The example of Christian Parents

St. John Chrysostom, writing about teaching speech to children, says something which is very important for every aspect of Christian parenthood: that the example is everything. For instance, the words parents use, and their manner of speaking, will influence the child’s own speech. St. John says that if children hear their parents speak in an insulting or aggressive manner, they will learn to speak in this way too.

When children are being brought up they should learn obedience from a very early age, as a natural part of life. It is much easier to train a child in obedience from the beginning of its life. Here also the example of the parents is of supreme importance; if they are not seen showing respect for each other’s will, the child will not learn obedience. Obedience is spiritually vital and children who do not acquire it when young will hive great difficulty in learning it later. (It is hard for a selfish adult to change if he has been spoiled all his life.) Children who always have their own way, or who are allowed to develop tricks for getting what they want when they want, cannot learn to love - for obedience is an expression of love. Obedience develops with maturity. In the beginning it has to mean: “Do what you are told”; but for an adult it means: “Prefer the will of another out of love.”

When children are playing or doing some task, the game or task should not always be easy to accomplish, or the problems easy to solve. This is one of the faults of modern life: things which mean struggle or labor, or even asking for assistance, tend to be avoided. We hear pedagogues saying that if a child is not always successful he will develop complexes. Enough success and enjoyment are necessary for encouragement and for relaxation - but there must also be challenge, a chance to stretch one’s capacity, and even to experience failure. It is spiritually necessary to learn patience, endurance of discomfort, and humility. Again the parents’ example is of paramount importance. The children learn from the parents’ reaction to sickness, bereavement, financial loss, and so on.

Children should be encouraged to help with adult tasks at home in ways adapted to their age, even if they are too small to be really useful, and even if the work is sometimes too hard for them to accomplish to perfection. In this way, they learn the responsibilities that they will have to undertake, and also they learn unselfishness. They can more easily appreciate the work their parents do for them.

One of the features of Christian life in the world is to be generous and hospitable, and kind to those in need. These qualities can be instilled in children from a young age. Not least by example, they can learn to share their things, and to take part in the hospitality given to visitors.

St. John Chrysostom, speaking about reprimanding children, says that a parent should punish a child more by the tone of his voice, and by warning, rather than by physical violence. Holy Scripture and the fathers do not seem to be against corporal punishment - on the contrary, they warn against being too soft and spoiling the children. This word of St. John places corporal punishment in the context of parental love. “Be angry, and sin not” (Eph 4:26). If anger is necessary after gentle reproaches have not sufficed, it should be the anger of love, motivated not by the desire to dominate but by the desire to teach what is right and wrong. Anger is not a vent for our passions, but a pedagogical tool. St. John Chrysostom says: “As soon as you see the fear [of your reproach] working on the child, hold back, for our nature needs relaxation.”

If a child’s relationship with his parents is established, and if the child trusts and respects his parents, sometimes even a stern or sad facial expression is enough for the child to realise that he is going wrong. We read of the occasion when St. Silouan as a young man fell into sin, and his father said to him the next day: “Where you last night, my son? My heart was troubled for you.” His mild words penetrated the heart of St. Silouan. Another time St. Silouan prepared meat for the work team to eat in the fields, though it was a Friday. His father waited six months to ask him: “Son, do you remember how you gave us pork to eat that Friday in the fields? I ate it but, you know, it tasted like carrion.” “Why ever didn’t you tell me at the time?” “I didn’t want to upset you, son.”‘ This is not mere softness ‑ it is the result of a deep relationship of trust and respect.

Discipline should be reasonable and just. The aim of disciplining children is to teach them right from wrong. Children are very sensitive about justice and they are upset when their parents are violently angry over something small, or when reproach is used in an unpredictable way. When we warn before punishing, we should keep the warning within the limits of what we really would do. After we have punished, we must show readiness to forgive. Too often children feel that their parents do not love them when they are naughty. We do not like the sin, but we love the one who has sinned.

Our love for our children must be for them an image of God’s love for mankind. This means that if a child confesses a misdeed, or shows repentance, we should temper the reprimand or punishment accordingly, at least in our own psychological disposition. It does not mean that we condone the sin, or even seem to condone it; we encourage our children not to try and hide their wrongdoings or “contrive excuses for sins” (Ps 140:4 (LXX)). We wish to give them a taste of the joy of the returning prodigal, for this is our own relationship with God. Deceit is a much more serious characteristic than any amount of naughtiness, and if there is deceit between the child and his parents, it will be difficult to maintain a relationship.

