Family priority
For every Orthodox Christian, family should be above all else. Neither work, nor friends, nor any hobbies should be more important than children. All will pass. Only the family will remain.
Preschool children can only be raised by personal example. It is useless to say that smoking is bad. Mom and dad themselves must do without cigarettes.
It is very good if parents have a hobby. For a boy, fishing trips or hiking trips with his father will not pass without a trace. A mother who teaches her daughter to sew will become even closer and dearer to her.
Spending time together, doing activities, and traveling connect people. Not only family ties arise here, but also friendships. Adult children happily continue to do what their parents taught them.
Sometimes they forget their childhood friends, but they are able to remember the performance they went to with their mom and dad. How strict and solemn dad was, how beautiful mom was. And how proud the little boy was to walk hand in hand with such parents. The best in the world!
God's providence and purpose
The task of parents is to help the child determine his path in this life. Education is not limited to teaching the sciences and the fundamentals of Christianity. You can keep your child strict, develop his mind and force him to do as his parents want. Answer the questions:
- Is this God's providence?
- Does the Lord want a child to enter a theological seminary against his will?
- Will he then become a good priest?
- Will he be happy?
Watch your child, guide, but do not force. If a person does not have the ability to draw, you can teach him. But the paintings of such an artist will not bring anything into the world. There will be no joy from them. As a result, the child’s life will be crippled, and the parents will be disappointed in him.
It was easier in early childhood to see that the baby reaches out to animals, bandages their paws and gives them medicine. God intended this little man to become a veterinarian, to save His creations.
Yes. Sometimes you have to force it. Children, like adults, are prone to laziness. Teach work and consistency of activities from childhood. But don’t insist if you see that the baby is not succeeding. Try offering your child something else.
Faith in people
Children of any age should not be deceived. If you promised to play after dinner, play. And so every time. Keep your promises so that you can ask your child to keep his vows.
If you are not sure that you can do something, say that you will try. If it didn't work, do it another time.
A preschool child must be able to trust people. But the task of parents is to teach them to distinguish good from evil. It is necessary to explain to a preschool child that there are friends and strangers. You cannot approach strangers. You can trust your acquaintances, friends and relatives.
Preschool children will have to be taught humility. It's easy to make a mistake about a person. It is difficult to forgive and understand. The child needs to be explained that people can lie and betray. A true Christian will take this as a test, but will not hold a grudge against the offender.
Only by trusting people can one grow up to be a good Christian.
Christian family
In an Orthodox Christian family, the first place in life is taken by the family itself. Orthodoxy makes it clear that the family will always be there in happiness and in sorrow. No friends or work can replace loved ones, children and parents. The main difference between an Orthodox family and others is love for people and faith in goodness. Orthodox parents teach children not to be offended by others, but to accept the situation as a test and overcome it.
Relations between believing parents are respectful; the showdown takes place without children's ears and eyes. A father's disrespect for his mother undermines the authority of the younger generation.
Raising children in an Orthodox family implies obedience to children and adherence to traditions. However, fasting by children of any age is prohibited. It is possible to abstain from sweets, but the baby should do this consciously, and not by the decision of the parents.
Visit to the temple
Orthodoxy is not just going to church. You cannot simply send children with a nanny or a relative to Sunday service or Sunday school. You need to take the kids yourself and show them that this is right. If parents prefer to relax on their days off, this is a bad example.
It is difficult to demand quiet behavior from little ones during service. It's hard to stand with them in church. Be patient! Talk quietly about what is happening, about icons, about Holy deeds. Let me hold it and light the candle.
Remember: true Christians will never make a comment if tired children are naughty. Orthodox Christians will either help their parents kindly or will look at it with tenderness. Children in church are wonderful.
Orthodoxy for children
For children raised in a Christian family, Orthodoxy is a part of life. Children's perception of evening and morning prayers should be like an ordinary conversation with God, an assessment of their actions. Raising children in Orthodoxy, parents from an early age introduce Christian customs, laws, and norms of behavior. Do not forget that the main teacher is the correct example of parents.
Children from one to three years old should be brought to church and told about what is happening there (in an appropriately quiet tone), show your child the icons, let him look at everything. Explain that it is forbidden to make noise in church, and if the child is tired and cannot stand still, just go outside. Orthodox Christians will never “shush” a little one in church, they will only help distract him or they will ignore him.
