Kaydalova Svetlana Viktorovna
geography teacher, MOU "Otradnenskaya OOSh",
Russia, Belgorod region Belgorodsky district
Email: [email protected]

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The article reveals the importance of the influence of the family on the emotional state, on the spiritual health of the child, offers advice that can be used not only by parents, but also by teachers.

Key words: family, spiritual health, "good person", morality.

“All the best that connects me with the outside world is connected with my family,” Wilhelm Humboldt, the founder of the University of Berlin, wrote in his memoirs. Perhaps, any person can agree with these lines. The family is the first instance on the way of the child to life. The family perceives and transmits cultural and moral values ​​to its pupils. Parents constitute the first social environment of the child. They are models that the child focuses on daily. Parents play a significant role in the life of every person. The family forms the personality of the child, defining for him moral norms, values ​​and standards of behavior.

A home for a child is like a ticket to life. Justice, love, sympathy, mutual understanding, tolerance should reign in the house not only for children, but also for all other family members. The upbringing and development of these qualities in a child requires support from parents - not only in words, but also by their example. Parents should set an example for their children by their actions. They must explain to their child "what is good and what is bad", they must raise a kind person.

The concept of a "good person" is very complex. It includes a variety of qualities that have long been valued by people. A good person can be called a person who has developed love for the Motherland, people living nearby, for the elderly, an active desire to do good, the ability to self-deny for the sake of others, honesty, conscientiousness, a correct understanding of the meaning of life and happiness, a sense of duty, justice, diligence. These are all concepts of morality.

The moral needs of a person are closely connected with moral feelings, which are also the motives of human behavior. This is compassion, sympathy, empathy, disinterestedness ...

To educate developed moral needs is the main task of parents. The task is quite doable. What is needed for its successful solution?

First, parents should be aware of the importance of the moral education of children in the family.

Secondly, parents should develop moral needs in themselves.

Thirdly, parents who want to raise their child not spontaneously, but consciously, in order to raise their child, they must analyze themselves, their actions.

If love and mutual understanding reign in the family not only in relation to children, but in the relationship of parents, if everything is done together in the family: they work, spend their free time together, are ready to help each other in different situations, then children will always learn to lead yourself like that. Joy and sorrow in a spiritually healthy family become common: all the events of family life unite, strengthen and deepen the feeling of mutual love. In such a family, there will be fewer diseases, because well-being affects the health of all family members.

Observing children from families where parents are addicted to alcohol, we began to notice periodic changes in their behavior. When parents do not take alcohol, spend more time with children, are interested in their life, then children at school behave calmly, do their homework , do not be rude to teachers and peers. But as soon as parents start drinking again, children become aggressive, may not attend classes, spend more time on the street, often wandering aimlessly. This example once again proves that family relations, the behavior of parents leaves its mark on the child, on his behavior, health.

The Constitution of the World Health Organization defines health: “Health is a state of complete spiritual, physical and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”

Spiritual health is the ability to cognize the world around and oneself, analyze ongoing events and phenomena, predict the development of situations that affect life, form a model (program) of behavior aimed at solving emerging problems, protecting one’s interests, life and health in a real environment . The higher the intellect, the more reliable the forecast of events, the more accurate the model of behavior, the more stable the psyche, the higher the level of spiritual health.

This health is achieved by the ability to live in harmony with oneself, with relatives, friends and society, to predict and model events, to draw up a program of one's actions on this basis.

Only a moral and spiritually healthy person can really assess the current situation, make the right choice, not dramatize failures, live in harmony with himself and other people and manage his emotions, be able to enjoy the success of other people.

For a child, parents are role models. Children should see how we, parents, in practice show love, sympathy, attention, tolerance for our neighbor, how we can act in different life situations. We are all adults and each of us raises our children in our own way. Everyone has their own unspoken rules, someone uses the advice of loved ones, friends, but we all need to remember if:

the child is constantly criticized, he learns to hate;

the child is ridiculed, he becomes withdrawn;

the child is supported, he learns to value himself;

the child grows up in reproach, he learns to live with guilt;

the child grows in tolerance, he learns to understand others;

the child grows in honesty, he learns to be fair;

the child grows up in safety, he learns to believe in people;

the child lives in enmity, he learns to be aggressive;

the child lives in understanding and friendliness, he learns to find love in this world.

