There seems to be no question more pressing and vital, more urgent and pressing, than the question of raising children. Indeed, it is the key to family happiness, the foundation of social well-being, the strength of nations, the beauty and happiness of life—but, strange as it may seem, it is also the potential source of the great misfortunes that darken a person's life. That is how great and important this question is.
Despite all this, no issue has always been treated by society with such inattention and disdain as the issue of education.
Modern intelligentsia are endlessly interested in and debated about forms of government, the foundations of social life, various philosophical and literary movements—but not about family and raising children. This is partly explained by the fact that the task of education is discreet and modest, yet it requires serious work, dedication, and even heroism. Modern man, however, is willing to accept and reconcile himself to anything, but not with dedication and heroism, for he views life from the standpoint of pleasure.
Without any interest in upbringing or understanding of it, modern parents entrust their children to the care of nurses, nannies, and various governesses, at best reserving for themselves only the most basic supervision and general instructions. This situation is abnormal: indeed, can a stranger, even a kind and decent one, replace a child's mother? After all, a child is flesh of its mother's flesh and bone; its soul is, as it were, a part of its mother's soul, and no power can compare to a mother's influence on a child. To entrust a child's spiritual upbringing to others is to abandon one's own child.
During school years, parents seem to care even less about their children: they shift all responsibility to the school, which is usually blamed for all their children's mental and moral shortcomings. This judgment is harsh and unfair. It's unfair because the foundation of character, all good qualities, must be instilled in a child from childhood, before school. For no school, even the most ideal, will do what parents neglected to do, much less correct what parents once sinned in. That's why the Apostle Paul commands fathers to bring up their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" ( Eph. 6:4 )—not teachers.
The soul of a small child is like wax, not yet defined. Parents give it its first form, and by the age of six to eight, the child's soul has already hardened within it. By this time, the child has acquired a certain character, certain and defined habits, which are difficult to change during school age, and nearly impossible to completely replace. When a sculptor makes a statue from a mass of molten metal, he can shape it into any number of forms until the mass hardens; but once the mass hardens, the sculptor is powerless: he can do very little. This comparison is entirely applicable to the soul of a child and its early development.
So, the upbringing of a child is, first of all, the work of the parents, and not of mothers and nannies and not of the school, because no governess can replace a child’s mother, and no school can do what a family can and should do.
The first evil of modern education is the oblivion of this truth.
Furthermore, the educational issues we are addressing are so diverse and complex that it is utterly impossible to cover them all in a brief overview. Thus, a distinction is made between physical, mental, and moral, or religious-moral, education. Physical education is emphasized in our age, but again, somewhat unsuccessfully, to the detriment of the child's spiritual and character development. Rightly or wrongly, intellectual development is also emphasized, imparting it primarily through secondary and higher education; the one, but most important, education—religious-moral, or Christian—is completely neglected.
They think that baptizing a child and giving them Holy Communion once a year is enough to ensure they grow up a Christian. Alas, this is far from enough. Don't we see how our children grow up irreligious—they pray little to God, don't know the prayers, and exhibit bad temperaments? At school, these negative traits develop further, ultimately degenerating into religious atheism and complete moral depravity. How can we recognize Christians in such children?
Today's parents don't care about their children's souls and their Christian growth. They worry about their health, academic success, good manners, music, and foreign language skills—but not about their souls. Of course, these concerns are also good; but forgetting the essential and eternal simply because of the secondary and temporary is unforgivable, sinful, and detrimental to children. The absence of a clearly defined and expressed Christian goal in upbringing is the second greatest evil, the root of countless misfortunes for children in this life, and perhaps even in eternity. The ancient Christians acted differently: they lived according to the Savior's commandment— "Seek ye first the kingdom of God... and all these things shall be added unto you" ( Matthew 6:33 ). But then, family life was elevated and happy, and both parents and children were saints.
Christian education consists of protecting the child's soul from evil and sin, conquering the rudiments of passion, and making it a temple of God. May the child grow up to be a vessel of grace, a child of God, the joy of angels, the hope of the Church, and the consolation of parents.
Now let's consider how this can be achieved in today's world, and how it would be possible to provide a Christian education to children even today. Of course, by the very nature of this essay, we will focus only on the most important and essential points, but parents and educators will easily be able to add to our discussion.
I. Christian education in infancy
Let's look at a child's life from the cradle onward. As we've said, infancy is almost decisive in raising a child, and their first impressions leave an indelible mark on the child's soul for life.