We should never punish or threaten children using Christ’s name; we should never suggest to children that Christ does not love them when they are naughty, or that they are ill as a punishment from Christ. We should have enough authority ourselves without turning Christ into a kind of policeman figure. Children will hate Christ if, when they are ill (or see others ill), they think He is punishing them for sin, or if, when they are naughty, they think He does not love them. It is not true either: Christ loves sinners and died for them.

When we teach discipline and obedience to a gild, we should allow for the child’s personal development and character. Our pedagogical aim is not to crush the child’s will, or to “break it in” like a young pony we are training, so that we subordinate its personality to our own. Although when a child is young he has to learn simply to do what he is told, our ultimate goal is that he develops unselfishness and consideration for others. If we crush a child’s will, we deprive him of something which is a necessary part of his make up as a free human person, and a necessary weapon of survival in Christian struggle. We need our will to make our way in this world, so that we do not remain totally dependent on the home environment - and this overdependence usually shows at the moment when the child leaves home as a young adult. It is something to have in mind when we are trying to restrain a strong-willed toddler, for example. We must also sometimes follow the suggestions of children, even when they are small.

It is not pedagogically wise always to forbid - there must always be “give and take,” not only from the child, but also from the parents. Especially as children develop, our reasons for prohibiting something should be understandable to them. We may even be able to find alternatives, or make compromises. (A very small child needs to be distracted or even physically removed from a “forbidden” object, rather than merely being scolded continually without the temptation being removed.) We may feel that in the case of a very rebellious child it will do less harm to allow him to experience something for himself. (Sometimes forbidding something has the opposite effect to that we would wish for: the child wants something even more than before, and cannot stop thinking about it.) Straightforward prohibition, when it is necessary, will be more effective if we say “yes” on enough other occasions - and more effective still if our children have learned by experience to trust and respect our opinion. We cannot expect that our children will always be happy with our responses to their requests, but resentment should not be allowed to develop into a permanent element of their relationship with us. It is necessary to insist sometimes, but this requires discernment and prayer. People sometimes suggest to their children to ask the blessing of their spiritual father to do something; in such a case the parents must also act in accordance with the word given by the priest.

It is important for children to feel and see that their parents are unanimous. This means on a practical level that if the mother and father have a disagreement, it should as far as possible be seen to be resolved peacefully. They should not quarrel, especially in front of the children, or contradict each other, except in a gentle manner. If they are seen to quarrel or disagree, they must be seen to be reconciled. Children feel, even without words, tension between their parents, and they suffer. It is impossible to expect perfect unanimity about everything between two human people. Differences between parents, however, should not be felt to divide

them from each other. Children should never have to act as go-betweens for their parents. Unanimity between parents is vital for the children’s security, and as an example for their own marriage later on.

On Listening to Children

When we speak with our children, we should be really listening to them: Sometimes Christian adults have only half an ear for children, unless perhaps they speak about God. We should listen to all aspects of a child’s life with attention and prayer, so that God’s inspiration blesses every aspect of his life. No one would suggest that a child can always interrupt and receive attention on demand, but we must realise how much of parents’ time and energy is spent simply talking and listening to their children. Even when we are busy, we have to feel whether a small child’s question is serious enough to make us interrupt what we are doing, because the opportunity to answer that question may not occur again. A child has to reach a certain maturity before serious answers can be postponed.

Sometimes it is better to answer a vital question in what appears outwardly as a casual manner, as if on the spur of the moment, especially with children who “withdraw” at serious topics. This is not a kind of play-acting: our heart in prayer tells us how to speak for the child’s benefit.

When we answer a child, we should answer the child and not answer for the other adults present who happen to be amused or touched by what the child says. It is very important to have real conversations with a child, however much they are adapted to their stage of development. Adults should also be careful not to show that they are amused by a child’s form of expression, if that could spoil the conversation. “There is a time to laugh” (there are many times to laugh...); there is also a time to be careful not to make fun of a serious question or comment.

