During this time of the year, when many families tend to concentrate on vacation time, gifts, and festivities focused on food, I am also concerned about developing children who will grow up to become caring and responsible adults. Are there any scientific studies that can provide me with specific ideas and resources?
As a practicing pediatrician for almost two decades, I have seen very few studies published in pediatric, peer-reviewed journals on this particular topic. To some, it may seem that official pediatric bodies, such as both the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics, who are endeavoring to be politically correct, deliberately try to avoid potentially divisive areas such as spirituality in children.
Spiritual development of children is an understudied, complex, and multifaceted subject. Many experts in the field struggle to define spiritual development. However, because it is such an important part of a child's development, more and more scientists are trying to focus on how this can be best accomplished, regardless of the family's specific denomination or spiritual values.
The Search Institute (www.search-institute.org/) is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide knowledge and resources to promote healthy children and youth. At the heart of the Institute's work is the framework of 40 Developmental Assets (www.search-institute.org/assets/), which are positive experiences and personal qualities that young people need in order to grow into healthy, caring, and responsible adults.
Some of the 40 meaningful, developmental highlights to help families develop caring and responsible children include the following: a sense of support by parents; positive family communication; support from other adults; a caring school environment; service to others; healthy limit-setting and boundaries; positive peer relations; reading for pleasure; responsibility; restraint; cultural competence (comfort with people of different ethic/racial/spiritual backgrounds); personal power (a sense of being in control); a sense of purpose; and religious community (defined as a "young person spends one or more hours per week in activities in a religious institution").
In my own family, I try to teach my children the values of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-discipline. It is an uphill battle at the best of times, and other families who try to do the same tell me it is not easy. Yet, research tells us that children who are taught these spiritual values are more likely to have positive outcomes when they grow up.
According to the scholarly book The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence (SAGE Publications), there is a strong connection between spiritual development and positive outcomes later in life. These positive outcomes include better health, improved academic achievement, finding meaning and purpose in life, civic engagement, resolution of identity, and generally better relationships with others.
According to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of the book 10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children, it is essential to talk to your child about God. The Rabbi explains that kids need to know there is a moral context to the universe; that life is not a chance happening or accidental. The Talmud puts it this way: There is a God who really watches and scrutinizes our actions - an eye that sees, and an ear that hears.
Dr. Robert Coles, a Harvard-based child psychiatrist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Spiritual Life of Children, writes about how a child's values are born and shaped moment by moment. Dr. Coles considers the elementary school years as the “Age of Conscience”, when a child's character is built and consolidated.
When it comes to this particular holiday season, families have many important decisions to make about what to eat, who to visit, which gifts to buy, and how to resolve conflict among members within the family. Many experts will weigh in with advice on how to maintain mental health during one of the most mentally challenging times of the year.
Physicians interested in a holistic approach to their patients tend to focus on the development of the complete child: physical, mental, and spiritual. The Christmas and Hanukkah season can be a great time to focus on questions such as:
- Why do we give gifts to others?
- How can our family serve others better?
- How can we be more thankful?
- What happens when families nurture their spiritual roots? What happens when spiritual roots are neglected?
- What is sacrificial love?
- How can we become more consistent as a family in reading the Bible, Talmud, Koran, or other spiritual classics?
- How can our family experience more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness?
- How can we be generous toward each other - not just in December and not just with gifts - throughout the whole year?
Traditions play a big role in most families. In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the New York Times bestselling author Stephen Covey encourages families to develop their own mission statement. Perhaps for some families that mission statement may include a tradition of developing the spiritual lives of all the members in the family.
It is easy to dismiss the spiritual development of children as indoctrination, unscientific, sentimental, idealistic, divisive or unimportant, especially in a time where we must be guided by values that suit our own styles. Yet, as research by the Search Institute shows, there is a solid link between the spiritual development of children and better outcomes later in life.The Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood & Adolescence, with major support from the John Templeton Foundation, offers numerous resources on the matter of spiritual development (www.spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org). Another fine resource for parents interested in being more involved in their children's spiritual development is www.MVParents.com.
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