The ability to enjoy life and the ability to courageously endure difficulties a person receives in early childhood. Children are sensitive and receptive to everything that surrounds them, and they need to achieve a lot. To become kind to people, one must learn to understand others, show sympathy, honestly admit one's mistakes, be hardworking, marvel at the beauty of the surrounding nature, and treat it with care. Of course, it is difficult to enumerate all the moral qualities of a person in the future society, but the main thing is that these qualities should be laid down in the family.

Bibliography

Derekleeva N.I. Parent meetings for grades 1-11. - M.: Verbum-M, 2003. - 80 p.

Parent meetings: Grade 5 / Avt. O.V. Dukin. - M.: VAKO, 2008. - 256 p.

As society has changed throughout the world, there have also been changes showing how spirituality has influenced modern human aspirations.

Every culture has its own roots of spirituality, and the spirituality of each culture affects the world today in different ways. Leading research into the impact of spirituality on human health is carried out at Duke University Medical Center under the direction of Dr. Harold G. Koenig.

Dr. Koenig is a world-renowned medical researcher, himself a registered nurse, therapist and professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He is also the founder and co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Religious Studies and Health at Duke University. With his reports, he speaks at conferences and seminars held in the United States.

His research aims to reveal how spirituality affects the elderly and the disabled. He has written many books on the subject and has also participated in several television and radio programs. In The Wellness Connection, very seriously but humorously, he describes his life and spirituality, linking them to his research.

Dr. Koenig's research addresses a variety of health issues, from breast cancer to minor ailments. He knows perfectly well what it means to be disabled, as he spent part of his life in a wheelchair.

When Koenig became a Christian, he realized that faith had a profound effect on his ability to come to terms with disability. His studies are very detailed and can achieve very accurate results. For example, he chose African-American women for breast cancer research.

“Of course, the study is impossible to complete, but we chose black women because the church, and especially their fellowship in the church, plays a significant role in their lives.

This is such an important part of the belief system and social networks of African American women that we decided to study this group in order to understand the effect of religion on breast cancer, Dr. Koenig said in an interview with The Epoch Times. “All major world religions promote the development of such virtues as forgiveness, gratitude, kindness and love, and if a person manifests them in life, this can improve his health.”

Studies have shown that stress changes the immune system and a person's ability to resist disease, gives rise to cardiovascular disease, contributes to abnormalities in the digestive tract, metabolic disorders, and so on. Dr. Koenig found that spirituality is guiding, connected, supportive, and self-respecting, which forms a powerful mechanism for coping with stress, which in turn has a positive impact on health in various ways.

Studies have shown that spirituality alleviates stress, promotes a sense of peace through the manifestation of virtues, and psychologically changes a person. This leads to a strengthening of the immune system. It is also likely that people will become more optimistic, live longer and become healthier.

The uniqueness of these studies is that they used a combination of different personalities and how each personality uses spirituality to cope with depression and stress. Dr. Koenig used his experience [on the impact of spirituality on human health] from working with the elderly and those who are depressed to summarize research on the role of despair experienced by people with various diseases.

The results are amazing! Different groups of personalities and defense mechanisms were identified and clear conclusions were drawn on the operation of each mechanism. This has created a promising prognosis for further research leading to the study of various forms of treatment that may ultimately be useful in modern health care in a medical and women's ethic centered on the healing aspects of compassion. This provides a positive utilitarian approach to healthcare.

The research was mainly conducted among Christians, since 85% of spiritually believing people in the United States are Christians. Dr. Koenig conducted his experiments in the south of the country, where the majority of the population are Christians and where he himself lives. Koenig wants to set up a foundation for spiritual and health research based on Christianity before he continues his experiments with other world religions. He believes that before studying the health effects of various religious schools, it is necessary to have an initial knowledge base that other scientists can use in conducting their own research based on their traditions.

Last October, Insurance Canada released a report titled Ending Canada's Invisible Epidemics: A Strategy for Injury Prevention that found injuries to be the leading cause of disability and death in Canadians aged 1 to 44. Disability often leads to depression, which causes severe stress for the disabled themselves and for those around them.