A child, according to the Psalmist, is conceived in iniquity and born in sin ( Psalm 50:7 ), meaning he receives all the usual sinful inclinations from his parents. Christian life begins, properly speaking, at the moment of baptism.
The grace of baptism produces a profound moral transformation in a child: it completely weakens the sin that was passed on to them by birth, expelling it from the primary focus of spiritual life—the child's heart—and itself fills the heart, becoming the source of new and holy life in the child. The seal of baptism is so potent that no sin can completely erase it, and therefore baptism is not repeated. After baptism, the child's soul truly becomes a temple of God.
Can sin attach itself to him at this moment? Unfortunately, it can, although grace counteracts. It happens like this: a child is a living being and, in one way or another, feels the atmosphere around him—both physical and moral; for example, he feels with his body when he is cold or stuffy, and then the child cries; he also feels with his soul whether good or evil surrounds him, and accordingly he either calms his spirit and rejoices, or, on the contrary, grieves. The mother’s mood is especially quickly transmitted to the child; and even if we take an ideal mother, even she does not always have a holy and kind mood, does she? She, too, can feel resentment, irritation, pride, and so on. And since ideal people are generally few and far between, and the modern family environment is often a tangle of all sorts of life dramas, crippling the life of spouses, the breath of sin reaches the child sooner than one might think and wounds his soul; Then original sin , weakened by grace, begins to revive, to regain its strength. When the child begins to understand a little and notice what is happening around him, sin becomes even more attached to him. It is the duty of Christian parents to create the most pious environment possible around their infant and to paralyze and overcome the attacks of sin that occur after baptism with new, grace-filled means.
The means for combating sin are well known, and they are the same as for adults: Holy Communion, prayer at home and in church—with and for children. Frequent Communion is especially beneficial for children: it miraculously nourishes their souls and makes them impregnable to the forces of the enemy. It has been observed that on the day of Communion, a child exhibits profound peace, feels a weakening of any illness, if any, and is sometimes filled with joy and playfulness of spirit, ready to embrace and kiss anyone. Holy Communion has often been accompanied by direct miraculous signs. For example, St. Andrew of Crete is known to have remained silent for a long time in his childhood; his grieving parents resorted to grace-filled means, and one day during Communion , the Lord loosened his tongue, subsequently filling the Church with streams of sweet speech and wisdom .
Frequent blessing of the cross, sprinkling with holy water, and, most importantly, a pious attitude from parents have a beneficial effect on children. A fertile atmosphere around the cradle is the highest blessing parents can bestow upon their children, a treasure immeasurably more valuable than all the riches of the world.
Parents who give their children communion once or twice a year and rarely take them to church on the grounds that children understand little are unwise. As for understanding, even adults cannot boast a great understanding not only of religion but also of the world around them. Religion, however, is understood more through the heart and feeling—and a child has a much stronger feeling and instinctive attraction to God than an adult: he is not yet darkened by sin, his soul is angelic. Depriving him of church and communion is as unwise and destructive as it would be unwise and destructive to deprive him of air on the grounds that a child has a poor understanding of what air is. The Holy Mysteries and the temple of God are the air of the soul.
From the age of three or four, a child's thinking begins to develop; they not only sense and perceive, but also think and reason: they ask questions, listen to answers, and consciously interact with others. At this time, their physical and spiritual strength awakens, and parents should intensify their attention to ensure that these strengths are channeled correctly and in a Christian manner. During this period, of course, sin can further affect the child and plant its seed in their mind or heart, depriving them of their former purity and holiness.
The first needs to awaken are those of the body. As a child's body grows and develops, it requires good nutrition and, with it, movement: the child often asks for food and is constantly active and moving. This is what parents and caregivers should pay attention to first.
When feeding, it is necessary to ensure that, while caring for the child’s health, it does not develop lust and carnal indulgence in him.
If a child does not learn from his parents to deny himself his whims and, as it were, to control his body, then carnal indulgence in his youth will lead him to all sorts of excesses, and then to carnal sins, for in them too a person seeks pleasure for the flesh.
Nowadays, it's not uncommon to see children suffering from obesity due to overeating. Therefore, doctors advise: 1) to offer simple and healthy food, appropriate for the child's age, and 2) to do so at a specific time, according to a reasonable routine, from which no deviation is allowed unless necessary. This way, the child will learn to deny themselves their desires and overcome them for a while.
