Feature
Family Offices
Teaching Children to Love Being Sons & Daughters
One summer when our son Rafi was just two years old, June and I vacationed with my brother and sister-in-law at the New Jersey shore. As the five of us were crossing the main thoroughfare one afternoon, Rafi threw a tantrum. In that dangerous location, with cars and trucks speeding by a foot or two away from us, he was completely out of control.
My brother scolded me harshly for not having disciplined the boy better. If dogs could be trained to wait patiently to cross a street, he said, why couldn’t I teach a two-year-old boy to do it? Needless to say, when my brother’s own children came into this world, he learned that children are not dogs.
What people are saying about Touchstone:
A Thief or a Judge
It is no small task to teach children rules and cultivate in them a desire to observe and obey the law. The rules for correct human conduct certainly are more complex and the results more expansive and less predictable than with a dog. The dog may be taught to obey the leash near to perfection, but he remains in all other respects a creature of instinct, so that the English setter stubbornly points when scent or sound is near and the Border collie circles and herds whomever and whatever is in her vicinity.
Human freedom is a power of self-transcendence. One might even go so far as to say that the self is a creative and transformative act, as a philosopher might put it. Morality transcends mere animal behavior because it involves freedom and choice, whereas animal behavior is the necessary and determinate response of the creature to its environment. In other words, the child who is taught right from wrong remains free to become a thief or a judge, or, and this is no small matter, a good father or mother.
Thus, the parent who tries to train his child as he would a dog, so that the child makes the choices he would make and becomes what he envisions him to become, not only acts tyrannically but may be disappointed in the results. The parent who teaches his child to know and love the rules in order that he learn to navigate out of harm’s way and toward the desired good is not only being true to the vocation of parenthood but also realistic about his influence over his child.
The Pruned Child
Morality is connatural to human nature; that is, acting morally is what we would do were it not for sin, were we not so distracted and disoriented by our own egocentricity, bad habits, and corrupted imagination. But we are distracted and disoriented, and in order to grow into a morally healthy and upright individual, the human child needs the human equivalent of pruning—not the equivalent of dog training.
He needs to be taught the rules of conduct and given the discipline that helps him follow them freely and happily, knowing what they are for. “Children have more life than we have; the only thing they lack is law,” as G. K. Chesterton reminded us.
This having been said, however, parents are wise to regard rules minimalistically. Rules and law do not cover all things: Following the rules is not all that makes a person moral. Rules and law are not the heart and soul of morality. The old legalism that thinks it can cover every contingency of life with rules and sanctions is just as flawed as the reformist doctrine that thinks that all one need do is teach children to think for themselves and they will act morally.
Vigen Guroian was, until his retirement, Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. His books include Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (2002) and The Orthodox Reality: Culture, Theology, and Ethics in the Modern World (Baker Academic, 2018).
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on family from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
Encounters with Faith & Forgiveness in Communities of Faith by Nicole M. King
28.2—March/April 2015
Neo-Pagan Family Policies Doom Any Recovery by Allan C. Carlson
more from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
An Architectural Sign of Mere Christianity by Michael Ward
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
