Is the World a Good Place?
by Nancy Foster
[The following excerpt is reprinted with permission from Nancy's book In a Nutshell. Dialogues with Parents at Acorn Hill, available from the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, www.waldorfearlychildhood.org.]
QUESTION: How can we understand Rudolf Steiner's statement that young children should experience that the world is good? Even in his day, the world was a troubled place, and it is surely even more dangerous today.
ANSWER: From time to time, local or global events cause fear and anxiety. As we live through uncertain times, we parents and teachers can experience a great blessing in our time spent with young children. Watching them at work and play, and observing their shining faces -- alight with glee at one moment, crumpling in despair at another -- we realize how completely they live in the present moment, and with what total devotion they give themselves over to all that they do.
Rudolf Steiner did say that children in their first seven years need to experience that the world is good. What can he have meant, considering that in his day, just us in ours, there is clearly a great deal in the world that is not good? How often a child falls down and gets hurt! How he suffers with illness and fever! How she protests when Mommy and Daddy leave her with a babysitter! Perhaps the elderly man next door suffers a heart attack and dies. And as the media constantly remind us, danger and violent acts may threaten us. How, then, can we expect a child to experience the world as good? If we tried to present such a picture of the world, wouldn't we be lying to our child? And why, since the world is in fact full of trouble and danger, would we nevertheless want a child to think it is good?
Each of us may have a different response to the statement, "The world is good." One person may feel it is only true to say, "There is goodness in the world," a more limited statement. Another may have a world view which supports the idea that the cosmic order is "good" in the sense that every occurrence and every living thing has a necessary role to play in world evolution, even though we may not always understand the necessity. Such existential issues are worth pondering. Here I would like to offer some rather sketchy thoughts for your consideration. You can fill them out with your own reflections; and you may come up with other answers, of course.
I believe it is important for the child to experience that the world is good. Such experience supports the child's natural trust and unconscious confidence that he can grow and learn and find his way into the future. It is this trust and confidence that gives the child the courage throughout life to meet and overcome the challenges which will surely come. These challenges, which may at first seem to be "bad" experiences, are in fact opportunities for growth. The individual who is able to have trust and confidence will be well-equipped to summon the inner resources necessary to benefit from such opportunities.
Consider the little child's world. For the infant, the whole world seems to exist in the parent's eyes. To a nursing baby gazing into Mother's eyes, the world is indeed good. As the infant grows and begins to sit up and then to crawl and finally walk, the world expands to the circle of home and family, and then to extended family and close friends. A home in which the child has a secure place, where there is a measure of attention to beauty and order, where there is a healthy rhythm, conveys to the child that the world is good. When a child suffers an injury or illness, the comfort offered by a calm and loving adult restores the sense of goodness.
It is, in fact, through the mediation of the adult that a little child experiences the world, in the sense that our attitudes and our moral bearing, as well as our actions, work deeply on the child. The child's world still consists -- and should consist -- of what is in the immediate surroundings. This places a great responsibility on us. Rudolf Steiner's words, and the realization that we are the little child's world, can guide us in the present world situation. When we are with our children, we can try to set aside our concerns about our adult-size world, and do our best to be fully present in our daily activities. Mental health experts recommend that adults try to maintain normal routines and activities in times of stress. This is wise advice, and it applies to our children's world most strongly. We need to keep their familiar routines intact.
We should also be mindful of the old saying, "Little pitchers have big ears." Children have an uncanny ability to take in what adults are saying, even when they seem not to be listening. Even if they cannot possibly understand the content of what they are hearing, they are absorbing the feelings and underlying meaning, and they will be affected. Being exposed to adult fears can seriously undermine the child's ability to experience the world as good. We need to find the strength to save anxious conversation for times when the children are not present.
Of course when a sad or frightening experience does occur in the child's small world, it must be dealt with rather than denied, so that the child may be comforted and may share in the healing and recovery of goodness as the adults meet and cope with the situation. The important thing, once again, is to keep in mind the child's natural capacity for living in the present, in the immediate experience. Let us not ask our children to share our adult concerns and our consciousness of the larger world. Let us rather help them to experience the world as good, so that they -- the future of our world -- may grow in trust and confidence and strength. --Nancy Foster
Comments (2)
Just something to think about -- This came up in an argument with my mother recently, when she and I were running into a store, leaving my almost-5-yr-old daughter and her 10-yr-old son in the car. As we left them, Mom gave my brother a very stiff warning about keeping the doors locked and how to react to any "bad man" who might try to talk to them through the open windows. My daughter's eyes grew huge and I wished I could erase what my mom had just said. There are bad men? was the question in those big blue eyes.
We recently took our daughter to an outdoor concert. Before arriving, I mentioned to her that there were many people everywhere, and if she were to get lost from us for a few minutes, she should ask the first person she saw to help her find me. After that, she held my hand tightly as we made our way through the crowds.
Knowing that sometimes we will take our children out into the real world, where's a good place to draw the line between age-appropriate teachings, and accidentally frightening our kids with thoughts of unknown/uncommon danger?
Posted by becca | July 28, 2005 6:07 PM
It is definitely a balancing act. Around the time when "stranger danger" came into vogue, I had been telling my children that "A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet." A lot of hysteria was generated along with the portraits on the milk cartons.
There are basic skills like "Don't get into cars with people you don't know" as well as teaching sovereignty and boundaries with their bodies--and the trust to tell you if incidents occur. But it has always seemed to me that it is adults' responsibility to keep the world safe for children--no child can escape from an adult who wants to kidnap him or her, and most problems occur with people who are known to the family. As parents, we need to set expanding boundaries for our children and know where they are and who they are with (including babysitters.
But as we keep them safe, we also need to to help maintain the sense for the young child that the world is good. This forms such an important foundation for their later ability to deal with the imperfection in the world--and to feel that they, as an individual, can make a difference.
--Rahima
Posted by Rahima | October 11, 2005 12:53 PM