Early childhood moral lessons

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Anyone who has ventured to know a little more about Allan Kardec's history knows that he was educated by the Pestalozzi method, being one of his most exemplary disciples. For his teacher, education must be guided by the principles of fraternity and love, away from the concepts of sin and punishment, which greatly shaped Kardec's way of thinking, which later was based even more fully on Rational Spiritualism and, later, by Spiritism. We also know that the investigative and humble character of Professor Rivail was also fundamentally formed by this education, guided by the exploration of the natural sciences through the scientific method, and this, of course, explains a lot the way in which he acted against Spiritism.

All of this – fraternity, learning about the moral principles of good and God's laws, disinterested charity, which is the fruit of this learning, humility, which is born from the heart of one who never takes as a principle that his word is the last, in short, everything that is contained in the Pestalozzian methodology – provides the basis for a much better quality education, from the first steps of human beings on Earth. It is, I have no hesitation in saying, one of the greatest tools for the (trans)formation of society, greatly complemented by the understanding of the laws that Spiritism came to demonstrate. The two, together, have the greatest power, from childhood, to prevent the installation or development of the most harmful habits for the individual and for society – selfishness and pride – but, to date, neither of them has gained the space it deserves. , due to human attachment to false concepts that, on the surface, seem to please, but that, deep down, only cause unhappiness and delay.

To exemplify all this, nothing better than reproducing, in full, the content of the homonymous article by Allan Kardec, presented in the Spiritist Magazine of February 1864.

Of all the moral wounds of Society, it seems that selfishness is the most difficult to root out. Indeed, it is all the more so the more it is nourished by the very habits of education. It seems that the task is taken to arouse, from the cradle, certain passions that later become second nature. And they marvel at the vices of the Society, when children suck it up with their milk. Here is an example which, as everyone can judge, belongs more to the rule than to the exception.

In a family we know there is a girl between four and five years old, of a rare intelligence, but who has the small defects of spoiled children, that is, she is a little capricious, weepy, stubborn, and does not always thank her when given something. , which the parents take great care to correct, because apart from these defects, according to them, she has a heart of gold, a consecrated expression. Let's see how they manage to remove those small stains and preserve the gold in its purity.

One day they brought the child a sweet and, as usual, they told him: “You will eat it if you are good”. First lesson in sweet tooth. How many times, at the table, do they tell a child that he won't eat that snack if he cries. “Do this, or do that”, they say, “and you will have cream” or anything else that pleases him, and the child is constrained, not for reason, but in order to satisfy a sensual desire ((Desire of the senses)) that stings her.

It is even worse when they are told, which is no less frequent, that they will give their piece to someone else. Here, it's not just gluttony that's at stake, it's envy. The child will do what he is told, not only to have it, but so that the other child does not have it. Do you want to teach him a lesson in generosity? Then they say to him: “Give this fruit or this toy to so-and-so”. If she refuses, they do not fail to add, in order to stimulate a good feeling in her: “I will give you another one”, so that the child does not decide to be generous unless he is sure of losing nothing.

One day we witnessed a very characteristic event in this genre. It was a child of about two and a half years old, to whom they had made a similar threat, adding: “We will give it to your little brother, and you will have nothing.” To make the lesson more sensitive, they put the piece on the little brother's plate, who took the matter seriously and ate the portion. At the sight of this, the other turned red and it didn't take either the father or the mother to see the flash of anger and hatred that came from his eyes. The seed was sown: could it produce good grain?

Let's go back to the girl we talked about. As she did not realize the threat, knowing from experience that they rarely carried it out, this time they were firmer, for they understood that it was necessary to master this little character, and not wait for her to acquire a bad habit with age. They said that it is necessary to train children early, a very wise maxim, and to put it into practice, here is what they did: “I promise you, said the mother, that if you do not obey, tomorrow morning I will give your cake to the first poor girl who pass." No sooner said than done.

This time they wanted to keep their promise and teach him a good lesson. So the next day, in the morning, having seen a little beggar in the street, they brought her in and forced her daughter to take her by the hand and she herself gave her her cake. Then they praised his docility. Moral of the story: The daughter said, “If I had known about this, I would have rushed to eat the cake yesterday.” And everyone applauded this witty response. Indeed, the child had received a strong lesson, but one of pure selfishness, which he will not fail to take advantage of another time, for now he knows how much forced generosity costs. It remains to be seen what fruits this seed will bear later when, at an older age, the child applies this moral to things more serious than a cake.

