On the sense of fairness
Some time ago I was witness to this interaction between a boy of maybe 6 years old and his mother, involving his even smaller sister of maybe 3 years old. He was very upset with his mother because she had just bought his sister a nice woollen cap and a sweater to keep her warm, while she had bought him nothing (he was already wearing warm clothes). He was protesting to her and throwing tantrums about having been left out. "He becomes jealous very quickly," his mother told me, looking somewhat apologetic and embarrassed about his public tantrums. "Now, now dear.. Don't be jealous of your sister. Don't you love your little sister?" She asked him. In response to this, he suddenly became defensive and started looking ashamed. He did after all, love his little sister, and yes he had been taught that to be jealous of her would be a flaw in his character. This episode took me back to my own childhood experiences, where similar episodes elicited similar respons