Kindergarten children are ready to accept information about Christianity. Some gardens host talks on religion and faith. In large cities of Russia, Orthodox gardens have begun to open, where children are introduced to Orthodoxy from a very young age.
Keeping fasts
Children of any age are exempt from the obligation to fast. A growing body needs a balanced diet. Orthodox upbringing in this case may involve limiting the child’s intake of sweets. It is very good if the child can do this consciously.
Preschool children need to be taught self-restraint. Not just for the Lord's sake. A child must be able to give up something for the sake of a Person. Not necessarily dad, mom or brothers and sisters. A Christian must be able to sacrifice and help. And this needs to be taught from early childhood.
Marital relations
There is mom and dad. Their children see how they treat each other. The model of the parental family will be recreated by grown children.
Adults should respect and help each other. Mutual support, especially in difficult times for the family, is very important. Kids should see that mom takes care of dad, and dad takes care of mom. Children are especially sensitive to any falsehood, so the relationship between spouses must be sincere. Otherwise, there’s probably no point in starting a family.
You cannot quarrel in the presence of children of any age, especially preschool children. Screaming scares babies. The child subtly senses the relationships between adults.
Humiliation of the mother by the father will give rise to disrespect for the mother by the children. How to explain to a child that a father can show disrespect to his wife, but a child cannot? How to maintain the authority of the mother as a parent and educator without proper support from the father?
Remember that the basis of a happy family is the love of parents for each other and their children.
How to raise a teenager?
Roman4 years agoReply
I think we should always cling to the very thing (conscience, love for parents, justice) - everything that awakens humanity. Here's an article for example - I laughed at the end: . I visited with old comrades. Married couple and son, 11-12 years old. Svetka equips him to go to the store, buy bread, milk, onions, potatoes, cucumbers and all that. The boy balked, I tell you, he’s riding an elk. Where else did he pick up such words... In short, he whines that it will be hard for him. Well, I think that my fighting friend will morally drag my son down and kick him to the store. But no. She sat down on a chair thoughtfully and said:
— In the 90s, I was as thin as a sliver, food was very bad. Not far from the house, sometimes a truck would come to the “patch” and sell flour by weight. The flour is of the “third grade, not defective” variety and is reasonably priced. And considering that there is a bakery nearby, everyone knew its origin very well. Where to go? And then a cry went through the yard channels that tomorrow the machine would again arrive at the appointed place, but at an unusual time, when the parents were at work. And they entrusted me with a great mission - to buy that very flour. They gave me two pillowcases and plenty of money. I come to the patch, and there, mother of God, they don’t give gray flour by weight, but in factory-made bags of 50 kg. White! And the price is not much more expensive. And my survival instinct kicked in. I quickly calculated everything in my head, rushed home, raked out some of my stashed hundreds, and also begged some from my senile great-grandmother, and in the end there was just enough for a bag. She grabbed the cart, again her grandmother’s, and back. And there was already a line at the car, it was like a snake, the people didn’t hit the child, but an adult would definitely have raked him. So I got this bag, tied it to the cart with clotheslines, but I can’t move it, the bag is heavier than me. Well, by hook or by crook, she took a running start, like a tarantai rolled. I can’t describe how I dragged this hellish chariot over the asphalt potholes, how I pulled it into the entrance. And passers-by walk by, their eyes widen, as I wriggle like a worm and continue to stomp. A couple of men actually laughed out loud at me and made jokes. It was very disappointing. - Why couldn’t you ask the gallery for help? - the boy raised his voice. “My beloved son, if anyone had taken hold of my precious cart, I would have grabbed his throat with my teeth.” This was my main fear, that someone would come up and take away this damned torment from the helpless me! I even worked out a plan in my mind about how I would act in such a situation. And “getting your teeth into your throat” is not just an expression, but a real plan of action.
Five minutes later the boy slammed the front door and rushed towards the store.
Raising and punishing children
Children must obey their parents. In theory. In practice, everything is done differently. The kids are naughty. Sometimes just for fun. Sometimes they test their own power over their parents. In the latter case, you need to be especially persistent and reasonable. Children regard the slightest weakness as weakness.
Everyone knows that physical punishment is completely unacceptable. You can only avoid using methods that you will be ashamed of later by calming down.
Did the child do something and deserve punishment? Inhale, exhale and... retreat. Wait out the first wave of anger. Scold the children to yourself. Drink a glass of water. Inhale, exhale. Consider a punishment that is offensive but not humiliating.
