Raising the kids isn’t
enough; it’s necessary
to educate them

In the interview that illustrates this edition, the psychiatrist Edson Luís dos Santos Cardoso, who is natural from São Gabriel, state of Rio Grande do Sul, and nowadays administers the group Fraternal Support of the Spiritist Group Harvest of the Master in the city of Santo Ângelo, explains how to help chemical dependents and their families with resources from Spiritism.

The report catches our attention with the answer for the following question: – What are the main causes for many individuals to allow themselves to become chemical dependents despite the serious consequences?

The doctor and confrere answered: “A lack of parental love towards a child, sometimes either manifested with lack of care or absence of some parental function, such as not teaching about necessary limits”. And he added: “When the relationship with parents fail, a child can’t trust any other human being anymore and looks for drugs to overcome the difficulties.

It’s important to observe that the information above hasn’t come from a mere reading of books, but from the experience of years dedicated to the invaluable work of helping chemical dependents and their families with resources offered by Spiritism.

Many of the problems humankind faces are strongly related to the fact that parents underestimate the importance of the mission that God assigned to them and the possible harms caused by its failure.

Let’s remember what The Spirit’s Book teaches us in the questions 582 and 583, as transcribed below:

582. Can paternity be considered a mission?  

"It is undeniably a mission; and also a most serious duty, the responsibilities of which will exercise a more important influence upon his future than a man is apt to suppose. God has placed the child under the tutelage of his parents, in order that they should direct his steps into the path of rectitude; and he has facilitated their task by giving to the child a frail and delicate organization, that renders him, accessible to new impressions. But there are many parents who take more pains to train the trees in their gardens, and to make them bring forth a large crop of fine fruit, than to train the character of their child. If the latter succumbs through their fault, they will bear the punishment of their unfaithfulness; and the sufferings of the child in a future life will come home to them, because they have not done their part towards helping him forward on the road to happiness."

583. If a child goes wrong, notwithstanding the care of his parents, are they responsible?

“No; but the more vicious the disposition of the child, and the heavier their task, the greater

will be their reward if they succeed in drawing him away from the evil road."

- If a child becomes a good man, despite the negligence or bad example of his parents, do the latter obtain any benefit therefrom?

“God is just.”

*

It reverberates until today in our ears a phrase said by a well-known psychiatrist from Sao Paulo when a polemical case took place in that state, in which a youngster participated together with her boyfriend in the murder of her own parents: “There are parents that just raise their children, but, obviously, raising them isn’t enough; it’s necessary to educate them”.

Various respectful educators have written about this subject and agree that, during the formation of a person’s character, the most influential persons are the parents, not only with words, but ultimately with examples.

If parents don’t give any importance to that and trust their children’s education entirely to the school, they aren’t supposed to be frustrated with the conduct or insensibility of their offspring in the future.

As we can see, the parents’ role in the children’s formation is essential, and that is what gives the paternity a status of mission.

Our children are spirits that have already lived and now come to us so that we can guide them towards a new evolution level, through examples, care and understanding.