Where a child is fed whenever it asks, its will is weakened. But fasting is also the best way to curb lust for children. It is unwise to deny them a feasible fast at a time when they themselves are beginning to understand the purpose of fasting. The children of holy parents fasted from the cradle, and this only strengthened their health.
We know of cases where children in pious families voluntarily refused to eat meat during Lent, cried when their parents tried to persuade them, and justified their disobedience by saying that God would punish them for eating meat during Lent. Obviously, these children had previously heard about fasting from their parents and imprinted what they heard on their hearts.
Such temptation should not be allowed. Parents who allow their children to drink wine at the table undoubtedly cause them profound spiritual harm: this is how alcoholics develop, at least among the common people. Neither children nor, even worse, oneself should indulge in it in front of children. The Holy Fathers said that even youth should not smell of wine. Medicine confirms this. We are not considering here those cases where wine is permissible as a medicine.
Regarding a child's movement and playfulness, care must also be taken to avoid extremes: some children are excessively playful, absent-minded, and mischievous; others, on the contrary, are sluggish, inactive, and lazy. The parents' will must guide their every step: let the child frolic, but only in the manner, time, and place dictated by the parents; without this, the child will develop willfulness and disobedience. Childhood disobedience, if not corrected in time, usually develops into adolescent insolence and self-will, which brings tears to the eyes of the parents themselves: just as a single match, not extinguished in time, can start a fire. Therefore, a child's willfulness must be combated immediately and persistently, not even giving them food, and the child's day must be planned in advance. Children of attentive and sensible parents grow up in reasonable obedience; and those who obey themselves will later be able to lead others to obedience, i.e., they will become a person of strong will.
While properly guiding a child's physical strength, the same care must be taken in developing their spiritual strength. Here, parents face an even more important task: to nurture the child's mind, will, and heart in a Christian spirit—in other words, to nurture the whole future person.
The course of his future life as a Christian, and the salvation of his soul, will depend on one or another aspect of this upbringing. This is also reflected in folk wisdom: "As he was in the cradle," it says, "so he will be in the grave," and "only the grave can straighten a hunchback."
In developing a child's mind, it is essential, first and foremost, to impart sound Christian concepts about God, people, and life. Religiosity in children can be an innate trait: they instinctively feel a yearning for God, strive to love God and obey Him—to act according to His will; of course, this is the fruit of the grace of baptism. Therefore, no child is naturally irreligious. "They are created by people, by improper upbringing, which takes neither the demands of faith nor the child's psychology into account. Usually, even morally neglected children, but left to their own devices, persistently seek to satisfy their religious feelings. If this demand of a child's nature is not satisfied directly, it sometimes finds expression in strange forms. One of Gorky's characters, the boy Yakov, for example, set up a prayer room for himself in a tree hollow, expanding the space within the tree and placing an icon with a lit candle. Yakov would come here at night to pray. “My prayer is not heard during the day, but at night it will be heard,” this is how Jacob explained his actions” 2 .
The touching story "The Story of a Child's Soul," published by K.P. Pobedonostsev , depicts in vivid, heart-stirring colors the torment of a child whose parents artificially raised him in unbelief. The child, unable to bear the mental anguish, departed voluntarily to the Unknown God.
Here, for example, is his prayer to this God before his tragic end:
“Almighty Atom! I want to pray, although I have never prayed before and do not know how others pray... Perhaps you cannot hear me... but still I feel that there is someone to whom I must express myself... Oh, dear Atom! And if in the end it turns out that you are not Atom at all, but God , a living God, kind, loving, compassionate to all the poor people he created, then you will pity me too... you will understand why I am going to look for you... after all, it is not my fault that I am so afraid to live here, that I so want to know if there is anything better than this world, in which we can never save what we love, where everything is subject to death and oblivion... Oh, if you are God, I know you will pity me!”
I always wanted to believe in you as God and would love you so much if they didn’t forbid it...
At this moment—I don't know why—I feel that You must be God... God , the Good, the Eternal, the Living... You will be merciful to me, and You will take me straight to Yourself, as You took little Jesmine. And if I have done something bad, I think You will forgive me; You know, after all, that I was taught not to believe in You. Poor people who argue that You do not exist: what will they feel when they have to die? Will You forgive them then for all the evil they have done to others? For it is not I alone, but many, many who suffer, and weep, and languish at their words... And so, not to Atom, but to God, I will now offer my first and last prayer from earth: Lord, do not abandon my mother! When I come to You, show me how to take care of it... If nothing You have created perishes, You will seek me out, and I will find You... It is so scary to live, but I am not afraid to go to You, Lord!” 3 .
