Religious Education in the FamilyCope, Henry Frederick
Religion
Religious Education in the Family
Cope, Henry Frederick
Families -- Religious life; Religious education
_Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things together._ Go to the place
of worship together, provided it is the place where the child can find
expression for spiritual ideals. If the Sunday school does not really
lift the child-life and really teach the child, if it is not honest with
him and makes no suitable provision for his developing nature, he will
be better off in a quiet hour of family conversation and reading at
home. That means the application of parents to this hour.[33] It
banishes the monstrous Sunday supplement with its hideous, debasing
pictures. It substitutes conversation in the whole group, reading aloud
of stories and poems, biblical and otherwise, and songs, hymns, or at
times the walk in the fields or parks. Fortunately the better type of
Sunday school is more and more to be found; children are more and more
receiving a ministry actually determined by their needs. So far as the
church service is concerned the ideal situation is found when a parallel
service is provided for children, based on their needs and capacities.
As to attendance, under other circumstances, in the family pew, that
depends on whether the child is gaining an aversion to the church by the
torture and tedium often involved. Without doubt many adults acquired
the settled habit of sleeping in church because that was the only
possible relief in childhood.[34]
_Maintain the family unity by stepping into the child's ideal life.
Expect activity and use it._ Why should we assume that because the adult
finds a Sunday nap enjoyable the child will be blessed by enforced
silence? I would rather see a father playing catch with his boys on
Sunday than see the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sabbath
sleep. Children will play. Their play is innocent; more, it may be
helpful and educative; we can insure these values in it by our
participation. That is the parent's opportunity for a closer sympathy
with his children. Playing together is the closest living, thinking, and
feeling together. Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and
aspirations are shared, too. Besides, the participation of the adult may
tend to tone up the game and to moderate boisterousness.
_Seek the beautiful._ Speaking as one who has been under both the
puritanical regulation and the so-called "continental" freedom of Sunday
observance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the sight of an
entire family playing at home, in the park, or off in the woods or the
fields of the country. Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family
ties knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage stimulated by play
of this kind.
§ 5. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE
But because it is evidently most important that this day should be
different from other days, it is well to mark that difference in our
plays and pleasures and to follow some simple principles for Sunday
play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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