Finally, the child must also learn the appropriate ways to meet his or her own needs. Thus, the process of moral development is far more complex than memorizing simple phrases such as "do this" and "don't do that.".
Several attempts have been made to construct a model that tracks the moral development of children. In this paper, I have found the work of Piaget, and Kohlberg to be the most useful references to explain the observations I made on Woodward's playground. .
In some way, each of their theories assumes that moral development follows a pattern in which the child progresses from fulfilling the needs of the self to fulfilling the needs of the whole. It is important to note, however, that, like any form of development, the internalization of rules does not occur in a rigid, homogeneous pattern. I witnessed displays of egocentrism in children who, according to Piaget, should have moved well into the third stage of moral development by then. The concept of "soft assembly" (Thelen, 1994, p. 30) in the dynamic systems perspective provides a much better format for the progression of moral development. According to the dynamic systems perspective, there is no predetermined outcome. Rather, certain innate possibilities, such as the potential for various types of moral reasoning, that lay within the child are assembled in a malleable configuration when the environment for such growth is provided. A pattern of behavior emerges as the self-organization continues, becoming more and more stable over time (Thelen, 1994, pp. 30-31). In the example of moral reasoning, the child, recalling memories from each stage in his or her life, attempts to create a sensible "pattern" from these experiences. It is this pattern that leads to the internalization of a belief system, the belief that "this" is the way things "ought to be," and therefore, this is what I "should" do in this situation.