Thus perished a lovely, sweet child. May this profoundly truthful story shock and enlighten those who consider raising their children outside of religion.
We said that children are religious by nature. Indeed, children absorb religious truths quickly and easily, and they become, as it were, akin to their spirit.
In ancient times, for example, during times of persecution, small children discussed God the Savior, the folly of idolatry, the future life, and so on. Experience also shows that children are sometimes wiser than philosophers.
A child should receive his first religious instruction from his parents, not from a teacher of the law; from his parents, not at school, he should learn prayer and the fundamental truths of our faith.
Let a mother speak to her little ones about the Heavenly Father, who loves children, about the blessed life in Paradise, about the Fall, about the Savior of the world, about the Most Pure Virgin Mary, and about the holy saints of God. Divine truth will nourish the child's mind and create a Christian worldview. If children are not given books with corrupted concepts, their minds can remain healthy and whole throughout their lives.
A child is curious about everything and asks questions about everything; it's useful to wean them off aimless inquisitiveness and scattered thoughts. Let the child be interested in what relates to them and the life around them. Furthermore, don't rush from one subject to another, but rather absorb each one thoroughly. This approach is crucial in developing a child's character: it will teach them thoughtfulness and thoroughness and protect them from absent-mindedness and daydreaming.
A child's willpower must also be developed wisely. Children are kind by nature, but they cannot sufficiently distinguish good from evil, useful from harmful. This requires help. To achieve this, children should be encouraged to turn to their parents with every desire, asking them if it can be done and how. It's not difficult to encourage children to do this; they simply need to show them by example how dangerous it can be to do something without asking. Of course, parents should be the first to set an example in good deeds, and children love to imitate their elders: a child can help the poor, share with the needy, console the sad in their own way, forgive offenses, and so on. And then a will will emerge with a disposition toward good deeds.
By nature, a child also has a kind heart. They respond to every kindness with a smile, quickly forget personal disappointments and insults, and are generally devoid of the self-love of adults. These feelings must be further developed and care taken to ensure that pride, envy, malice, and capriciousness do not take root in children. Besides the example of parents, the best means for developing kind and holy feelings is the church. "We don't know where we were—in heaven or on earth," our pagan ancestors used to say about Orthodox worship. The service should make an even greater impression on children. And let their eyes be delighted by the divine beauty in church, their ears captivated by the heavenly sounds, and their rapturous hearts glorify the All-Wise God. Who knows, perhaps these will be the only bright memories they will have for the rest of their lives. It is inexpressibly difficult to meet young people who don't appreciate the poetry of even the Easter service: "They weren't taught that in childhood," you hear in response.
So, in general terms, we have outlined the way of life that parents should give their child during the first, infant period of life. Let them remember that evil can attach itself to a child from the cradle—at first less, then more; let them fight it tirelessly with both grace-based means and personal prudence, setting an example of a good Christian life for their children. Example is a great thing.
And if it is bad, or the parents are generally negligent, then sin will take hold of the child's soul, pollute it, and darken it. By the age of seven, when sins begin to be imputed by the Church, one can encounter children who are already spiritually corrupted, with the makings of all the major passions. Even at seven, many are lustful and carnal, which is almost the same as all sorts of excesses and carnal sins in adults. Even at seven, many are insolent and disobedient, self-centered and proud, lazy in prayer and in God's temple; which is almost the same as lack of faith, unbelief, pride, and malice in adults. Therefore, many renowned educators maintain that education, properly speaking, ends at the age of eight to ten, and what a child has not acquired before this age, they will not acquire for the rest of their life.
The pious atmosphere that should surround a child's cradle is very sympathetically depicted by our writer Turgenev in his novel "A Nest of the Gentry" (the education of Liza Kalitina). Here, the central role is played not even by the mother, but by the nanny Agafya. However, this nanny completely replaced Liza's birth mother in her heartfelt affection and her benevolent influence. Such individuals, of course, could be entrusted with the upbringing of a child. We consider it worthwhile to share this description.
Agafya, we read in the novel, was assigned to Liza as a nanny when she had just turned five. "At first, Liza was frightened by the new nanny's serious and stern face, but then she soon grew accustomed to her and fell deeply in love with her. She herself was a serious child. She didn't like to play with dolls, laughed quietly and briefly, and held herself primly. Agafya never parted from her.
