ROC – Raising our children within the spirit of Orthodoxy – Everyday life

26 September 2019

With God’s Grace, the mothers’ and children’s group met today again at the Monastery. The subject of discussion was “Raising our children within the spirit of Orthodoxy – everyday life”.

Our aim as parents is to raise our children to have Communion with God. Starting from a very young age, from the time they are born, we can show them God by example and by creating an environment around them that helps them to focus on Christ. Less or no TV time, as much as this is possible, and reading to them stories from the Bible is a great start.

With young children, the parables are of the best first stories from the Bible that we can expose them to. The parables help them to learn and understand what is good. This is the base upon which we can then build, making it easier for them to then understand about Christ and His life, and subsequently the Church.

There are a lot of Christian books for children that we can read to them according to their age. Here, care must be exercised as a number of these books contain non-Orthodox content, and can create the wrong idea in the minds of the children. Choosing carefully the books we read to them can be as important as showing them Christ through our lives.

At the same time, there are numerous children’s books available, which are not based on Christian stories. Books with fairies, pirates, wizards, etc. Care must also be exercised by the parents in choosing these books, especially for young children. In these young ages, it is important for the children to understand and embrace God, the true spiritual world within Orthodoxy, the miracles, the angels, etc. Everything else can distract from the true message, from Christ. At some stage in their lives, children will be inevitably exposed to all these things, but if Christ has already firmly entered their hearts, the older children will be able to better distinguish between the good and the bad, the true and the imaginary. They will be better able to accept and embrace what is good for them, and reject what may be harmful.

An Orthodox home is the best possible start in life. Let’s all try to work towards this!