Mealtimes

St. John Chrysostom suggests mealtimes as a good occasion to introduce stories and examples from Scripture into the conversation with children. Mealtimes are a chance for the family to be together, eat together, and speak together. Unfortunately, television and busy timetables have spoiled the mealtime in many homes. Christian parents should try to arrange family meals whenever possible.

Breakfast is one of the most neglected meals, yet it is important because it takes place at the beginning of the day. During those hours the family often seems to be simply running a relay race, to get everyone ready in time for work or school. Nonetheless, apart from morning prayer - which goes without saying - it would benefit children to begin the day with even five minutes’ experience of their mother’s and father’s concern, love, and interest in what everyone is going to do that day. When a child leaves for school the mother can bless him, or pray: “God bless;” “The Mother of God be with you.” All this does not only further psychological security - it is a safeguard against any negative influences the child may meet, and it is a link between the two worlds of home and school.

Home and School

Children spend so much of their childhood at school that Christian parents should know what is going on at their child’s school. For example, they should meet the teachers, and go to the parent-teacher meetings and school functions. This is also another way to forge links between home life and school life - to try and overcome the double life that so many of our Orthodox children experience, not only in immigrant families. Parents should be aware of what their children are learning, and of the potential harm of certain common misinterpretations (presented often as “dogmas”) in the fields of religious knowledge, biology, history, and so on. We would not wish our children to argue with their teachers, or to be afraid of hearing new ideas - but we need to help them to be on their guard. The “one thing necessary” is, as in all circumstances, that we pray for our children while they are at school, that God preserve them from every kind of harm, and grant them to “increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).

Parents wonder how they can help their children to assimilate what they learn at school, and to profit as much as possible from their academic education. Indeed, someone who is brought up in Christian humility can acquire knowledge without becoming proud, and can use it to serve others. Parents should allow children time for their homework, and give them a quiet place for study. They can show interest in their children’s current syllabus and encourage them to develop a taste for school work. This is a further reason for avoiding tensions in the family: a child who has too many worries cannot work profitably ‑ a happy, secure child can take in much more.

Children have varying capacities for absorbing new information and skills. Sometimes a child who earned low marks at school grows up to become intellectually deeper and more capable than others who had assimilated a subject at the stage required by the school system.

One of the problems of the current education system is that the children are taught to compete with one another academically. Exam results are judged less by the actual mark than by their position in the class, and this cultivates pride. Adults should show pleasure or praise if a child has done his best, and not that he has beaten other children. A child who has tried his best and yet comes low in the class should not be made to feel inadequate. Intellectual ability is, after all, one of any number of natural gifts bestowed by God. In general, our society encourages people with intellectual ability to be proud and consider others as inferior.

Parents who have any choice about which school their children attend should try to find out where the moral atmosphere is better, as well as the educational standard, even if attending that school would mean some financial difficulty or inconvenience in traveling.

Christian parents sometimes wonder whether mixed or single-sex schools are better for their children. Sometimes there is no choice, but when there is, the quality of the school is a more important criterion than whether or not it is mixed: the educational standard, the kind of company the child will have, the head teacher’s attitudes. All other things being equal, children can benefit from the experience of mixed schools. In families where there are brothers and sisters, the experience of mixing naturally and fraternally with the opposite sex is gained at home, but where this is not the case it may be valuable to have this experience at school from a young age.

By the end of the school holiday, the parents are often tired, but even so, it is sad when children have the feeling that their parents are glad to have them out of the way again at school. It is tempting to say: “I can’t wait to have them off my hands again.” We must feel and show that our children are loved and welcomed at home.

Guarding the Child’s Senses

St. John Chrysostom advises parents to watch over the senses of their children: what they see, what they hear, and so on. We cannot put blinders on our children, and it is impossible in a twentieth-century city to ensure that everything they will meet will be beautiful and inspiring. But we can have the saint’s words in mind when we arrange the interior of our house. St. John also suggests that we give children the chance to have their senses affected by natural beauty: scenery and so on. When we plan excursions and holidays we can try to include some glimpses of nature. We can have natural materials in our home. Children often puzzle over the idea of God as Creator, especially those who are surrounded nearly all the time only by man-made things in which God’s handiwork is further back in the process of creation.

SOURCE : Children in the Church today

An Orthodox Perspective – Sister Magdalen