Sometimes Agafya, all in black, with a dark kerchief on her head, her face thin and translucent, like wax, would sit upright, knitting a stocking. At her feet, on a small chair, sat Liza, also working on something, or, with her clear eyes raised solemnly, listening to Agafya's stories. And Agafya wasn't telling her fairy tales: in a measured, even voice, she recounted the life of the Most Pure Virgin, the lives of hermits, saints of God, and holy martyrs. She told Liza how the saints lived in the deserts, how they found salvation, endured hunger and poverty, and didn't fear kings, confessed Christ, how the birds of the air brought them food and the beasts obeyed them. Agafya spoke to Liza with dignity and humility, as if she herself felt that it was not for her to utter such lofty and holy words. Liza listened to her – and the image of the omnipresent God with some sweet force was pressed into her soul, filling her with pure reverent fear, and Christ became something close to her, almost like a family member.”
Agafya even taught her to pray. Sometimes she would wake Liza at dawn, dress her hastily, and sneak her off to matins.
“The cold and half-light of the morning, the freshness and emptiness of the church, the very mystery of these absences and the cautious return to the house and bed - shook the girl, penetrated into the very depths of her being.
Agafya looked after Liza for a little over three years, and Mademoiselle Moreau replaced her. But the frivolous Frenchwoman couldn't displace Liza's beloved nanny from her heart: the seeds sown had taken root too deeply."
And when Agafya was no longer in the house, “Liza still went to mass as if it were a holiday, prayed with pleasure, with some kind of restrained and bashful impulse.
“Permeated with a sense of duty, fear of offending anyone, with a kind and meek heart, she loved everyone and no one in particular; she loved God alone, enthusiastically, timidly, tenderly” 4 .
Such is the bright image of Lisa and her simple teacher, such is the blessed atmosphere that surrounded Lisa in childhood.
II. Christian education during the school period
After infancy comes the school period in a child's upbringing. But we have already said that one cannot place great hopes on school, in the sense of Christian education: firstly, there are a large number of students in school, and educating a large number is always difficult; here, it is impossible to take into account the personal characteristics of each student; true education, however, should do this and influence each student according to their character.
Secondly, by the time a child enters school, his character has already been sufficiently formed under the influence of one or another upbringing in the family, before school.
We'll go further: a modern school, with several hundred students—children of varying backgrounds, upbringings, and dispositions, among whom are many bad students who can exert a negative influence on their peers—can be a less-than-favorable environment for Christian education. Therefore, parental supervision during school is not only not eliminated, but even intensified. Let them continue to monitor the Christian development of their children's minds, hearts, and wills; let them instill in them that purity of life and virtue are immeasurably higher than any scientific pursuits and success in them; that all sciences, except the law of God, have only temporary significance for the needs of earthly life; and that, finally, mere knowledge, without religion and kindness of heart, can even be harmful to a person.
Parents should continue to be vigilant for signs of passions in their children. If they were vigilant before, they will continue to be vigilant and protect their children from them. The best means of strengthening piety will again be prayer , churchgoing, and partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.
But others will now be added to these, commensurate with the children's advanced age. Thus, at this age, we especially emphasize the reading of spiritual books: the Gospels, the lives of saints, edifying stories and tales—especially since we now have such wonderful spiritual magazines as "Christian's Rest," "Sunday Bells," "The Path of Life," "Sober Shoots," "Russian Pilgrim," "Wanderer," and others, which can positively captivate a child's soul. And not only children's, but adults' as well. It is deeply regrettable that our intelligentsia is ignorant of these magazines. Meanwhile, without spiritual reading, the soul will not grow and develop properly, just as the body will not without nourishment. Nor will children's faith strengthen, weakened in school, especially higher education, by all sorts of negative literature, by contact with unbelievers, and by the perplexities of their own minds. In the absence of spiritual reading, we see one of the reasons for the now widespread unbelief: they do not believe because they do not know religion, and they do not know because they are not interested, do not want to learn.
Another important means of Christian education for youth is fasting and confession. What is confession if not an impartial examination of a young man's entire disposition and direction from the perspective of Divine truth? And who is the shepherd at this moment if not the same educator, only with divine authority to bind and loose? The Sacrament of Confession is God's great blessing to sinners; it is the moment of forgiveness for the guilty, the moment of their rise and justification through sincere repentance.
The grace of God makes a good shepherd great in his influence on young souls who approach the Sacrament of Confession with faith. And the majority of fundamentally uncorrupted young men and women are of precisely this mindset. Many of them prepare for Communion as true ascetics.