The report recommends strengthening their support from local authorities and increasing the resources allocated for such needs by the federal government. In addition, it is recommended to organize an injury research group and put into practice the results of its work [for injury prevention]. Dr. Koenig works tirelessly to increase support for people with disabilities by highlighting their concerns, in the hope that this will increase government support.

He states: “I think doctors are more receptive on this issue. I think medical schools are teaching doctors these days to be more receptive. I think a lot of therapists see their patients benefiting from their faith. Especially when the results come out.” research in this area, therapists began to ask patients about the role of spirituality in their lives, and we became even more aware of its importance. I think that in the future we will be more and more convinced of this."

Koenig says that many scientists also provide scientific evidence that spirituality plays a positive role in maintaining good health, and therefore governments in an increasing number of countries are realizing this. While the US government is cutting research funding, Dr. Koenig hopes that this is the area where more research and support will be provided. He believes that in the future this area will become a higher priority than before.

Koeniga's biggest concern is whether scientists interested in working in this area will be able to get an education in the future that will enable them to conduct research, publish papers that will receive support, and publish the results in medical periodicals. Dr. Koenig is building a network of scientists to advance research in this area. He says that once there is enough evidence from medical science experiments, therapists will be open about spirituality in clinical practice and will be willing to support their patients in their spiritual faith.

Dr. Koenig claims that his work has been recognized in many countries around the world where there was a repressive regime, such as Hungary and Ukraine. There has been interest in these studies in India, Taiwan and some Islamic states. The site contains the opinions of some professors and teachers who support Dr. Koenig's research and believe that it should be integrated into the health system.

"It's interesting to see how scientists around the world who may not have previously shown interest in this work are now immersed in it," said Dr. Koenig. increase their understanding and strengthen ties in this area".

It is vain to think that spirituality is accessible only to educated people, people of high culture. The history of all times and peoples shows that it is precisely the educated strata of society, being carried away by the play of consciousness and the abstractions of the mind, that it is much easier to lose that immediate power of trust in the testimony of inner experience, which is necessary for spiritual life. The mind, having broken with the depth of feeling and with the artistic power of the imagination, gets used to dousing everything with the poison of the idle, destroying doubts, and therefore we find ourselves in relation to spiritual culture not as a constructor, but as a destroyer. On the contrary, in naive-spontaneous people this destructive force does not yet begin to act. A person of low “culture” is much more capable of listening to the testimony of inner experience, i.e. first of all, the heart, conscience, sense of justice than a person, even if greater, but rationalistic culture. A simple soul is naive and trusting; maybe because she is gullible and superstitious, and believes where it is not necessary, but on the other hand, the very gift of faith is not taken away from her, and therefore she is able to believe where necessary.

Let this spirituality - uncritical, unintelligent, undifferentiated, be drawn to myth and magic, let it be associated with fear and can get lost in witchcraft. But this spirituality is undeniable and genuine - both in the ability to heed the breath and call of God, and in compassionate love, and in patriotic sacrificial love, and in a conscientious act, and in a sense of justice, and in the ability to enjoy the beauty of nature and art, and in manifestations dignity, sense of justice and delicacy. And in vain would an educated city dweller imagine that all this is inaccessible to the "uneducated peasant"!.. In a word, spiritual love is accessible to all people, regardless of their level of culture. And wherever it is found, it is the true source of strength and beauty of family life.

In fact, a person is called to see and love in a beloved woman (or, accordingly, in a beloved man) not only the carnal principle, not only a bodily phenomenon, but also the "soul" - the originality of the personality, the peculiarity of his character, the depth of the heart, for which the external composition of man is only a bodily expression or a living organ. Love is only then a simple and short-term lust, a fickle and petty whim of the flesh, when a person, desiring a mortal and final, loves hidden behind him immortality and infinity; sighing about the carnal and earthly, rejoices in the spiritual and eternal; in other words, when he puts his love before the face of God and illuminates and measures the loved one with God's rays... And this is the deep meaning of the Christian "wedding", uniting spouses with a crown of joy and torment, a crown of spiritual joy and moral honor, a crown of life and indissoluble spiritual community. For lust can quickly pass, it can be blind. And the anticipated pleasure can deceive or annoy. And then what? Mutual disgust of people attached to each other?.. The fate of a man who, in blindness, bound himself, and, having regained his sight, cursed his bondage? Lifelong humiliation of lies and hypocrisy? Or a divorce? The strength of the family requires otherwise; people should desire not only the comforts of love, but also responsible joint creativity, spiritual community in life, in suffering and in carrying burdens, according to the ancient Roman marriage formula: “where you are, Kai, there I am, your Kaya” ...

