See you in the next one! Listen on SPOTIFY here [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=729b0c89360a4773] Listen on APPLE Podcasts here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubled-kids-podcast/id1779885894] Listen on YouTube here [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS] More information: WEB ARTICLE: Read the opening pages of Kohlberg’s ground-breaking doctoral thesis here (link [https://www.proquest.com/openview/c503bf59d762abe5818e1b24c484d41a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y]) PAPER: Moral Development: A Review of the Theory by Kohlberg & Hersch (1977 - link [https://yoannbazin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/kohlberg-hersh-1977.pdf]) This one has a useful education focus. BOOK CHAPTER: Moral Education in the Cognitive Education Tradition: Lawrence Kohlberg’s Revolutionary Ideas (**link [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Snarey/publication/283422616_Moral_Education_in_the_Cognitive_Developmental_Tradition_Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_Revolutionary_Ideas/links/5637c32b08ae51ccb3cbea56/Moral-Education-in-the-Cognitive-Developmental-Tradition-Lawrence-Kohlbergs-Revolutionary-Ideas.pdf]** pdf download) - an involved but useful summary of the man, his context and how he worked with and between the ideas of Durkheim & Piaget. WEB ARTICLE: Summary of Kohlberg’s theory from Simply Psychology (link [https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html]) WEB ARTICLE: A more in-depth and detailed pdf of Kohlberg’s theory - again from Simply Psychology (pdf download link [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387751558_Kohlberg's_Stages_of_Moral_Development]) *PAPER: A Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham Maslow (1943; see p.371 for reference to ‘prepotency’ - link [https://www.excelcentre.net/TheoryHumanMotivation.pdf]) PAPER: Moral Development, Religious Thinking and the Question of a Seventh Stage by Kohlberg & Power - a religious and philosophic take on it al… (1981 - link [https://www.zygonjournal.org/article/id/11963/download/pdf/]) PAPER: Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development and Its Comparison with Ethics from the Perspective of Shia Islam - interesting read this for those who want to dig deeper into the role of religion in moral thinking, esp. the ‘moral nature of man.’ (link [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amir-Qorbanpoorlafmejani/publication/357420365_Lawrence_kohlberg's_theory_of_moral_development_and_its_comparison_with_ethics_from_the_perspective_of_Shia_Islam/links/61cd846cda5d105e55088c5d/Lawrence-kohlbergs-theory-of-moral-development-and-its-comparison-with-ethics-from-the-perspective-of-Shia-Islam.pdf]) More in the Theory Bites series: Theory Bites 1. - Urie Bronfenbrenner: Ecological Systems Theory (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-1-urie-bronfenbrenner?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 2. - Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of Human Needs (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-2-abraham-maslow?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 3. - Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Stages of Development (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-3-erik-erikson?r=1q21iy]) Theory Bites 4. - Sigmund Freud: Psychosexual Stages of Development (link [https://open.substack.com/pub/jonnyvm/p/theory-bites-4-sigmund-freud?r=1q21iy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]) Theory Bites 5. - Steven Porges: Polyvagal Theory (link [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/p/theory-bites-5-stephen-porges?r=1q21iy]) Subscribe & Follow? You can join the email list for this blog publication here [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe]. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily. If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below. You can also “Like” this site on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/jonnymatthewcom/] or connect with me on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/JVMcom] or Twitter [https://x.com/JonnyMatthew]. The voiceovers are also on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJEBqxtuGpx6G2NlFSq-76azFjfDlYyXS] and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/2ChwTdTE7fnNosVqdcasYS?si=354c89cf317e49e8]. ©️ Jonny Matthew 2026 Get full access to Jonny Matthew’s Substack at jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Make 2026 a year of books

BLOG PODS #44 - Make 2026 a Year of Books - Some Inspiration to get you Started INTRODUCTION: Regular readers of the blog will know that I’m a voracious reader. It is one of my life’s great pleasures, as well as being the only guarantee of continued learning - something I’m completely committed to. So, just like last year, I thought I’d kick off 2026 (happy New Year, by the way! 🥂) with a review of my reading from last year - in the hope that you might be triggered to read one or more of them yourself and improve your practice further. Unlike last, though, my reading was interrupted by family events, culminating in my lovely Mum passing away at the end of September. In order to help me weather the storm of all this, I deviated from my normal diet of work-related stuff, into something much more mixed. This had two results: - I read far fewer books than I normally would (around 30 instead of 50 ish) - Many more of them were fiction; read for their distraction value and to help me relax and recover. I won’t list everything I read, but include here only those related to helping troubled kids to recover and allied subjects (and one or two others) - after all, that’s why you’re here! 