The Development of True Values

By Phyllis Wallbank

[Transcript from part of a piece delivered in 1999]

The development of true values

Up to the age of five, the young child is absorbing his whole environment and in a good environment, he gets to know love. Everyone has to feel love to be able to give love and so this is a very important stage for the understanding of love and the love of God.

As the child blossoms he gets a recognition of kindness and truth as he will have been introduced to beauty within nature and in man’s achievements. He has experienced goodness. and wonder around him.

Now as he approaches the age of reason his attention goes wider than his immediate family. He mixes and plays in a wider environment. He sees the actions of friends and grownups in the wider world and he begins to wonder and question his own and people’s actions. This is the stage for the discussion of true values, for giving the stories of lives of heroism, lives of the saints, the stories of Jesus in the parables.

When he sees something done by another child that he has Iearnt is wrong, this Is why he comes and tells you to see your reaction. When he tells it is really a question, “This is wrong, I think It’s wrong but I shall have to ask you to see if you are angry or horrified.” This is a natural stage at this age.

We should therefore always confirm if the action is wrong but now Is the time to do three things:

1) Show what you think and affirm him in speech.

2) Where possible get him to go to see If he can put matters right. (Do not rush off to punish as a result of his telling!)

3) Show the difference between hating the sin and loving the sinner.

Now that be has grown to know and love Our Lord and has a personal relationship with him, he needs instruction in the commandments of our Lord; To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength TO love our neighbour as ourself.

It is salutary if we examine our own conscience, on each item! Help the child to develop the right attitude, which Is the safeguard against sin, this is best done by positive rather than negative examination: At night or whenever seems appropriate look together at events when he showed love in each of its different forms, and rejoice together each time. Go through each item of Jesus commandments and look for confirmation through action.

Everyone has a continual flowing of reflective thought and this blossoms at this age at about six. This means that he uses an inner judgement to bring out the times when he achieved an action that exemplified our Lord’s commandments. With his own reflective Judgement In bringing out good actions, he will have an inner sense of when there has been a negation of love.

Now he needs to know what forgiveness really means and that the greatest love and forgiveness is what Christ showed us in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

It is now though this inner reflectiveness that we should seek to develop the child’s values, by getting him to pick out the good. In this way the person’s essence is affirmed and will be able to find by his own reflection, and not by external pressure, where he has a weakness that needs help. Then is the timing for Confession. For it comes naturally through this inner reflection that is given by God.

The First Communion may well have come before this or it may come together with Confession.

The important thing is now to let a natural examination come from the child, spotlighting his own achievements for the good. The inborn questioning and inborn reflectiveness will bring out the lapses or lack of positive action, of its own accord, because he cannot find the good without inward judgement through his own reflection.