in the story, 'the little girl' kezia's upbringing is responsible for her image of her father as a strict, unfeeling and authoritarian individual. How does the modern day upbringing of children make them better and adjusted to parent-child relationship
Answers
"There are differing opinions regarding the best age to begin the spiritual upbringing of a child. Some parents think that in the first several years a child needs only external care, and consider him like some amusing kitten, unreceptive to spiritual influence. Such an opinion contradicts Christian teaching and experimental evidence. Psychology has established that a child is receptive to many external influences right after his birth.
A certain scholar compared the subconscious process of a child to that of a movie strip, which records all perceptions non-stop. A child may as yet lie in the crib, but his soul already amasses impressions, picks up sounds, follows movements around him with his eyes, discerns voice intonations and even the mood of his parents. From all these non-stop impressions the child's personality is formed, and after they sink into his subconscious, they cannot be blotted out by any means.
Parents make a mistake when they consider their child to be completely free from evil. Experience shows that a child comes into the world not only with good tendencies but with bad ones also. Science calls them inheritances, and the Church, the seeds of original sin. Everyone is born with his nature partially corrupted by sin.
That is why the education of a child should include some basic training on how to struggle against bad inclinations. Without this, the child will grow unarmed against temptations. When a child is abandoned to his own desires, then, no matter how talented he might be, his good qualities may become completely overwhelmed by his evil inclinations.
A child should always know what is permissible and what is not. Sensible prohibitions and light punishments are absolutely necessary. On understanding that the violation of imposed rules results in unpleasant consequences, the child will avoid the forbidden. Thus a healthy foundation will be laid in him, and his will, which is just beginning to form, will be prepared to submit to God-established moral laws.
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