You cannot punish with something that is a duty or is used as a way to cultivate certain qualities. Helping around the house is simply the respectful attitude of children towards their parents. Caring for someone close to you means showing your love. Not otherwise! Otherwise, an aversion to fulfilling the requests of adults will be developed.
If you feel that you are able to adequately talk with the culprit, go ahead, if not, do it all over again. Orthodox education is, first of all, patience and forgiveness. Talk to your child about how bad his action is and why. Not the child himself, but precisely what he did. Say that you are upset and that God does not understand how such a wonderful baby could do this. Allow your child to repent and accept his grief over the misdeed.
Prohibiting sweets, watching cartoons or going for walks is more than a serious punishment for preschool children.
Parenting
From the book of priest Pavel Gumerov “Small Church”, published by Sretensky Monastery in 2008.
Victor Ivanov. Family. 1945
At a meeting of seminary graduates, one of my classmates, and now the rector of several churches, a dean, stood up and said: “For me, serving the Church and serving the family stand in the same place.” It was not entirely usual to hear this from a dean, who, due to his duties, is responsible for several parishes, builds churches, and cares for many people. But then I thought and realized that he was right. If a priest has a dysfunctional family, it is very difficult for him to do God’s work. The Holy Apostle Paul writes: If anyone does not take care of his own, and especially those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel (1 Tim. 5:8). That's how tough it is. He does not write, for example: “Whoever prays poorly and does not care about his business,” and who does not care about his family. And even a priest, performing a service higher than which there is nothing in the world, serving the liturgy and establishing the Church of God, cannot forget about his home and family. A wife and a family are given to a priest once in a lifetime. He cannot remarry, and he must especially take care of his mother and help her. A holy place is never empty, a replacement can be found for any post, even the most responsible one, other people will come, but for the children of the father, and for the wife, no one can replace the husband.
In the modern world, where there is so little love left, the family is a quiet haven, a saving oasis, where a person should strive to escape all storms and worries. The commandment to love God and neighbors is embodied primarily in the family. Who else to love if not the people closest to us - children, relatives? By loving them, we learn to love God. For how can you love Him whom you have not seen without loving those with whom you live?
We are often driven to perform some kind of feat, to help someone, to save someone, but the Lord will ask us first of all about how we took care of our family, the children entrusted to us, how we raised them.
Let's dwell on this for a moment. Who are they, our children? A continuation of us? Our property? Or, even worse, material for the implementation of those projects and ambitions that we failed to realize in our lives? God gives children. They are God’s children and only then are they ours. And God gives them to us for a while to ask for them. When we understand this, we will not harbor false illusions and grieve from resentment against them. They say they spent their whole life and energy on children, but they didn’t get what they wanted.
Parents in most cases love their children more than their parents' children. And the expectation of great childhood love is real selfishness. Let's start with the fact that a normal father, a normal mother have children for themselves, at that moment they do not think at all that anyone will thank them for this. The reasons why people give birth to children: 1) love for children; 2) to have support in old age. And hardly anyone thinks that they have benefited their future child or improved the demographic situation in the country. Children did not ask them to give birth, we do it for ourselves. Those who love children know that they can give us much more joy and happiness than we can give them. It is a heavy cross to not have children. We should be grateful to them that we have them.
It can be bitter to listen to parents’ complaints about their children, on whom they supposedly spent the best years of their lives, a lot of money and mental strength, and who repaid them with black ingratitude. There is no need to be like Rockefeller, who billed his already grown children for all the years when he watered and fed them. We need to regret not the lost years and money, but the fact that we could not raise our children as worthy support for their parents, could not win their love.
And therefore, the main task of parents is not to give the child the best clothes, food and toys, but to educate him. That is, to cultivate the image of God in him, to save his soul, and the rest will follow.
I know first-hand about school education, since I taught for quite a long time both in Sunday school and in the most ordinary vocational school. And I see with pain that every year the situation with children is getting worse. And how could it be otherwise when no one cares about the children: neither parents, nor school. Previously, at least there were educational programs, clubs, sections. Now there are almost none.
