Wise Judgment Scenario

Choose one of the following scenarios and discuss how each of the five components of wise judgments can be applied to the scenario you have chosen. Then, make a decision based on the five components. Explain the rationale behind your decision.

1. A teenage girl is “in love” with her 17-year-old boyfriend. He is encouraging her to have sex with him saying that he will make sure they only have “protected” sex.
2. A man has had a difficult time finding a job that pays enough to support his family. He has finally landed the job and has been working six months. He discovers that his manager is engaging in illegal activities on the job.
3. A mother knows that her 7-year-old child has stolen a box of cookies from the store while she was grocery shopping.
4. A high school friend cheated on his college entrance exam and told you about it.

Baltes and his colleagues have organized components of wise judgment into five areas. Understanding each component is important in handling the situation wisely. A seven-year-old child has stolen cookies from the grocery store. How does the mother handle the situation with her son stealing the cookies?
Component one is factual knowledge. Component one consists of knowing characteristics and traits shared by humans, how they relate to other people and what is normal behavior. The component helps the mother conclude that stealing cookies is not normal behavior or a characteristic for all children. Stealing is a punishable crime; therefore the right discipline is essential. The mother can think about the process of trial and error during the young years, and realize that it was faze to see what would happen.
Component two is procedural knowledge for making a wise judgment. Procedural knowledge is a component that helps the person avoid conflict and still deal with the situation. The person is understanding and gives advice, and avoids sounding demanding, thus trying to control the other person. The mother must give advice to her child explaining what he or she did was not acceptable and very wrong. The mother must understand that the child may have been nervous to ask for the cookies because cookies are junk food to mother. The mother must explain that asking for what she wants is acceptable rather than stealing what she wants. The mother must help the child understand that when she wants something, she may not always receive it. Making sure children know that stealing anything is a crime and punishable by law is important. Helping children find the independence to purchase what they want is a good idea. This can be done by encouraging them to work for what they want, and can do simple house-hold chores to gain money or his or her wants.
Component three is lifespan contextualism to making wise judgment. In this component the person must always realize that with any given situation must have a different reaction. All situations are different and are categorized differently that requires different thinking processing and reactions to handling it. Going through life a person will teach ways to react to others. The mother in the scenario must react in a way to set an example for her child. In the child’s eyes he or she will come to realize that stealing is very wrong and unacceptable. If the mother had demanded and controlled her child, the child would have rebelled against her. In this way the child develops a health conscience and can start making the decisions between good and bad on her own and make the right choice with the help of her calm understanding mother.
Component four is recognition and management of uncertainty. This component is the awareness that life is unpredictable and not every outcome to a situation will be perfect. Thinking about how to react to situation and help others grasp the whole aspect of the situation can help. When the mother considers the reason behind the child’s motives to stealing the cookies, she may help with a solution. The way the mother handles the situation and thinks about her reaction before she may be able to prevent another situation in which her child steals again. The uncertainty of any situation and the outcome needs to be recognized. Although the mother could present the child with fact and the reality of stealing and the consequences it does not mean there will not be another incident of stealing.
Last is component five and is relativism regarding solutions. The person must comprehend that the world is made up of many cultures, moral differences, and values. How a person is brought up is the way the person would react and handle the situation. It is in the best interest as a parent of a child to make sure the child understand right from wrong. Whatever methods the parent uses, the parent learned from his or her parents growing up. Another parent may think he or she needs to handle the situation differently from the way another parent deals with situations.
My son is two and a half and in his terrible twos. He is young but still needs guidance nonetheless. As a parent I must make wise judgment decisions to deal with situations. What I learned growing up, I would take into consideration and apply if I wanted. Unfortunately, my father had the worst parenting habits. My mother was a follower and let my father parent how he wanted. My father thought that making his children fear him and fear doing anything wrong or right was the best way. I remember that my four brothers were always out of control, hurting everyone, screaming, teasing, stealing, and hurting people’s feelings. The fear method did not work for my father and his children. He beat his children with paddles and other objects that would hurt. He use to pull my hair, he threw us across the room, and worse.
The method I grew up around I am against using with my son. I have established a better method to gain respect and cooperation through talking and reverse psychology. It is being able to understand and persuade instead of yelling, spanking, and the stressful side of parenting. Considering the scenario if my son does steal I would set a good example to be sure he understood the consequences of his actions. I would tell him it was not acceptable to do the right thing to undo his action. Along the lines of his consideration with how to handle it he would eventually take the cookies back to the store and explain what he did and why. Most of the time, the management would understand a child who came back willingly to admit his or her wrong-doing is making an effort to fix what they did. Management would feel compelled to lecture the consequences and make the event memorable to my son. This would be a situation that he would remember, from the embarrassment of admitting to his guilt, listening to the consequences of stealing, and almost dealing with the consequences legally.
I think in the scenario the mother must make the right choice to make the situation memorable to her child, to make sure the child will never steal again. I think if the mother lets the child keep the cookies that she stole it would teach the daughter that stealing worked and she obtained what she wanted in the end. If she helps her child understand that the only way to make the situation right is to take the cookies back to the store then the child would fully understand and learn right from wrong.