What must arise from marriage is, first of all, a new spiritual unity and unity - the unity of husband and wife: they must understand each other and share the joys and sorrows of life; to do this, they must equally perceive life, the world, and people. What is important here is not spiritual similarity, and not the sameness of characters and temperaments, but homogeneity of spiritual assessments which alone can create unity and commonality life goals for both. What matters is what you worship? what are you praying for? what do you like? What do you want for yourself in life and death? than and in the name what are you able to donate? And so the bride and groom must find this like-mindedness and unity in each other, unite in what is most important in life and what is worth living for ... For only then will they be able, as husband and wife, to perceive each other correctly all their lives, trust each other and believe in each other. This is what is precious in marriage: complete mutual trust before the Face of God, and with this is connected both mutual respect and the ability to form a new, vitally strong spiritual cell. Only such a cell can solve the main task of marriage and the family - to carry out the spiritual education of children.

Raising a child means laying in him the foundations of a spiritual nature and bring it to the ability of self-education. The parents who accepted this task and solved it creatively gave their people and their homeland a new spiritual hearth; they fulfilled their spiritual calling, justified their mutual love and strengthened and enriched the life of their people on earth: they themselves entered that Motherland, which is worth living and being proud of, for which it is worth fighting and dying.

So, there is no surer basis for a worthy and happy family life than the mutual spiritual love of a husband and wife: love in which the beginnings of passion and friendship merge together, reborn into something higher - into the fire of all-round unity. Such love will not only accept pleasure and joy, and will not degenerate, will not fade away, will not become hardened by them, but will also accept any suffering and any misfortune in order to comprehend them, sanctify them and be cleansed through them. And only such love can give a person that stock of mutual understanding, mutual condescension to weaknesses and mutual forgiveness, patience, tolerance, devotion and fidelity, which is necessary for a happy marriage.

Therefore, it can be said that a happy marriage arises not just from a mutual natural inclination (“for a good darling”), but from the spiritual affinity of people (“for a good darling”), which causes an unshakable will to become a living unity and observe this unity in whatever way. no matter what, keep it not only for show to people, but in fact, before the Face of God. This is the deepest meaning of the religious consecration of marriage and the corresponding church ceremony. But this is also the first, most necessary condition for the faithful, spiritual upbringing of children.

I have already pointed out that the child enters the family of his parents, as it were, in the prehistoric era of his personality and begins to breathe the air of this family from his first physical breath. And in the stuffy air of a disagreeable, unfaithful, unhappy family, in the vulgar atmosphere of a soulless, godless vegetative existence, a healthy child's soul cannot grow. A child can acquire intuition and taste only from a spiritually meaningful family hearth; he can organically feel nationwide unity and unity only by experiencing this unity in his family, and not feeling this nationwide unity, he will not become a living body of his people and a faithful son of his homeland. Only the spiritual flame of a healthy family hearth can give the human heart a glowing coal of spirituality, which will both warm it and shine on it throughout its entire future life.

1. So the family has a calling to give the child the most important and essential thing in his life. Blessed Augustine once said that "the human soul is a Christian by nature." This word is especially true when applied to the family. For in marriage and in the family man learning from nature to love, from love and from love to suffer, endure and sacrifice, forget about himself and serve those who are closest to him and dearest of all. All this is nothing but Christian love. Therefore, the family turns out to be, as it were, a natural school of Christian love, a school of creative self-sacrifice, social feelings, and an altruistic way of thinking. In a healthy family life, the soul of a person from early childhood is curbed, softened, accustomed to treat others with respectful and loving attention. In this softened, loving mood, she first attaches herself to a close, domestic circle so that later life will lead her in this very inner “setting” to wide circles of society and the people.

