Religious Education of Children

The aim of Christian parents and teachers, which they should always keep at least in the back of their minds, is: to inspire in the children personal love for Christ and for the Mother of God. If children grow up honouring Christ and the Mother of God as beloved persons, this love will establish their hearts in God, and even if they later go through doubts, or even leave the Church, at least they will not be against Christ in their hearts; this may even be enough for their salvation.

The religious education of children is mainly brought about by example, and by the atmosphere of love and prayer in the home. The child’s heart is touched; without explanations he acquires prayer as a natural activity, and without needing logical proofs he knows God’s presence.

In the lives of Saints, one sees often how a saint’s destiny was influenced by someone holy whom he saw simply. St. Nectarios always remembered his grandmother’s love, and how she stood in prayer before the icons.

Love, prayer, and example, are more effective than words - indeed, it is these that give value to words - when leading children to God. Our work as parents or teachers of religion is often a hidden work, and it gives us experience of the “terrible” aspect of human freedom: that no one can impose love for God on another person. We would not wish it otherwise; we wish to love God freely and we wish this for all mankind. Yet at the same time our prayer for our beloved children gives us continual inner pain. It is easier to speak than to pray.

Encouraging Children to Pray at Home

It is difficult to insist on daily morning and evening prayer of a specific length of time in the family. The children’s ages may vary, as also their characters and their moods from day to day. What is most necessary is that the parents give an example, without ostentation, of regular prayer as a natural part of the day, and that the children see how they benefit from it. Parents should consult their spiritual father about each child, and also share their experiences with other parents. When the children can read, they may prefer to say prayers independently at their own or the family’s icon corner. Children often like to take part in reading when the family prays together, too. They may be given some guidelines by their spiritual father - even a short rule if they can “bear” this. Sincere and regular prayer is more import­ant than quantity. It is better if the “rule” is very short (even a few minutes); the child can increase the time of prayer privately according to his inspiration. Reminders about prayer should not be necessary if the child has acquired the habit and seen the necessity for asking God’s blessing. What is certain is that to nag will not help. Regular prayers for preschool children should be kept as an aim, but parents should not be anxious if it is not possible to fulfill it every day. A brief time of bedside prayer is often easier to achieve, as are prayers before and after meals.

It is better to teach young children about Christian spiritual struggle in prayer without direct reference to fighting with the demons. They can learn quite naturally to make the sign of the Cross before sleeping (on themselves and on the bed or pillow), as a blessing for the night, to use the Jesus prayer, or talk in their own words to the Lord and saints whenever they like. Then if they are tempted (e.g., by fear or nightmares), they will naturally use the right “weapons.” Children may sleep with a prayer-rope in their hand or under their pillow - and they may include saying the Jesus prayer (even only a few times) in their prayers.

When we are trying to teach children about God in words and we cannot find the right expression or the subject changes, we should not necessarily force our explanation - we must follow God’s inspiration and the child’s own mind. It is not so much by our words about God that we will help our children as by our dwelling in the presence of God. Christian adults tend to think God is not in a conversation if He is not the subject of the conversation.

The best educational methods aim at teaching children how to learn. There is a proverb which says: “Give your son a fish and he will eat well today. Teach him how to use a fishing-rod and he will eat well all his life.” We understand our task as Christian parents and teachers in a similar way. We inspire our children to love God and we teach them how to find the will of God for themselves. If our children are taught to love God and the saints, “all the rest shall be added as surplus” (Matt 6:33).

Children in Christian families (not least clergy families) sometimes suffer a kind of “indigestion” from an overdose of hearing about God, or about church affairs. They may continue to listen out of politeness, but one can see and feel that they are not really interested in hearing any more about God, and even that they are becoming tired of Him and wish they could have a rest from Him. In a catechetical class one sees big differences between children in their capacity and desire to hear about God, and one can do serious spiritual harm by not speaking with a child according to his measure. We try to inspire, but we must not force. Even individual children can be more spiritually receptive at some times than others.

The Value of a Catechetical Class

How do we judge the value of a catechetical class? It is much more important that children leave the class more inspired to love God, than that the teacher’s program is completed. Sometimes the children have a subject occupying their minds, and it may be more spiritually profitable to talk about that. Sometimes their interruptions and comments (as long as they are not merely disruptive) give a clue to the children’s real state and preoccupations. The real test of a catechism is not how many facts the children have absorbed, but whether they emerge with a more heartfelt conviction that the Church’s way is a way of true life. Names and facts should be thought of as pegs on which we may hang this inspiration.

People like to hear teachers’ accounts of children’s questions or answers about God. Indeed, children do say very touching and amusing things. But speaking with children is not a matter of collecting cute sayings. The child we quote perhaps once may have taken months or even years - without the teacher hearing anything “spectacular” - to build up his confidence in the teacher. Also, the teacher may have spoken for hours about television, or school, or food, or games, before God was even mentioned.

The most valuable teachers are those who have a good relationship with the children. Children will often take quite a categorical answer from an adult whose love they feel, and whose opinion they have learned to trust. “Nothing so furthers teaching as this: loving and being loved” (St. John Chrysostom).

Children from about seven years old may begin to think seriously about metaphysical problems such as “who made God?” and to struggle to understand eternal being.

Icons and Holy Scripture as Resources

Icons are a good way for children to get to know and love Christ and the saints. Even from a very young age a child can have icons of the Lord, the Mother of God, or a saint, above his bed and in his room. Icons provoke children’s questions, and also answer them. Icons should speak to all of us directly, visually - adults tend to verbalise or rationalise even their visual experience. Children often understand deep theological mysteries through icons - for example by comparing the icon of the Crucifixion with the icon of the Resurrection. They cannot always explain the mystery adequately, but their words and facial expression show that it has penetrated their heart and mind.

