Religious Education in the Family Part 6

One must walk out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church attendance in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the colors of walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the meaning of G.o.d from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers, and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest.

-- 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES

Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on religion in its organized form.

The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who asks strange questions about G.o.d asks equally startling ones about fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance to direct him to right thoughts of G.o.d. Here we need to be sure of our own thoughts and to keep in mind our princ.i.p.al purpose, to quicken in this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a G.o.d whom he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our childhood's view of G.o.d.

Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did G.o.d make the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did G.o.d make the leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to show the difference between man's making of things and the working of the divine energy through all the process of the development of the world. When the child asks, "Mother, if G.o.d made all things, why did he make the devil?" it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the child's mental picture of a personal anti-G.o.d and to take from him his bogey of a "devil." But the question of the relation of G.o.d to the existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be to ill.u.s.trate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by similar freedom in the family.

It must be remembered that children's curious questions are only their attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for direct religious instruction. These questions must be treated seriously; something is missing in parental consciousness when the child's questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family friends.

-- 7. MORAL TEACHING

_Questions on conduct_: Scores of times in the day the children come in from play or from school and tell of what has happened. Their more or less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of "cheating," "naughtiness," unfair play, unkind words, discourtesies, all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct. Here lies one of the large opportunities for moral instruction. There is no need to attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality. The parent's answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these subjects count tremendously with the child in establis.h.i.+ng his ideals and modes of conduct. Returning to his play, there is no mightier authority he can quote than to say, "My mother says--," or "My father says--."

Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except through conduct in social living. Children need more than the rules for living; they must feel motives and see ideals. They do not live by rules any more than we do. Besides the rule that is known there must be a reason for following it and a strong desire to do so. All ethical teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for reasons of love as well as of duty and profit.

The father's opportunity comes especially with the boys. They are sure to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother. When the boys begin to discuss their games the father cannot afford to lack interest. Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the most important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's experiences of his present world of play and schooling and family living. To help him to live this present life aright is the best training that can be given for the right living of all life.

_Questions on organized religion_: As children grow up, the church comes into their range of interests. Just as they often make the day school focal for conversation, as they recount their day's work there, so they retain impressions of the church school, of the services of the church, and will always ask many questions about this inst.i.tution and its observances. Here is the opportunity, in free conversation, to tell the child the meaning of the church, the significance of members.h.i.+p therein, and to lead him to conscious relations.h.i.+p to the society of the followers of Jesus. (See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church.")

I. References for Study

Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of G.o.d in Children," _The Aims of Religious Education_, pp. 330-38. Religious Education a.s.sociation, $1.00.

W.G. Koons, _Child's Religious Life_, sec. II. Eaton & Mains, $1.00.

J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. vi. Appleton, $1.25.

II. Further Reading

George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i-vi.

Appleton, $1.50.

George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_, chap. ii. The University of Chicago Press, $0.75.

Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chap. viii.

Putnam, $1.50.

T. Stephens (ed.), _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50.

C.W. Rich.e.l.l, _The Child as G.o.d's Child_. Eaton & Mains, $0.75.

W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Nature_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00.

III. Topics for Discussion

1. What are the special difficulties which you feel about introducing the topic of religion to children? Describe any methods or modes of approach which have seemed successful?

2. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to the child-mind?

3. In what ways do children's apt.i.tudes differ and what factors probably determine the difference? What was your own childish conception of G.o.d? Did you love G.o.d or fear him? Why?

4. Is it ever right to teach the child those conceptions which we have outgrown? What about Santa Claus and fairies? How can you use childish figures of speech as an avenue to more exact truth?

5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes? Through which agency do we seek to convey religious ideas?

6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate relation between conduct and religion? How would you do this?

7. Give some of the characteristics of a religious child of seven years, of ten.

CHAPTER VII

DIRECTED ACTIVITY

Probably all parents find themselves at some time thinking that the real, fundamental problem of training their children lies in dealing with their superabundant energy. "He is such an active child!" mothers complain. Were he otherwise a physician might properly be consulted. But the child's activity does seriously interfere with parental peace. It takes us all a long time to learn that we are not, after all, in our homes in order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train children into fulness of life. That does not mean that the home should be without quiet and rest, but that we must not hope to repress the energy of childhood. One might as well hope to plug up a spring in the hillside.

Our work is to direct that activity into glad, useful service.

-- 1. VALUE OF ACTIVITY

The things we do not only indicate character, they determine it. Our thoughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of ourselves. Children learn by doing--learn not only that which they are doing but life itself.

It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and influential form of character direction.

One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work, makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can get. A religious interpretation of and att.i.tude toward life is essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about doing good"!

-- 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR

The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking, superficial affection, to protect our children from work. This is a world of the moral order and of the glory of work.

When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must follow if we would train the child.

Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be a.s.signed to each one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines and seeing that they are properly stacked or disposed of may be given to one; another may sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in one instance a boy of eight did this daily); another may be "librarian,"

caring for all books; each one, after eight years of age, should make her own bed; each one should be entirely responsible for his own table in his room. Many homes permit of many other "ch.o.r.es," such as keeping up the supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even a larger animal, keeping a little personal garden or vegetable plot. Under those normal conditions of living, which some day we may reach, where each family, or all families, have trees and flowers and ample s.p.a.ce, the opportunities are increased for joyous child activities which consciously contribute to social well-being as a whole.

-- 3. RELIGION IN ACTION