The Shepherd, March 2009
THE RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING OF CHILDREN
By Archpriest S. Shchukin
CONCERNING COERCION IN UPBRINGING
IN OUR DAYS in North America there is a widespread theory of “liberal” education, which presupposes that there should not be any sort of coercion or of punishment. According to this idea, children are left to themselves, it is not necessary interfere with how they manifest and develop their personality. Their parents’ every disagreement with their failings is considered to be harmful for their child’s psychology, and the children themselves must contend with their own inadequacies and correct them.
It is recommended that this method be adopted from the earliest years, when the children have as yet no understanding of good and evil, and are not accustomed how to deal with own behaviour. It is easy to imagine how many mistakes and dangers derive from this approach, which will have burdensome consequences, both physical and moral. Yet the parents must peacefully observe all this, and have no right to object.
Can Orthodox Christians consent to this kind of upbringing? Of course, they cannot. In this way a generation of people would be raised who are guided only by egotistical interests, without any concept of moral responsibility. Thinking only of themselves, these people would never show any restraint in their behaviour, the conscience would be unable to distinguish good from evil, and therefore they would be unscrupulous in pursuing their own aims.
The Church teaches us that from his earliest years a child must learn to distinguish between what is permitted and what is not. She lays a responsibility on the parents to correct his behaviour, thus preparing the child for his independent life (as an adult). This preparation should be started in the earliest years. When the child is ten or twelve, it will be too late to set aright those things that have gone wrong as a consequence of a lack of proper care in his upbringing - “A crooked tree must be straightened out before it hardens off.”
So that we should comprehend the indispensable necessity of enforcing some things in his upbringing, we must never forget the following facts:
1) Children’s wills are too weak for them to cope with their own behaviour;
2) The only way to instruct children to prepare them to stand upon their own feet is to require that they do as they are told as far as is feasible for them;
3) To inculcate in them the indispensable moral abilities and understanding, inescapably one must employ certain means of coercion and of punishment.
Naturally, any punishment must not only not be physical (which, in any case, should only be resorted to in the most extreme cases) but it should be as light as possible: refusing some consolation, denying them an outing, or guests or some other pleasure, making them do some household chore when it is not their turn to do it, and so on. So one way or another, when a word proves inadequate, one must thus influence the child’s will by these more readily perceptible means. A child is born with predispositions which are bad, and it is necessary to counter them from the very start. How can one possibly do this without restraints and punishments? Think back to your own childhood, and you will be easily convinced of the fact that all the good habits were not established immediately, nor without a struggle, sometime one that was a cause of tears. The apostle Paul says: “For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? …. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness’ (Heb. 12:7 & 11).
So, let softhearted parents not be afraid to cause their children some “grief” if it serves the purposes of their proper upbringing. This is the only way to introduce children to “the peaceable fruit of righteousness, that is, to bring them up with a healthy Christian spirit.
to be continued in the next issue with “Upbringing & the Church”
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