But sex education classes are being introduced in schools. All that remains is the TV and computer. A child turns on the TV and sees, for example, Fyodor Bondarchuk’s film “The 9th Company,” where the speech is constantly flavored with obscenities and a group sex scene is shown. They say that one “Afghan” in anger broke the disk with this film, saying that this is not true and slander about the Afghan war, it is not even historically true, the 9th company did not die, as shown in the film. In the film Antikiller, the main character, “a knight without fear or reproach,” smokes weed. And there are many such examples, because even our Minister of Culture Shvydkoy called for declaring swearing our national treasure. TV constantly broadcasts films that just a few years ago fell under the article “Production and display of pornography.” To this we need to add children's (!) erotic magazines, sex education classes at school and much more. On the same TV there is constantly explicit and hidden advertising of alcohol and tobacco, and in many films - even drugs. Drugs have become very accessible, and beer is generally sold at the price of mineral water. When I was at school, we knew only one drug addict from our school, but now this problem has overwhelmed all educational institutions.
Why am I telling all this? Not to intimidate anyone. I think everyone already knows about these problems. It is important to understand something else: now is not the time when we grew up and were brought up, not to mention the older generation. And without faith in God, without Christian moral commandments, without Orthodox culture, we will not raise children. Even 17–20 years ago it was possible to rely on universal human values in education, today it is not. Time is lost. Christian, Orthodox upbringing gives the child an inoculation, spiritual immunity against all the evil that is increasing every day. And the struggle for the soul of a child goes not only through the cult of the dollar, sex and material values. We live in a country of victorious occultism and Satanism. To understand this, it is enough to look through any newspaper with advertisements for witchcraft services and go to any book tray.
It is impossible to defeat this kind (demonic) by material means. That's what faith is for. If a child learns “what is good and what is bad” not according to Mayakovsky, but according to the Law of God, if he receives a core of faith in God in his life, if he learns that for all our deeds we will give an answer not only beyond the grave, but also in this life, he will be able to resist the world and its evil. Vysotsky has the words: “If cutting a path with your father’s sword, you wound salty tears on your mustache, if in a hot battle you experienced how much it costs, then you read the right books in childhood.” And our task is to give children these books, that is, education.
By the way, about books. It is very important to instill in a child from childhood a love of reading and a taste for good literature. This should be done as early as possible, without being lazy, reading aloud to the children. If the baby gets used to good, real books, he will not have the desire to read bad ones. Now is the time of computers, DVDs and mobile phones, and young people read very little. But you can learn to use a computer very quickly, but learning to read books without having such a habit since childhood is very difficult. The same can be said about high-quality, good films and cartoons. By cultivating a child’s taste in this area, we will protect his eyes and ears (and most importantly, his soul) from obscene, mediocre crafts. He most likely won’t be able to watch them himself. While buying CDs for children, I was surprised to find out what a huge number of wonderful domestic films and cartoons for children we have. And of course, they cannot be compared with Western products. Now let's move on to our main topic: raising children in the family.
Maybe I’ll say a banal thing, but raising a child needs to start with working on yourself. There are famous proverbs: “Oranges are not picked from an aspen tree” and “An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” How we would like to see our children in the future is how we should be now, when our children live and communicate with us. We must teach by example of life. If a father rants about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco while puffing on a cigarette and sipping beer, will this have any effect?
One day I witnessed a very unpleasant scene. Two young mothers stood on the street and talked. Their small children (no more than four years old) were playing two steps away. And the most monstrous obscene language flew out of the mouths of these women every second word. I have never heard such abuse from seasoned mechanics and former prisoners. Who will grow up from these mothers' children? Not hard to guess. The same people like to use foul language. And where there is swearing, there are certainly other vices. When I was a teenager, it was almost impossible to meet a woman smoking on the street. Now even young mothers pushing a stroller smoke, even on the playground. Moreover, often people do this not maliciously, they have simply completely lost the ability to distinguish between “good” and “bad.” They are so accustomed to drinking, smoking, and foul language that they consider all this the norm of life. One day my wife and children and I came to the playground. Besides us, there were several old women on benches and a man and a woman who were sitting right on the boards of the sandbox. The man was smoking. I approached him and asked him to leave, since there was a children’s playground and children were walking around. Oddly enough, he took my call completely normally, apologized, put out his cigarette and left. I think he just didn’t think that his smoking was unpleasant or harmful to someone.
I will give an example of how admonitions are sent to parents for an ungodly life and how the Lord shows them how much harm they cause to their children.
Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Kronid (Lyubimov) spoke about an incident that happened to his fellow countryman, a peasant in the village of Ketilovo, Volokolamsk district. His name was Yakov Ivanovich. He had a son, Vasily, eight years old. For some time now he began to have fits of unbearable foul language, which were accompanied by blasphemy against the sacred. At the same time, his face became black and scary. His father tried to punish him, throwing him into the basement, but the boy continued to curse from there. The boy’s father said that he himself doesn’t swear when he’s sober, but when he drinks, he’s the first to swear on the street and swear in front of the children. He himself was aware that he was to blame for his son's obsession. Archimandrite Kronid advised the peasant to tearfully repent of his sins and pray to St. Sergius for the healing of his son. Arriving at the Lavra a year later, the peasant said that his son soon fell ill and began to melt like a candle. For two months he was ill and was unusually meek and humble in heart. No one heard a bad word from him. Two days before his death, he confessed and took communion and, having said goodbye to everyone, died. The shocked father stopped drinking and never uttered swear words again.
This incident shows how responsible we are for our every action and word spoken in the presence of children. We know well from the Gospel what awaits the one who seduces one of these little ones.
The main educational factor is the atmosphere prevailing in the family. What a child sees and receives in the family, in childhood, forms 80% of his character.
Now a theory has emerged that there is no bad inheritance from parents of alcoholics and drug addicts. It’s just that teenagers, being in an environment where they drink and use drugs, themselves adopt these vices.
I am not a doctor, it is difficult for me to judge the correctness of this hypothesis, but I will say one thing: a child has no sins, adults commit sins. There are many examples of children from families of alcoholics being brought up in prosperous families and growing up to be completely normal people. Heredity was overcome with love and care.
The same can be said about other sins. For example, a father is prone to anger and often yells at his wife. My son grows up exactly the same. And everyone says that he is just like his father. In fact, he really inherited an impulsive, emotional character from his parent, but he took his role model from his dad. Children inherit character and temperament traits from us, but how they use and develop them depends on our behavior and how we raise them. Thrift can become thrift, or it can become stinginess. Firmness can develop into perseverance, or it can turn into stubbornness and tyranny. Therefore, it is important to discern the characteristics of a child’s character even in infancy and give them proper development, and not strive at any cost to remake them or impose something that is not at all typical for the child. The same can be said about abilities. If a teenager has the talent of an artist, and they want to make him a mathematician at any cost just because his dad is a professor of mechanics and mathematics, you can greatly harm your beloved child.
The kind of relationship between the spouses greatly influences the condition of the children. After all, a family is a single organism, and children are inseparable from us. Psychologist Maxim Bondarenko gives the following example: “A father comes for a consultation with his son. The problem is stated to be the son's poor performance at school and his reluctance to study. As the conversation progresses, it turns out that the father constantly quarrels with the mother because he is jealous of her. It would seem, what does this have to do with my son’s studies? It turns out it's direct. Since he is afraid of his parents’ divorce, he unconsciously pulls some of the conflict energy in the family onto himself. For this he “had to become” a bad student. As a result, parents direct part of their aggression addressed to each other towards their son, who thus unknowingly “saves” the family from collapse. So it turns out that the father and mother are engaged in “raising” him instead of solving the problem of their own relationships”[1]. “When the family is together, then the soul is in the right place,” says popular wisdom.
If parents want to raise good children, they must understand themselves and achieve good relationships. Then it will be easier to raise children. The problem of modern parents is the lack of free time; in this time pressure, very few hours are left for children, especially fathers. And this is understandable, times are hard, you need to earn money. But still find time to play and work with the children. And they will thank you for this, even by making you closer to each other.
One dad said: “I used to think it was an unaffordable luxury to go with my children to the zoo, nature, or a circus performance. I didn’t consider myself such a free person to waste time on such trifles. It’s better to pray and read the Gospel. But God broke and completely changed my ideas about spiritual life. I realized that my spirituality as a father is to spend all my free time with my children. No amount of spirituality can justify the need to raise your own children. And now we go to the zoo, play together and walk in the forest.”
The role of the father is especially important in raising boys. The way you played football with your children, went hiking, made pilgrimages, made something together will be remembered for a lifetime. Childhood memories are the brightest, brightest, they shine for us like stars all our lives.
Many dads, feeling guilty towards their children due to lack of communication, lavish their children with expensive things and toys, but often the children do not need this at all. It would be much more valuable to them if dad did something with them, fixed a car or taught them how to saw and hammer nails. We often complain about the bad influence of the street and school. Do we ourselves spend a lot of time with children, influence them, are we interested in how they live, what films and songs excite them? Parents should be their children's first friends, maintaining, of course, subordination and avoiding familiarity.