2. Further, the family is called upon to perceive, support and pass on from generation to generation a certain spiritual and religious, national and domestic tradition. From this family tradition and thanks to it, our entire Indo-European and Christian culture arose - the culture of the sacred hearth of the family: with its reverent veneration of ancestors, with its idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba sacred boundary enclosing family graves; with its historically formed national customs and outfits. This family created and endured the culture of national feeling and patriotic fidelity. And the very idea of ​​“motherland” — the bosom of my birth, and “fatherland”, the earthly nest of my fathers and ancestors — arose from the depths of the family as a bodily and spiritual unity. The family is for the child the first native place on earth; first - a place-dwelling, a source of warmth and nutrition, then - a place of conscious love and spiritual understanding. The family is for the child the first understanding of “we”, which arose from love and voluntary service, where one stands for all and all for one. For him, she is the bosom of natural solidarity, where mutual love turns duty into joy and keeps the sacred gates of conscience always open. It is for him a school of mutual trust and joint, organized action. Is it not clear that a true citizen and son of his homeland is brought up in a healthy family?

3. Further, the child learns in the family the correct perception of authority. In the face of natural authority father and mother, he meets for the first time with idea of ​​rank and learns to perceive the highest rank of another person, bowing, but not humiliating, and learns to put up with the lowest rank inherent in him, without falling into either envy, or hatred, or anger. He learns to extract from the beginning of rank and from the beginning of authority all their creative and organizational power, at the same time freeing himself spiritually from their possible "oppression" through love and respect. For only the free recognition of someone else's higher rank teaches one to endure one's lower rank without humiliation, and only a beloved and respected authority does not oppress a person's soul.

In a healthy Christian family there is one and only father and one and only mother, who together represent a single ruling and organizing authority in family life, in this natural and primitive form of authoritative power, the child for the first time becomes convinced that power, saturated with love, is grace-filled. by force and that order in public life presupposes the presence of such a single, organizing and commanding power: he learns that the principle of patriarchal autocracy contains something expedient and healing; and, finally, he begins to understand that the authority of a spiritually older person is not at all called upon to suppress or enslave a subordinate, to neglect his inner freedom and break his character, but that, on the contrary, he is called to educate a person to inner freedom.

So, the family is the first, natural school of freedom: in it, the child must, for the first, but not the last time in his life, find the right path to inner freedom; to accept, out of love and respect for the parents, all their orders and prohibitions in all their seeming severity, make it a duty to observe them, voluntarily obey them, and allow your own views and convictions to ripen freely and calmly in the depths of your soul. Thanks to this, the family becomes, as it were, an elementary school for education of a free and healthy legal consciousness.

4. As long as the family will exist (and it will exist, like everything natural, forever), it will be a school a healthy sense of private property. It is not difficult to see why this is the case.

The family is a social unity given by nature—in life, in love, in earnings, and in property. The stronger, the more cohesive the family, the more justified are its claims to what its parents and parents of their parents creatively created and acquired.

This is a claim to their economic materialized labor, always associated with deprivation, suffering, with a strain of mind, will and imagination; a claim to inherited property, to family-acquired private property, which is a real source of not only family, but also popular satisfaction.

A healthy family has always been and always will be an organic unity - by blood, by spirit and by property. And this common property is a living sign of blood and spiritual unity, for this property, in the form it is, arose precisely from this blood and spiritual unity and on the path of labor, discipline and sacrifice. That is why a healthy family teaches a child a whole range of precious skills at once.

The child learns to make his own way in life with the help of his own initiative and at the same time highly appreciate and observe the principle of social mutual assistance; for the family, as a whole, arranges its life precisely on a private, own initiative - it is an independent creative unity, and within its own limits, the family is the real embodiment of mutual assistance and so-called "sociality". The child gradually learns to be a "private" person, an independent individuality, and at the same time to appreciate and cherish the bosom of family love and family solidarity; is he learns independence and loyalty- these two main manifestations of a spiritual character. He learns to deal creatively with property, to develop, create and acquire economic benefits and at the same time to subordinate the principles of private property (in this case to some higher, social - family) expediency ... And this is the very skill, or, rather, , art, outside of which the social question of our era cannot be resolved.