An icon is a very useful focus in a catechetical lesson; but it must always be treated respectfully, as an object of veneration, even when its pedagogical aspect is being emphasised.

From a young age children can be inspired to love Scripture and the lives of saints. More important than the quantity read or the facts remembered is that children see from their parents and teachers that Scripture and saints’ lives are inspiring and relevant for us today. We must also vary their diet when we tell them stories at home. (It is good for them to be familiar with the well-known English stories too.) Scripture and saints’ lives should be considered as the most worthwhile stories; reading them should not be presented as a pious duty.

The First Commandment

In general, children should not be discouraged from thinking of Christ and the saints as friends, to whom they can tell anything, and who love them even more dearly than their parents love them. Often children experience prayer and answers to prayer in what seem, to an adult, to be insignificant problems, or in matters which they were too shy to tell anyone else about. Thus they develop a relationship with God and trust in Him.

A child should think of loving Christ as the most natural thing in the world. Believing in God is not an option - God is someone you know and wish everyone to know. Atheists are people who do not know God, or who have so far refused to meet Him. Unfortunately, even very young children are told about atheism and differing beliefs, and they have to face modern relativism very early in life.

In our world one can hear and see many things which do not accord with the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). As adults we have already begun to build our faith upon a rock, and whatever we hear does not shake us - rather, it makes us grow in understanding. Children are still vulnerable. We must help our children on the one hand to pray and sift what they hear, and on the other hand not to feel like outcasts. The Church is not “of this world,” but it is not a ghetto: it is the salt of the earth. Our children can help us not to lose sight of the Church’s task of outreach to all peoples and generations.

We inspire in our children gratitude for being Orthodox, and we do not teach them to feel superior and despise others. On the contrary: “To whom much is given, of him much will be required” (Luke 12:48). We are perhaps happy to be Greek or Russian - but above all we are thankful to God that by whatever means (through conversion or through being born into an Orthodox family), we have found Orthodoxy. Ethnic pride is not a yoke-fellow of Orthodox faith.

On Speaking About Demons, Hell and Death

It is a serious pedagogical mistake to speak too explicitly to small children about demons, because it is impossible for a child, once he hears about them as they are, not to start imagining them. Adults can be warned of the danger of letting the image of demons enter their minds, but small children would not benefit from such a warning, and they may come to serious spiritual harm, or at least suffer from nightmares. When small children ask about the devil, or the reality of evil spirits, it is best to brush aside the question, saying something to the effect that we do not think about them any more than about dreams. In general, one should direct the children’s minds to Christ, the saints, the angels.

Children are scared by the idea of hell. We are also frightened, but our fear is contained within healthy limits; it is in fact based on our love for God and our fear of being estranged from Him. What we must build up in children is not the fear of hell but the love of God. Children can think seriously about the metaphysical problem of evil and God’s love. When we speak about hell (not, of course, to small children) we must emphasise that hell is not somewhere God wants to send wicked people: hell is the self-inflicted pain of having rejected God’s love. Hell is the vision of God’s light, burning those who have not become akin to Him. Or we can say that if someone is ill and refuses the doctor’s medicine, it is not the doctor’s fault if he is not cured. Again, there are no stock answers - these are examples. There are many cases of adults who rejected Christianity because that was the best way to be delivered from the constricting fear of hell in which they were brought up. Even when we speak about evil deeds, or people who have committed them, we must ensure that the child has confidence in Christ’s readiness to forgive.

When children speak about heaven they often have ideas about what one will find there that may seem theologically incorrect. We must be careful not to destroy their longing for heaven. Who can imagine longing to go somewhere where there is no food, or where there are no games, or no pets? We should give the impression (and it is not a false impression) that heaven is better than anything we can imagine. Some children were once told this, and they spontaneously asked, “Better than Easter night?” “Better than ice cream?” “Better than when your Mum tucks you in bed?” It is biblical teaching that there will be heavenly food, heavenly laughter, and so on. As for individual animals finding a place in heaven, we need not explain to little children theologically how the animal soul differs from the human; instead we acknowledge how God cares for every little sparrow (cf. Matt 10:29).

We should never, when speaking theologically, remove someone’s idea unless we replace it by something more mature which is within their comprehension. There is an account among the Desert Fathers’ sayings about a monk who was an anthropomorphist (someone who interprets literally the scriptural expressions about God’s hands, eyes, feet, etc.). This monk was corrected by Orthodox monks. Another monk visited him and found him weeping. The visitor asked him, “Father, why are you weeping? Are you not glad to be restored to the true faith?” The monk replied, “I am weeping because they have taken away my God, and I no longer know whom to worship.”

We do not wish our children to fear death. We must speak of it as a part of life; the step into heavenly life; going to live with Christ forever.

Sometimes children are looking forward to death so much that they have actually expressed a desire to die, and even to kill themselves. We do not want to introduce a morbid fear of death in order to temper this desire. We should teach children that the most blessed death is to depart when God calls us, because only He knows when we are ready. We do not go to heaven until He “sends us a ticket.” (There are no recipes for what to say to every child.) This is a problem that Christian adults are not always aware of until a desire to die is expressed, and then they are taken by surprise. It is sad that very young children have even heard about suicide, but it is a fact that we have to face as Christian teachers.

Questions about hell and heaven, evil and good, demons, death, suicide, and so on, will be re‑answered several time during childhood years. As with questions about childbirth, children need to have the answers in stages according to their development. One does not answer a five year old in the same way as a ten year old, for example.

SOURCE : Children in the Church today – Sister Magdalen