Do you know all the thoughts that this single fact could have caused to germinate in that little head? After that, how do you want a child not to be selfish when, instead of awakening in him the pleasure of giving and representing the happiness of the recipient, they impose a sacrifice on him as punishment? Is it not inspiring aversion to the act of giving and to those in need?

Another habit, equally frequent, is to punish the child by sending him to eat in the kitchen with the servants. The punishment lies less in exclusion from the table than in the humiliation of going to the servants' table. This is how, from an early age, the virus of sensuality, selfishness, pride, contempt for inferiors, passions, in a word, which are rightly considered as the wounds of Humanity, is inoculated.

It is necessary to be endowed with an exceptionally good nature to resist such influences, produced at the most impressionable age, in which neither will nor experience can find a counterweight. Thus, however little the germ of evil passions may be found there, which is the most ordinary case, given the nature of most spirits who are incarnated on Earth, it cannot fail to develop under such influences, while it would be necessary to observe the slightest traces in order to repress them.

Without a doubt, the fault lies with the parents, but it must be said that they often sin more out of ignorance than out of ill will. In many there is undoubtedly a guilty insouciance, but in many others the intention is good, yet it is the remedy that is worthless, or that is misapplied.

As the first physicians of their children's souls, parents should be instructed, not only in their duties, but in the means of fulfilling them. It is not enough for the doctor to know that he must seek a cure, it is necessary to know how to act. Now, for parents, where are the means of instructing themselves in this most important part of their task? Today, much instruction is given to women; they make her pass rigorous examinations, but was the mother ever required to know how to build up her child's morale?

They teach you homemade recipes, but was it initiated to the thousand and one secrets of ruling young hearts?

Parents, therefore, are left unguided to their own initiative. This is why they so often follow the wrong path. Thus, in the mistakes of their grown children, they pick up the bitter fruit of their inexperience or misunderstood tenderness, and the whole Society receives the backlash.

Whereas selfishness and pride are admittedly the source of most human miseries; that while they reign on Earth, neither peace, nor charity, nor fraternity can be expected, so it is necessary to attack them in the embryo state, without waiting for them to become alive.

Can Spiritism remedy this evil? Undoubtedly, and we do not hesitate to say that he is the only one powerful enough to stop it, from the new point of view with which he allows us to perceive the mission and responsibility of parents; making known the source of innate qualities, good or bad; showing the action that can be exercised on incarnate and disincarnate spirits; giving the unbreakable faith which sanctions the duties; finally, moralizing their own parents. It already proves its effectiveness by the most rational way employed in the education of children in truly Spiritist families. The new horizons that Spiritism opens up make things look differently. Since its objective is the moral progress of Humanity, it will inevitably have to shed light on the serious problem of moral education, the first source of the moralization of the masses. One day it will be understood that this branch of education has its principles, its rules, like intellectual education, in a word, which is a true science. Perhaps one day, too, the obligation to possess this knowledge will be imposed on every mother of a family, as it is imposed on the lawyer to know the Law.

Kardec gives full weight to the responsibility we have towards children and their habits. Spiritism shows the origin of children's innate tendencies, but it also demonstrates that the Spirit incarnated in a child may not yet be strong enough to resist a bad habit that their parents or caregivers teach them from their first steps. This creates imperfections that could be very difficult to overcome…

Commonly, in the flesh, the fruit of these imperfections will lead people to ask: “what did I do to deserve this?”, or “where did I go wrong?”. However, it is enough for reason to speak a little louder to the conscience for them to launch into heavy lamentations, born from the fruit of the realization that the suffering their son may have gone through not just in one, but in many earthly lives, originated , if not in all, but at least in part, in the first seed sown and cultivated by those who should help them develop under the morality of good, and not move away from it.

Therefore, parents and caregivers, pay much more attention to the Spirits that God has entrusted to you as children. It will be their own consciences, and not God, who will hold them accountable tomorrow...