Continued from yesterday... Therefore, even physicians and teachers advise: 1) to select a healthful and suitable food, depending on the age of the child, for one food is suitable for an infant, another for a child, yet another for an adolescent and a young man; 2) to subject the use of food to definite rules (again, adapted to age), in which there should be defined the time, the quantity, and the means of eating; and 3) not to depart later from this established rule without need. By these means the child is trained not to demand food always whenever he wants to eat, but to wait for the assigned time; here are to be found the first attempts at exercising oneself in denying oneself ones desires. When a child is fed every time he cries, and then every time he asks to eat, he is so weakened by this that later he cannot refuse food except with great pain. At the same time, this accustoms him to getting his own will, because he succeeds in getting whatever he asks for or cries for. Sleep also should be subjected to the same kind of measure, as should warmth and cold, and other comforts which are necessary in ones upbringing, having unfailingly in mind not to ignite the passion for sensual enjoyments, and to train one to deny oneself. This should be strictly observed during the whole time of the upbringing of the child — changing the rules, it goes without saying, in their application (to circumstances and age), but not in essence, until the child, being firmly established in them, will take himself in hand. St. Theofan the Recluse The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 10:18:07 +0000
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