ABOUT PARENTAL EDUCATION AND UPBRINGING
The education, says elder Porphyrios,
lasts throughout life (lifelong education) and starts from fetal life,
and constantly evolving. The most important educations and upbringing is
the one held by the family.
According to elder Porphyrios, the
family is the first physical means of upbringing and educating people.
In the first 5 years of human life the family with all functions –
visible and hidden, conscious and unconscious – helps on shaping the
personality. The child and the adolescent observe the family roles
played by parents. Children often identify themselves with the roles of
parents. Sometimes, however, the children reject their parents and adopt
a reactive behavior. This is obvious especially in dysfunctional
families.
Elder Porphyrios teaches that the
core of the personality of young people is organized in the framework of
the dynamic relationships in the family. Elder Porhpyrios in all the
cases that came to him for confession, he studied their background of
their intra-familial and marital relationships.
What makes good children, says elder
Porphyrios, is the virtuous lives of parents at home. Parents should
love God. Parents, according to elder Porphyrios, should become
‘saints’, ‘holy’ near their children and have gentleness, patience and
love. They should be always available for their children, with
enthusiasm and love for them. Then, with the grace of God, and their
‘holiness’ they will transfer their good and virtuous feelings to their
children.
For the bad behavior of the
children, says elder Porphyrios, we should blame the parents. Parents
don’t help their children with their advices and by ‘lecturing’; neither
by imposing a strict discipline, nor by controlling their life. If the
parents don’t ‘sanctify’ and become ‘saints’ and virtuous, they make a
big mistake and send the wrong message to their children.
Love, unity and cooperation of
parents and good understanding between them and their children gives a
sense of security and confidence to their children. Otherwise, the
children become unsafe and insecure. Often the unsecure children can
lead to the ‘safety’ of a gang and/or obtain a violent behavior (as a
reaction to a dysfunctional family).
The behavior of the children is
related to the situations they experienced in their family. The negative
attitude of parents creates wounds in the hearts of the children and
leaves scars of injury in their souls that keep during their whole life.
These psychological scars are affecting their behavior and their
relationship with the others, during the rest of their lives.
In other words, the experiences the
children carry from their childhood affect their lives and their
behavior in relation to the others (family, sexual relationship,
friends). Children, says elder Porphyrios, become older, educated, but
do not really change. This is obvious even from the most minor events of
their life.