Should children be praised? I think it is necessary. Family, dad and mom, is the whole world for a child. He has done something, but still cannot objectively assess his success and has no life experience. An adult can receive an assessment of his work at work, from friends, relatives, but a child can only receive feedback from his parents. And praise, even for small success, is of great importance for further creative growth.
And on the contrary, children to whom their parents repeat: “You are stupid, incompetent, fat,” “Nothing good will come of you,” grow up stupid, inept, losers. If a child, even a really sick one, is constantly looked after and protected from everything, he will consider himself sick and defective all his life. A so-called inferiority complex arises.
Now let's talk about such an important section of education as punishing children. Holy Scripture and the experience of the Church do not deny the need for strict punishment of children. He who spares his rod hates his son; and whoever loves disciplines him from childhood (Proverbs 13:25). The rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left neglected brings shame to his mother (Proverbs 29:15). But there is one “but”: any punishment in anger or irritation will not bring any benefit. ...Let not the sun go down on your anger (Eph 4:26). Parents who vent their anger and let off steam do not punish their children, but themselves. Punishment (especially corporal) should pursue one goal - benefit for the child; it must be brought up with love, calmly and without screaming. The age when you can spank a child should not be very early (the child will not even understand why he was spanked) and not too late (we will cause injury and offense to the teenager). If you follow this measure, after five years you will no longer have to corporally punish, a strict reminder of spanking is enough.
They say that Makarenko’s mother came to her and asked for advice on how to raise her disobedient son. A famous teacher asked how old he was, his mother said sixteen. Then Makarenko replied: “You are sixteen years late.” In order not to be late, you need to start from the first days, and even better from pregnancy. And you need to start your education with yourself. I recently heard a story from a gynecologist. She talked about how the birth fluids of mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy are clean and light, while those of mothers who smoke are brown and have a persistent smell of tobacco. A person becomes a smoker and alcoholic while still in the womb.
But let's continue about punishments. There is a phrase in the Holy Scriptures: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4). In education you need to avoid irritation and empty words. The instruction must be specific and to the point. For example, a child accidentally broke a vase. The terrible father pesters him with a meaningless question: “Why did you break the vase?” - “I didn’t mean to...” - “No, admit it, why did you break the vase?” The child's irritation increases because he does not know what to answer. The father's rage also intensifies. The child's patience may run out. One day the father may well hear: “Dad, are you a fool?” Well, what is the question, so is the answer[2].
A common mistake is to make comments at every step and turn them into bargaining chips. And the child soon begins to perceive them as a meaningless, meaningless background.
It's time to talk about the main thing. About Christian education of children. There is a common opinion that religious education should not be imposed on a child: they say, when he grows up, he will choose his faith and come to God. Not teaching anything and not educating at all is as crazy as not reading any books to a child: when they grow up, they will choose what to read. After all, we are trying to instill in a child what we ourselves consider good, correct, and do not think about the fact that someone has a different scale of values.
The second point: children are deprived of life experience; they cannot yet choose for themselves what is good and what is bad. The question of whether to educate in faith or not does not exist for a believer. Faith for us is the meaning of life, and don’t we really want to pass on to our children what is sacred to us?
Recently, a deacon, my friend, and I were discussing over a cup of tea whether it is necessary to force children to pray and go to church. And each of us gave many examples of pros and cons. How a child was forced to pray from childhood, and then he left the Church, and, conversely, how people raised in the faith from childhood became pious clergy. It seems to me that the most important thing is not only to put the child in prayer and take him to communion, but also to live in prayer and service ourselves. The child does not tolerate falsehood or formalism. If for parents prayer is a part of their life, soul, and they were able to show this to their children, then the child, despite external resistance, will not be able to live without God. There were cases when teenagers left the Church, but then returned, remembering their parents’ instructions. The main thing is that everything we do in the family should be done with one feeling - love for children and loved ones. When trying to get children into church, we must not go too far. It is unlikely that the child will be able to endure the entire night vigil or liturgy, or be able to read the entire rule for communion. A child should not feel burdened or bored in church. You can come before the beginning, explain to the child in advance what will happen at the service, and sing the troparion of the holiday with him. We ourselves are too lazy to read the Gospel with pictures to our children, tell them about the holidays, and then we complain that the children don’t want to go to church. A child is a person of habit. He gets used to eating, going to bed and getting up according to a schedule, going to clubs, and then to school. And going to church should also become such a good habit. Regular classes are very disciplined; this will be useful in all cases of life. And there is no need to be embarrassed that the child does not have a fiery glow during prayer. Children are very curious, they wait for our explanations. And we often limit ourselves to: “Follow me, because it’s necessary.” So the child won’t even go for a walk, let alone go to church. It is very good to explain to your child where the icon is in the church and what is painted on it, what the priests and altar servers are wearing, and teach him “I Believe” and “Our Father” so that he can sing with the people. But learning, of course, is not cramming. My child knew these prayers at the age of three. Mom just read them in the morning, before bed, before meals. After all, there is an expression: “to know like “Our Father.”
