Educating children in the virtues: an important task for dads and moms
Prof. Danilo Gentilozzi for CEFA4Family
When you become a parent, one of the first reflections you make is, more or less, this: “What will become of this child of mine?”.
I think it’s a legitimate question, absolutely right, especially in our times. The social crisis that manifests itself in insecurity, corruption, the spread of disease, attacks on life and the environment drives a parent to want their child to know exactly where to go and how to meet the challenges of his future. This is why parental education cannot fail to give a child all the tools necessary to face life in a mature way, obviously starting from everything that is considered indispensable and that one experiences firsthand.
However, we must avoid letting ourselves be carried away by events and think of educating “randomly”, based on the need of the moment. The education of a child is a real -life project to which a parent must devote all the necessary attention.
“The family is the first and main school of values…it is in the heart of the family that the deepest attitudes towards life are forged, where one learns to use freedom responsibly and where, in general, it develops in the most adequate way the personality”
J.A. Alcazar, R. Corominas – Human virtues
Therefore, educating a child to values becomes a “fundamental” option, an important choice, because it means building a personal building with solid foundations, resistant to the many loads of life.
As in any educational field, it is a matter of love. In the family it is possible to ensure that children grow in values, because love leads to accepting each other’s weaknesses and pushes everyone to be considered important as unique and precious people, with their virtues and their defects.
From these first impressions it is evident how the education of a parent oscillates, perhaps unconsciously, between the transmission of values and the acquisition of virtues. However, it is necessary not to confuse the two terms and try to shed light on the impact of a good education to which the best resources and efforts have been dedicated.
The values are connected to everyday life: every thought, feeling, behavior or action is governed by some specific value and these, in turn, are related to the person’s beliefs, attitudes and judgments. The overall result of these relationships is that values allow us to choose whether something is worthy or contemptible, important or useless… Each of us acts differently in various situations, according to our specific scale of values.
Values are reasons of the heart that reason does not understand”
Blaise Pascal – Thoughts
When a child acquires certain values, these are transformed into behavioral models that necessarily influence his decisions and actions. It is necessary that, initially, these values are supported and proposed by the parents, so as to allow the child to be able to rely on a network of beliefs and attitudes that can then guide him when critical thinking grows and develops in him.
Unlike values, which are transmitted consciously and unconsciously through our behavior and actions, virtues are acquired only when they are put into practice consistently, through effort and personal will.
The word virtue means “effort” and implies a daily effort to achieve precise human, moral or spiritual qualities. The task of the virtues is to regulate our actions, order our passions and direct our conduct towards something we call “good”, for ourselves or for others.
“Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do good. It allows the person not only to perform good deeds, but to give the best of himself”.
Catechism of the catholic church, point 1803
Therefore, there is no real oscillation between values and virtues. Both, in fact, are intimately connected: if values are not transmitted, virtues cannot be obtained. In the following two tables we try to summarize the most important values and ideal virtues for pursuing the idea of a future in which it is possible to face challenges from the point of view of “good for oneself and for others”.
Type of Virtue
What are values and virtues for?
They are important because they forge the child’s character and protect him from dangerous situations, pushing him towards his/her Good. If we want the best for our children, let’s educate them in the virtues: if we think about it, educating is also a virtue because it pushes the students towards a higher good that at the moment they cannot know. “Let’s educate the future”: only in this way could we collaborate effectively in the development process of evolved human beings, the true root of a better world.
“Virtue educates, makes grow, develops, completes, matures, nourishes and repairs. Make creatures live and feed them, make them live and don’t treat them as your own. Act without expecting anything”
Zhuang-Zi, Taoist philosophy
CEFA 4Family is the column of the CEFA Schools that offers parents useful advice for raising their children and in their parental role.