Zasodimsky tells a telling story about how one 14-year-old schoolboy observed fasting: "This wasn't the usual, formulaic fasting, out of habit or obligation. Popov ate almost nothing, subsisted only on tea and soup, became silent and serious, began to avoid the usual games and amusements, read the Gospel for hours at a time, did not sleep at night, thought deeply and concentratedly about something. On Thursday of Holy Week, he gathered all the schoolboys living in the boarding house in the hall and, agitated and pale, spoke to them about Christ and life according to the Gospel, called them to love and unity, to mutual support, to repentance of sins and to correct their lives." (Otdykh khristiana. 1909, No. 12, p. 111 (paraphrase)).
Thank God, such examples are not uncommon even today. Children will not hide their perplexities and doubts, and perhaps even their emotional wounds, from a beloved, accessible, and attentive spiritual father. And a spiritual father, with the help of grace, will be able to clarify these perplexities more quickly and better than any teacher, calm a troubled soul, and heal these wounds. A sincere confession to a spiritual father and then the reception of the Holy Mysteries of Christ can bring about a beneficial change even in the soul of a depraved youth.
Happy is the school that has a good pastor as its catechist, and happy are the parents who have found worthy spiritual guides for their children. Of course, confession should be individual; confessing several people together is unhelpful and can even lead to temptation.
Some zealous pastors do this: they invite children interested in spiritual matters to their homes for discussions. Such conversations can perhaps save and strengthen dozens of wavering and doubting children. Their former charges always remember such pastors with gratitude and appreciation.
These are the positive, constructive tools of adolescence. Again, a good home environment, reading spiritual books, proper confession and communion, and conversations with a spiritual father, especially when there are doubts and questions.
It goes without saying that while one must build with one hand, one must not destroy with the other, and while cherishing one's Christian disposition, one must not carelessly surrender to the ordinary course of worldly life: the waves of the sea of life are fierce, and if the helmsman makes a mistake, they will capsize the frail boat. Christians are commanded "not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world" ( 1 John 2:15 ), and therefore, with regard to worldly life, the following general rule should be observed: make use of what is good, but avoid everything that leads you to sin, that pollutes your imagination, weakens your will, and harms the purity of your heart; do not trust the temptations of sin, for where there is sin, there is no happiness, no life, since a certain destructive and deadening power is hidden in sin itself; only this power is disguised in a peculiar and seemingly attractive tinsel; otherwise, sin would not deceive any Christians.
Having stated the general rule about a Christian's attitude toward worldly life, we will nevertheless point out the main temptations that children will inevitably have to reckon with in their youth.
The first temptation is theater. Theater, like any other art—for example, poetry, painting, and, to some extent, music—can serve both good and evil. Everything depends on the subject being depicted. For example, a painting of the Madonna is always capable of inspiring a thoughtful and elevated mood; conversely, a painting with seductive content will have a corrupting effect. Literature and theater can have the same effect. We do not have a purely Christian theater, but modern theater is a complete and perfect depiction of worldly, sinful life, which Christians are commanded not to love. This is why most theatrical plays are so unedifying and seductive; this is also why we have few lofty, classical works, and they are rarely staged, and audiences are reluctant to see them .
Of course, one shouldn't prevent a young Christian from attending plays with a strict Christian message, such as Sienkiewicz's "Quo Vadis," Tolstoy's "Tsar Feodor Ioannovich," or Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," or the operas "Rogneda," "Prince Igor," "A Life for the Tsar," and others, where, in addition to the Christian plot, the singing differs little from ancient Christian melodies. But modern dramas, tragedies, and comedies, including the works of Andreyev, Gorky, and Artsybashev, cannot have any influence other than corrupting. A pure young Christian wouldn't go to such things himself. In any case, it wouldn't be difficult to restrain him. And in general, he will not go to the theater often, because he will soon notice that the theater with its entire atmosphere, even with good plays, somehow distracts a person, weakens the will and spoils the overall mood.
Having said this about the theater in general, we are resolutely against 12-14- and 15-year-olds attending it. Any theater—the content of the play, the sets, and the entire ambiance—makes a very complex and powerful impression; a child's tender soul, however, requires simpler and less powerful impressions. Therefore, pediatricians and psychiatrists prohibit theater for children of this age, as its strong impressions can develop nervousness and have a detrimental effect on their health. Even good things will be of no use here, not to mention tempting things: everything has its time.
The second temptation is dance evenings. We find it difficult to discuss the benefits of dancing: we would rather talk about the benefits of gymnastics and recommend it to every young man and woman as a means of strengthening strength and character, partially replacing physical labor, which is necessary for every person's proper development.
