Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 189
! ! 189 be in poor health and his body will not grow properly. In addition , such children will always remain immatu r e , even in their forties and fifties, because they can only safe guard themselves against evil as long as they do not encounter it. Therefore, o nce they are faced with immorality , they canno t resist it and end up accepting it readily. Thus , we cannot keep our children safe from the effects of evil by restricting their i nteraction with other children and by keeping them in isolation. R ather, we wind up making them even more susceptible to e vil influences. In the present environment , we should look for the best ways to instill good moral s in our children. The first point parents should regard as foremost in training their children is never to let their child regard any evil as inconsequential , so that he does not consider it insignificant. Many parents feel a heartfelt desire to ensure that their children are never affected by evil influences, but they present such an example before th em that evil appears trivial. A s a result , they become inclined to wards it. For example, most parents do not want their child to lie, but they themselves will lie in front of their child. S ometimes , they will deny having done something, so that the child does not find out (because it may be bene ficial for the child to be ignorant of it ). Or, if they do not deny it outright, they will evade and dodge the issue to divert the child’s attention from it. However, Allah has created a child’s mind to be extremely cleve r, for the child is rapidly evolving and increasing his knowledge, therefore he i nquires into and questions everything, and immediately comprehends the truth. Parents believe that they are doing the child a favor by hiding the matter from him, and if they do not do so it will harm t he child. However, the lesson the child learns from this tactic is that a person should act a certain way a nd then deny it or hide it by beating around the bush because he is fully aware that his own parents acted in such a manner b ut are now attempting to hide the truth from him. You shoul d never underestimate a child’s ability to perceive something or [think] that you can rid their minds of information [they have learn ed ]. Just as children can quickly get to the bottom of things, they can comprehend the conversations taking place before