In this regard, I would like to touch on one more topic: labor education.
Children are used to playing. And they play not only with cars and dolls. For our children, the most favorite toys were pots, lids, and some very adult things. This needs to be used. Children take part in joint cooking with amazing joy, grating vegetables, stirring salads, and washing dishes. Still would! After all, they are usually not given this. This is not a child's mobile phone or a boring car. You can collect scattered toys by bringing them in a children's truck. And with what pleasure children help plant greens or hammer nails! If you know how to do something (sewing, drawing, crafting), your most favorite and interesting toys will be those that you made with your children. Activities with children bring no less joy to parents than to children. My baby just squealed with joy when I took him into the forest with me. I sawed dry trees, and he carried the branches to the car. It's hard to say which of us enjoyed it more.
As part of our topic, there is a point about raising children in the family, and not in child care institutions.
Of course, a family must raise a child; no one can replace a father and mother for children. However, I cannot say that children should under no circumstances be sent to kindergarten. There are situations when a mother raises a child without a father, is forced to work or study, and feed the family. Now many families have a very difficult financial situation; both parents work to provide for the family. You never know what situations there are. Of course, kindergarten is rather a tolerable evil. It has a number of serious disadvantages. A child is still too young to know what is good and what is bad. Children bring bad words, games, and habits from the garden. Often, educators do not monitor their charges well, or even offend them. Children in the kindergarten get sick more often. The child unlearns to pray before meals, before going to bed; they don’t do this in the garden. After all, at school age a child is stronger mentally and physically, and already has his own opinion. So, if possible, raise your children in a family. If the mother is not lazy, the child in the family will develop much faster than in kindergarten. And parental affection and warmth is education in itself.
If there is more than one child in the family, there will be no problems with communication either. Actress Anna Mikhalkova in an interview with Foma magazine says: “I’m afraid many people don’t think about raising children at all. How many families are there where the question of how to raise children is simply not raised... They put them in kindergarten and went to work. Then they took him out of the garden, washed him, fed him, and put him to bed. The situation forces many to live by inertia.”
Let us briefly dwell on the topic of large families. How many children to have? Here is the opinion of psychologist T. Shishova: “The only child in the family has a much greater chance of growing up selfish, and such people are extremely jealous. They want the whole world to revolve around them... Sometimes a woman cannot even talk calmly on the phone: the child immediately begins to whine, get out of the way, and demand that she hang up. Only children have a more difficult time in a group, while children from large families acquire communication skills very early. Moreover, communication with children of a different age gives them additional advantages: by taking care of the younger ones, they learn independence and gain confidence in their abilities. Having an older brother or sister nearby, the baby feels more protected. By imitating their older brothers and sisters, kids learn and develop much faster. Many mothers with many children say that they taught reading and counting only to their firstborns. Then the children learned in a relay race - from older to younger.”[3].
I myself am happy that I grew up in a family with three children. For some reason, I’m not spoiled.
The main reason why people do not want to have many children is economic. That is, it seems to them that they will not be able to feed a large family. Although, of course, there are other factors. I can say with absolute certainty: if a person wants to have many children, the Lord will definitely help him. And there are countless examples of this. I'll give just one. An altar boy I knew lived with his wife, mother and three children in a very small two-room apartment. There was even a sit-down bath. And so they decide to give birth to a fourth. So what? Their house (which should not have been demolished; it was nine-story and made of brick) is recognized as unsafe, and they are given three apartments in a new building at once. One three-room and two one-room. They rent out one of the one-room apartments, which is a great help.
In conclusion, I will quote the words of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who herself was an example of a mother and wife: “Parents should be what they want their children to be, not in words, but in deeds. They must teach their children by the example of their lives.”