Dancing, again, is a secular pastime. Perhaps for children aged 15–17, it's relatively harmless, especially in a modest home environment, but for older youths, dancing is not indifferent: it can lead to immoral thoughts and moods, and generally harm the purity of soul and body.
Someone might object: "To the pure, all things are pure"—meaning that even adults can approach dancing without any preconceived notions, simply, like children. We won't argue with this, but we should note that pure people are now very few in number: clearly, neither theater nor dancing have contributed to this. Conversely, "to the impure, all things are impure" (see Titus 1:15 ).
How would a strictly Christian young man react to dancing and other similar entertainment? Probably with distrust: he'd be offended by some of the ballroom costumes, which offer little in the way of chastity, and by some of the dance routines, and soon he'd avoid such events. Of course, holiday dances are a pagan phenomenon, completely unacceptable from a Christian perspective.
The very question of bringing young people together and influencing each other for good is quite complex and double-edged. Young people naturally feel attraction, are interested in each other, and seek companionship: there may be nothing wrong with this. A chaste young man and woman, with a pure, uncorrupted imagination, are always strict with themselves, modest, shy, and ideally disposed. Their own moral integrity will protect them from any, even the slightest, ignobleness, and will not allow them to waste time in idleness, vulgar courtship, and the like, for each of them will have their own serious work to occupy them—we mean studying, and at the same time, perhaps, concern for the support of their poor parents. Such serious young people will not see each other often, and this is both normal and beneficial.
Careless and frequent communication can pose a danger to young people: firstly, frequent communication teaches absent-mindedness; secondly, it harms the purity of the soul, causing dreams, bad thoughts, and desires.
Neither a young Christian, nor, especially, a young woman, should reach the point of consciously evoking and nourishing evil thoughts, for sin, even if allowed in thoughts, acts on the soul murderously and darkly.
At this point in a child's life, or even a little earlier, it would be useful for parents or educators to carefully reveal to their children the dark and sinful side of life, for sooner or later, they will have to face it. It would be better if they learned sin in its true light, without embellishment, with all its grave moral and physical consequences pointed out. In this way, in conjunction with a good home environment, their souls can be protected from temptations and falls.
For a young man or woman, a fall must undoubtedly be considered the greatest misfortune, a complete internal catastrophe, the scars of which will remain for life. It is, one might say, the first funeral dirge a young man or woman sings to themselves and their healthy, wholesome state of mind. And when? At the very beginning of real life.
In its tragic consequences for the Christian mindset, a fall can be truly terrifying: grace then—perhaps for the first time in life—departs from a person, and the unfortunate soul feels as if it has lost something dear and priceless. Where then will the peace and clarity of the soul—the warmth and sincerity, the unfeigned joy of life—go? Christ, the Source of eternal life and joy, departs from the heart, and an evil passion takes up residence within—seducing, tormenting, and tormenting the person. Then unbelief develops especially strongly, for what is unbelief if not the wandering of a soul that has lost the light of Christ? With a pure life and humility, thoughts of unbelief are not frightening and quickly disappear through prayer, reading, and spiritual conversation. But with a vicious life, they are dangerous and difficult to resolve: every passion, and especially carnal sins and pride, cloud a person's spiritual vision with an impenetrable fog and hide the light of truth from them. That is why Christ persistently warned against falls, forbidding even mental sin ( Matthew 5:28 ). The apostles also tirelessly preached the same: "Whoever corrupts the temple of God ," writes the Apostle Paul to Christians, " God Himself will punish him , for the temple of God must be holy, and you are that temple" (see 1 Corinthians 3:17 ).
The greatest incentive to debauchery is a dissipated and cheerful life, of course – drunkenness and reading corrupting, pornographic literature.
Bishop Theophan characteristically speaks of the harm of a dissipated life: "There is nothing," we read, "that can better extinguish the good seeds previously planted in the heart of a youth than through distractions, light reading, and dreams. A young flower, planted in a place where the winds blow on it from all sides, will suffer for a while and then wither; grass that is often walked on does not grow. The same thing happens to the heart and the good inclinations within it if one indulges in dreams, or idle reading, or entertainment... That is why, returning from some kind of distraction, our soul yearns. The absent-minded person has made his soul a highway, along which, through the imagination, tempting objects pass like shadows and beckon the soul. Taking advantage of this, the enemy approaches the soul, steals the good seed, and places evil in it . "
Reading pornographic literature is especially harmful to the soul. It stupefies the soul just as the harmful fumes of the earth stupefy a person's mind. Vivid depictions of base passions and the entire filthy environment act as a powerful suggestion on a nervous and impressionable person—even when they themselves might not wish to be imbued with and revel in the shameful images. But most people, as we know, read with the goal of imagining these scenes and experiencing something similar to what the characters depict. Such people seek their own suffering and destruction, drowning themselves—for sin only tempts and destroys.
