A Child’s Developing Conscience
by: ehimai
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Word Count: 752
A child’s conscience is not handed to him ready—made. Conscience is that element in personality that prompts an individual to act in harmony with what he believes to be right.
Once developed, conscience enables a person measure his choices and activities by comparison with his personal code. If a certain proposal is consistent with ones individual pattern, conscience at once approves. Thus it might even approve of telling a lie to save face, if one’s personal code did not forbid. But, on the other hand, if conscience has been train against lying, it will dictate a decision in favor of telling the truth rather than distorting it, even at the expense of some humiliation.
A young child’s conscience, therefore, has to be developed. This presents parents with an opportunity, as well as awesome responsibility, to help their child understand what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Their early training establishes in the child the first vestiges of conscience by which he classes certain things as “right” and others as “wrong.”
Throughout the formative years of a child’s life, the parent has opportunity to help the child round out his personal code. Then as the child becomes old enough to assume responsibility for his own way of life, he will have to decide whether or not the code which his parents helped him to form is the one he will follow the ret of his life.
Whether or not a child is satisfied with this code will depend in large part on his appraisal of his parents as individuals. If, in his opinion, they represent the kind of person he wants to be, then he will accept their code of ethics. If he feels dissatisfied with his parents’ way of life, then he will change the code which they have though him. In any event, the influence of the parents’ early training will stay with the child, in one way or another, throughout life.
The basic framework of character around which a child builds his pattern of life has been established.
As parents help to guide a child in his understanding of what is “right” and what is “wrong” they are naturally influenced by their own natural beliefs. It is perfectly proper for parents to present their beliefs to their children in as convincing a manner as possible. Teaching a child to be religious gives him the greatest stability influence of his life. True, the child, as he comes to maturity, may not choose to follow his parents’ religion. But if the parents have been consistent in practicing their beliefs and the child his convinced that their religion has help them to live happily, then more than likely he will adopt the same himself. In any case, the background they have given him in fundamental religion provides his foundation for successful living.
In our consideration of the way by which a parent’s beliefs are developed, it is proper that we should examine the moral code as expressed in Scripture.
The most concise expression of this code is contained in the Ten Commandments, found in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. The first four commandments deal with man’s obligation to God. The fifth, which is especially pertinent to our present discussion, speaks of a child’s obligation to honor his parents. The remaining five commandments speak of man’s responsibility to man.
Near the center of the Decalogue, then, e find the specific commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord they God giveth thee.” This commandment is interposed between those that speak of ones obligation to God and those that speak of his obligation to his fellowmen.
For the child, parent stand in the place of God. It is through his relationship to his parents that a child becomes able to understand his relationship to God. If he earns to obey and honor his parents, he will be in position to recognize his need for honoring and obeying God. If he has found that his parents are kind, leveling, forgiving, and tolerant, he will understand that his father in heaven manifest this same traits in dealing with His human children. Thus the relationship between parent and child lies at the very foundation of the child’s ability to develop a satisfactorily religious experience of his own.
Furthermore, the influence of parents over child helps the child to know how he should deal with his fellowmen. The examples of home life give the child his pattern for conduct both inside and outside the home.
Author:Emmanuel Abraham
www.TheWritersOnline.com
(Read or Write Your Way to Big Success)
About the Author
Emmanuel Abraham is a prolific writer and the author of Destiny Child. He splits his time between Benin City, Lagos and Port Harcourt and is currently working on his next novel. Visit Website at http://stores.lulu.com/emmanuelabraham
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