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This article is about the family’s ability to form children as ethically aware subjects. The author demonstrates that any reflection on the founding powers of the family should begin with a study of the type of family relations that might encourage a moral attitude.Firstly, the contextual thoughts of the psychiatrist Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy are presented. They constitute the basis of the analysis. Family relations themselves can be described in ethical terms, using language associated with just relationships and a good equilibrium between give and take. Being able to sense the justice in family relations gives teenagers a basis for moral action.Next, the author’s reflection focuses on how teenagers are represented, conveyed in the specific discourse of moral education. The teenager is seen as an “active and competent subject”, an “agent”. Referring to the moral theology of personalism and optimistic theological anthropology, the author develops a thesis: that young people have the capacity to act in an ethical manner, but also to sin. She explains those factors that make certain young people act more negatively than others.The authors bases her thinking on the idea that family life, and the quality of relations within the family, are essential for stimulating young people to live in an ethical manner. She maintains that the values (civil or religious) which parents would like to inculcate to their children must first of all be practiced by the family itself. One example: sensitivity to justice or democratic thought.