Therefore, as much as possible, parents must restrain their children from entertainment, reading seductive books, and daydreaming. They must ensure that their children themselves fear corruption and degradation as the most terrible and irreparable misfortune they could ever experience. Indeed, wealth, fame, and health can all be acquired again; only innocence and purity cannot be acquired a second time, for these are given to a person only once.
The further consequences of a depraved life are as follows: coarsening of the soul and heart, extreme egoism, dissatisfaction with one's situation; further still—a bold denial of everything, disillusionment with life, and perhaps a tragic end. Thus, sin, luring a person into its web with deception and bait, like a spider, entangles him in its nets and drives him to despair and death if the poor man does not stop in time. Many tears must be shed before he can atone for his sin and once again bring Christ back into his soul.
If debauchery is so destructive, then an honest marriage is blessed. This, on the contrary, does not damage the integrity of a person's nature or their Christian spirit and can truly be a school of salvation if the family members are of a pious disposition.
A Christian teenager may be tempted by these three factors—a dissipated life, corrupt literature, and contact with the opposite sex. Both parents and the school should protect them from these temptations, and let the one being protected understand why and from what they are being protected. If they understand, they will protect themselves no less than their parents: grace will help them in this, for Christ is always close to the innocent hearts of children.
Blessed are those parents whose children grew up as Christians before school; even happier are those who saw them become Christians even in the perilous years of adolescence. Let them consider this an undeserved mercy from God, the best reward for all the labors and sorrows of raising them. Such good families are enviable, and great grace rests upon them!
Now we have indicated in the main the path along which the Christian education of children should proceed, we have indicated the main obstacles that may be encountered in this process, and we have also indicated the main ways to overcome them.
These predictions and the good wishes hidden within them involuntarily draw our thoughts to the present reality and are chained to it. Alas, this reality is sad and bleak! Our youth perishes in the prime of life; sin corrupts children almost from the cradle. Our land is filled with weeping and groaning, for it is rare that a family no longer has its own grief. And the words of Scripture are fulfilled in us: "Rachel weeps for her children and refuses to be comforted, because they are not" ( Matthew 2:18 ) – those dear, pure, and innocent ones she caressed in childhood are gone: they have been taken from her, replaced by others. She weeps and refuses to be comforted.
Yes, a mother's grief is boundless! But let it not reach the point of despair, for all is not yet lost.
A mother has a great power that no earthly power can compare with: her sorrowful prayer for her children.
The history of the Christian Church has preserved examples of how a mother's prayer saved and even made saints of children who had previously been lost in a life of sin. Such, for example, was Monica, the mother of St. Augustine . It is appropriate here to recall the great struggle of her life.
Desiring to see her son as a true Christian, she never left him without her attention and tearfully prayed to God for him. But he—gifted and talented as he was—was drawn to pagan life, giving in to passions and betraying the true Gospel teaching. Sometimes he was captivated by ancient philosophy, sometimes fascinated by various heresies. Finally, after many years of such a life, he seemed to have outlived his soul, tired of loving and falling, and came to complete disillusionment. Death threatened Augustine. But on that day, when her son stood as if on the brink of the abyss, Monica turned to God with such a mournful cry that He, the Almighty, could not refuse her, could not fail to respond: and "from the sinful Augustine He made Saint Augustine, and the mother died in the joys of this spiritual birth, as other women die in the throes of earthly birth, having spent 25 years of her life saving her son, in tears and trials . "
Yes, the power of a mother's prayer is great! And Christ, during His earthly life, could not help but heed it or resist this power, and He returned to mothers their already dead children, even in body.
Therefore, let poor mothers take heart and not lose heart! For who can know and comprehend the infinite love of God? If a mother fails to save her child here on earth, and he dies in sin, then perhaps, through her cries to God, she will save him in heaven and there meet him cleansed and purified of sin, by God's grace? Oh, how her sorrowful heart will then rejoice, and her great sorrow will be replaced by boundless joy!
Source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Varlaam_Rjashentsev/o-khristianskom-vospitanii-detej/