📘 Books read in 2025: Here’s the list, along with my opinion in brief of each one and a star-rating (as posted on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jonnymatthew/profilecard/?igsh=MTVydWZqem05anJrOA==]). I ‘read’ both in Audible [https://www.audible.co.uk/] and in print. Feel free to nip on to the end if you don’t want to read all this - you can always keep it for later… 😉 FIRST 10: 1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - (print) my annual holiday read. Absolutely delicious! Nothing like the telly versions. Finished 01/1/25 5⭐️ I read this for its powerful message of self-reflection as well as the scrumptious prose. The longer I work with troubled kids the more convinced I am of my own ignorance and the associated need to strive to do and to be better. 2. Skandar & The Unicorn Thief (audio) by A.F. Steadman. Recommended by my 10 year old niece. Potteresque & surprisingly enjoyable - a ripping good yarn - Finished 04/1/25 3⭐️ - As child care professionals, I think it serves us well to take the occasional foray into the literary world of the kids we serve. While many of them (most?) won’t be big readers, spending time here can only help keep us oriented; the great imagination and unpredictability of Skandar’s world is a good foil against the creeping cynicism that so easily threatens. 3. Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & The Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet. (audio) Mm, esoteric, confused & generally unhelpful in any meaningfully spiritual sense; at least to me. Good brain fodder, though, and a useful challenge to the dominance of men in historical theological writing (not least the Bible itself!). Finished 09/1/25 - 2⭐️ 4. The Exchange (print) by John Grisham. An enjoyable & compelling read; a worthy sequel-of-sorts to The Firm - finished 15/1/25 3⭐️ 5. On Kindness (print) by Adam Phillips & Barbara Taylor. An interesting, informative & challenging history of a virtue in decline. Important! 4⭐️ - finished 18/1/25 4⭐️ - Time and again, when thinking about our work and when training with colleagues, I come back to the centrality and power of kindness. It is perhaps the the pinnacle of what we do to help troubled kids: lean in, empathise and be kind. - I’ve long had in my mind to write something of book length on Kindness - maybe something to push forward with this year?… 6. THE DEVELOPING MIND (3rd Edtn.) How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (audio & print) by Daniel Siegel - very possibly the best book ever written; certainly the best I’ve read. A proper swim in the deep end. The third edition of this genius work is a tour de force. Finished 07/3/25 5⭐️ - Another gestating plan I have in the offing is a masterclass [https://jonnymatthew.notion.site/TK-Turbo-Masterclass-with-Jonny-Matthew-168a59e2295c80888506d00f5f8955d9?source=copy_link] for those wanting to accelerate their learning. This book will be one of the texts we examine on the course. 7. ADHD - A Hunter in a Farmer’s World (audio) by Thomas Hartman. A fascinating & useful hypothesis. Well worth a read - finished 11/3/25 3⭐️ His substack of the same name [https://www.hunterinafarmersworld.com/] is well worth a look if ADHD is an area of interest. 8. Fathomless Riches or How I Went From Pop to Pulpit (audio) by Richard Coles. Enjoyed this a lot - it challenges the usual prescribed routes to Christian conversion but is dripping with grace and self-reflection. A cracker! Finished 20/3/25 4⭐️ 9. Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia (audio) by Peter Pomerantsev. A fascinating story by story account of life in Putin’s post soviet Russia. Scary and dark, as you’d expect, but insightful nonetheless. Finished 01/4/35 3⭐️ 10. The Price of Life: In Search of What We’re Worth & Who Decides by Jenny Kleeman (audio) Absolutely un-put-down-able! Engrossing, shocking & compelling - all at once! Finished 05/4/25 4⭐️ - In our working world, the organising ideas in this book are important. Lives are not usually and overtly ‘valued’ - this would be to open up the ‘valuer’ to acerbic criticism, and rightly so. But where and how we choose to target resources says a lot about what and, much more importantly who, we (as a society) really value… SECOND 10: 11. One Shot by Lee Childs (print) - a classic Jack Reacher tale; better than the film! - finished 18/4/25 3⭐️ (I went on to read another 14 Reacher novels this year - they’ve become a real safe port in a storm for a troubled mind - love ‘em!) - Having long waxed lyrical about the importance of self-care [https://trmacademy.com/selfcare/](https://trmacademy.com/selfcare/)], I’ve learned new lessons this year (more on this in a future post). Suffice to say that allowing my ‘Tigger mind’ to roam the benign plains of fiction-taking time out from child trauma, abuse, etc.-has been chief among them. Simple but true. 12. The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer (audio) A philosophical deep-dive and data-informed exploration of giving; how individuals, organisations and charities can best direct their resources to maximum effect - finished 21/4/25 3⭐️ - Sometimes the best help we can offer is cash. Maybe not at work, but certainly when it comes to wider charitable engagement - see an example here [https://www.givedirectly.org/]. This book is a fascinating exploration of how to target our giving-large or small- to best effect. 13. God After Deconstruction by Thomas Jay Oord & Tripp Fuller (audio) A brilliant summary and persuasive polemic for open and relational theology. If you’re a Christian with questions about the Bible & faith, or a skeptic on religion, this is for you. Masterful! - finished 26/4/25 5⭐️ 14. Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food… And Why Can’t We Stop? By Chris van Tulleken (audio) Enlightening, complicated & more than a little bit scary. Everyone should read this! Finished 28/5/25 4⭐️ - One work-related aspect of this book is the examination of links between financial poverty and poor quality food. Like Michael Marmot’s book [https://amzn.eu/d/8StrxmP], it blasts the ‘poor people make bad dietary choices’ argument right out of the water. Systemic injustices, and therefore future health prospects and life-chances, extend well beyond education, access to work and social mobility; they infect the very bodies of the kids we serve! 15. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (audio) Autobiographical account of atypical homelessness. Nicely written, gentle & strangely inspiring; even though the author’s voice is irritating after a while, it made me want to pack up & walk… Finished 23/6/25 3⭐️ - This tale has suffered some turbulence [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/10/inside-the-salt-path-controversy-scandal-has-stalked-memoir-since-the-genre-was-invented] in terms of its veracity this year. But for me, it acted as a literary metaphor for ‘walking through troubled times’, something me and my family were experiencing during Mum’s decline. In that respect it served me well. 16. Not in God’s Name by Jonathan Sacks (audio) - stalled - bored 0⭐️ 17. NAVIGATING AUTISM: 9 Mindsets for Helping Kids on the Spectrum by Temple Grandin (audio & print) An absolute stonker, this one! It started me on a deep dive into reading on autism that I still haven’t fully surfaced from; so much to learn… Finished 08/20/25 4⭐️ - Anyone working with, connected to or caring for troubled kids will get real value from this. Amid the rising prominence of neurodiversity and the associated cries of ‘over-diagnosis’ this book equips the reader to better understand and respond to the autistic child. 18. CURED: The Remarkable Science of how People Recover from Chronic Illness by Dr Jeff Rediger - (audio) An incredibly enlightening and encouraging book - a rare fusion of science, spirituality and hope. Loved it! Finished 29/10/25 5⭐️ - A useful reminder of the power of mindfulness, meditation and self-care (among lots of other things!) in our efforts to stay well in an increasingly toxic culture. 19. Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders by Rory Stewart - (print) still reading ⭐️ 20. The Autistic Brain by Temple Grandin - still reading ⭐️ Not all work For me—and likely for many others—reading offers both comfort and discovery. I read not only to expand my understanding, gather knowledge and challenge what I think I know with fresh perspectives, but also to step away from reality for a while. I love getting lost in different worlds and slipping into the lives of others through their stories. In a year during which my own story and that of my wider family has been difficult, books have functioned to help me un-plug, keep me grounded, get me out of my own head (and emotions!) and allow me to just be. The fictional life and stories of Jack Reacher have been a particular blessing - THANK YOU Lee Child [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Child]! Not all the books cited above are ‘work’ books, obviously. Some are faith-based, others are just fiction for fun or general interest because the cover caught my eye. I agonised briefly about whether to include these or not, but decided this was more about reading in general than it was about reading to be better practitioners; so there they are. But my top 3 reads of 2025 - in capitals above - are (in no particular order): 1. The Developing Mind (3rd Edtn.) How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (audio & print) by Daniel Siegel - an unparalleled work of neurological genius served up for the lay reader. Truly brilliant! 2. Navigating Autism: 9 Mindsets for Helping Kids on the Spectrum by Temple Grandin - I asked a couple of experts what to read on autism and they both suggested Temple Grandin; I was not disappointed. This book is gold dust for anyone who comes across autism in their work with troubled kids. 3. Cured: The Remarkable Science of how People Recover from Chronic Illness by Dr Jeff Rediger - this is a unique book, in that it manages to remain scientifically focused while lifting the eyes to see the wider picture. It’s embrace is big enough for mindfulness, nutrition, meditation and the broad swathe of human spirituality - all of which, Rediger asserts, impacts our health. A beaut! FINAL THOUGHTS Looking back over 2025, I’m grateful as always for the privileges I enjoy. Above all, I’m thankful for having been born to, raised by and taught how to live life well by my Mum, Faith Rosina Mary Matthew (27th January 1942 to 27th September 2025) - herself the most voracious reader I have ever known. Thanks once again for indulging me in this little foray into my 2025 and the uniquely comforting role books have played for me this year. And thank you, as always, for your support in the last twelve months - for the blog and my work in general. THANKS to everyone who’s attended a course, read a book, watched a video or emailed with encouragement. My only wish is that what I write here-and thus what you guys read-will help make the lives of troubled kids better somehow. So, I will keep reading and writing in the hope of encouraging us all to learn, expand our thinking and practice, and so serve troubled kids more effectively. And also in the hope of urging us to look after ourselves - to find and soak in the solace that is… reading. HAPPY NEW YEAR! See you in the next one! 🥂 More Information Last years reading list post - (link [https://open.substack.com/pub/jonnyvm/p/make-2025-a-year-of-books?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web]) Follow this year’s reading on Instagram (link [https://www.instagram.com/jonnymatthew/]) Join Audible, not sure where I’d be without it now! (link [https://www.audible.co.uk/]) Subscribe & Follow? You can join Jonny’s mailing list [https://eepurl.com/CTAu5] here [https://eepurl.com/CTAu5]. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily. If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below. You can also “Like” this site on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/jonnymatthewcom/] or connect with me on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/JVMcom] or Twitter [https://x.com/JonnyMatthew]. ©️ Jonny Matthew 2026 Get full access to Jonny Matthew’s Substack at jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe [https://jonnyvm.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]