It goes without saying that only a healthy family can correctly solve all these problems. A family devoid of love and spirituality, where parents do not have authority in the eyes of children, where there is no unity either in life or work, where there is no hereditary tradition, can give the child very little or can give him nothing. Of course, even in a healthy family, mistakes can be made, “gaps” can be formed in one way or another, which can lead to a general or partial failure.

There is no ideal on earth ... However, we can say with confidence that parents who managed to introduce their children to spiritual experience and call in them the process of internal self-liberation, will always be blessed in the hearts of children... For from these two foundations grow both personal character and the lasting happiness of a person - public well-being.

If taken as a whole, then family spirituality- this is a rather philosophical question, and in our age of degradation, many people do not understand it.

Therefore, to begin with, it is necessary to find out what is the spirituality of the family? And only after that you can understand what it is for.

Speaking without any abstruse phrases, in a simple way, then the spirituality of the family is when both the husband and the wife have a sincere faith in God, whom they both try to serve.

Plus, in parallel, a husband and wife raise their children in such a way that they give them an understanding of faith in God and tell them why children need it at all.

You may also have a question: “But really, why do we need the spirituality of the family at all?” In fact, not so long ago, I myself did not fully realize what spirituality is in general, and even more so did not know how it can be applied in life, and even more so in family life.

And the bottom line is that the present will only be if each of its members turns their faces to God, and not their backs, as is usually the case.

The fact is that our culture is arranged in such a way that material values ​​​​are constantly being imposed on us now and they make it clear that the more you have a house, the more diverse and expensive your clothes are, the cooler you have something, the better you have that - then you are successful and happy in life.

But, as life shows, this is far from being the case, because the whole point lies not in the accumulation of material wealth. By no means do I want to say that we need to throw away all our belongings, sell an apartment, a car, furniture, and go to a monastery for eternal prayer and prostrations.

Here the essence is completely different. Of course, since we live in this material world, we need housing in which we will be comfortable, a vehicle, good and warm clothes and other things.

The whole secret is that most people put it first. And this is the main mistake, because sometimes people spend just heroic efforts in order to buy a cool car or a huge house, or something else.

So, the spirituality of the family is to move the unnecessary accumulation of the material from the first place to the second plan. And put service to God first. Having done this, you will very soon notice that they will begin to evaporate by themselves. And what is the service to God, you ask? Service does not mean only prayers.

Service is the actions of everyone that are aimed at improving this world. For example, when you work at work, imagine that you do all the work as if you were asked to do it by God himself. If your loved ones ask you for help, imagine that the Lord is addressing you.

The radical changes taking place in the life of our society require a comprehensive understanding. Long-term alienation of a person from a true spiritual culture, national roots and traditions, from faith, led to a crisis of public consciousness, expressed in an extremely unfavorable social atmosphere: an increase in crime (including children's), violence, and open propaganda of licentiousness. A particularly difficult situation has developed in the adolescent and youth sphere.

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Advice for parents.

Spiritual and moral health of the family.

The radical changes taking place in the life of our society require a comprehensive understanding. Long-term alienation of a person from a true spiritual culture, national roots and traditions, from faith, led to a crisis of public consciousness, expressed in an extremely unfavorable social atmosphere: an increase in crime (including children's), violence, and open propaganda of licentiousness. A particularly difficult situation has developed in the adolescent and youth sphere.

The family begins with marriage, but marriage, in the Christian tradition, “is a sacrament,” in which, with a free promise of true love, the marriage of the bride and groom is consecrated for the pure birth and upbringing of children and for mutual assistance in salvation.

According to St. John Chrysostom, marriage has become for Christians a "sacrament of love" in which spouses, their children, and the Lord Himself participate. The fulfillment of this mysterious union of love is possible only in the spirit of the Christian faith, in the feat of voluntary and sacrificial service to each other.

Marriage is a unique union of two beings in love, two beings who can transcend their own human nature and be united not only with each other, but in Christ.

“The purpose of marriage is to bring joy. It is understood that married life is the happiest, fullest, purest, richest life. The duty of the family is selfless love. Everyone should forget his "I", devoting himself to another" - so said the Empress Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

The concept of "family" has not only a moral, but also a spiritual nature is confirmed by religious-philosophical and theological studies.

In the Orthodox tradition, family life is understood as a "path to Salvation", an ascent along which is associated with carrying the "cross", everyday duties, mutual concerns, cooperation, understanding and harmony.

In marriage, a person is transformed, overcoming loneliness and isolation, expanding, replenishing and completing his personality. The spiritual growth of a husband and wife in marriage is helped by conjugal love, which spreads to children and warms everyone around.

It is a great thing to take responsibility for these tender young lives that can enrich the world with beauty, joy, strength, but which can also easily perish; a great thing is to nurture them, shape their character, spiritually improving yourself - that's what you can think about when you arrange your home, create a family. And as the last Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna said: "This should be a house in which children will grow up for truth and a noble life, for God."

Today they are talking about an ideological crisis, that a generation is growing up sluggish and unprincipled. There will come a time when the irresponsibility of parents will grow from generation to generation. Then an abyss grows between parents and children, the father and mother cease to understand their children, and the children begin to complain about absolute alienation, and many years later the children will reproduce this same alienation in their families.

The basis of the family is the marriage union. It is an agreement between a man and a woman, according to which they take upon themselves the obligation to live together as husband and wife, mutually helping each other and fulfilling each other's spiritual and moral needs. In the Christian tradition, marriage "is a sacrament in which, with the free promise of true love, the marital union of the bride and groom is consecrated for the pure birth and upbringing of children and for mutual assistance in salvation."

The creation of a family, marriage, the motives, reasons and moods with which a man and a woman create a family can have a significant impact on future offspring.

For Christians, the conclusion of a marriage union takes place only in the Church, and only in the Church does it become a "sacrament of grace" - an image of the spiritual union of Christ with those who are married. Through this union, the family is created as a "house church".

Young spouses, burning with passion, are convinced that this passion is love, it is she who is the core and main support of the family. But sooner or later, the violent passion subsides, and if the spouses do not develop deep spiritual ties, disappointment in family life sets in. It is very important for both to be restrained, polite, compliant, to be able to turn a blind eye to each other's minor weaknesses, to forgive them for the sake of the main thing - peace and tranquility in the family. Then all is well and everyone is happy. And in a happy family, the children are happy.

The family is called upon to support and pass on from generation to generation a certain spiritual and religious tradition. Spiritually awakening a child is the primary task of parenting.

The special role of the family lies in the performance of the original function - the spiritual and moral education of children. Children are perceived not as an accidental acquisition, but as a gift from God, which parents are called to cherish and “multiply”, helping to reveal all the forces and talents of the child, leading him to a virtuous Christian life.

In the upbringing of children, the family cannot be replaced by any other social institution; it has an exceptional role in promoting the formation of a child's personality. In family communication, a person learns to overcome his sinful egoism, in the family he learns "what is good and what is bad."

In communication with loved ones, adults, the child develops actually human forms of behavior: skills of thinking and speech, orientation and activity in the world of objects and human relations, moral qualities, life values, aspirations, ideals.

For each of its members, the family is a school of love as a constant readiness to give oneself to others, to take care of them, to protect them. On the basis of the mutual love of spouses, parental love is born, the reciprocal love of children for parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Joy and sorrow in a spiritually healthy family become common: all the events of family life unite, strengthen and deepen the feeling of mutual love.

Only the family can be the sources of spiritual love and spiritual faith of a person in the upbringing of a family man. From time immemorial, the upbringing of a child's good disposition, the development of his ability for a virtuous life, was determined by the way of life of the mother and father, by the extent to which the parents themselves could set a good example for him. Without an example and guidance in goodness, a child loses the ability to form as a person.

Hence, the personal example of parents is one of the strongest means of educational influence on the child. In order to be an example for your children, and parents want this, you yourself must live spiritually richly and beautifully. The atmosphere of love and friendship in the family is created by common spiritual interests, joint work and entertainment, intimate conversations.

It is not necessary to prove a simple truth in order for children to receive a good upbringing, to educate themselves and, above all, to improve spiritually, the parents themselves must.

This is evidenced in proverbs by the wisdom of the Orthodox Russian people: “A righteous mother is a stone fence”, “A father teaches his son not badly” and many other examples ...