“Every time you say: ‘Lord, have mercy on my child,’ he will receive from Christ a good thought… The more you Pray the more good thoughts your child will acquire.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Fathers and Mothers: Go and lead your Child by the hand into the Church.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“Pray with faith, counsel [your children]… with love, in a gentle way.”
Saint Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia
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“When mothers Pray, hell trembles; the most dangerous person on Earth is a Praying mother. Her children become flaming torches in God’s hands.”
Saint Paisios the Athonite
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“If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care. Do not leave them riches, but virtue and skill.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“There is no better way to teach a child Christianity than to live it truly and from the heart. You cannot teach what you do not live.”
Saint Silouan the Athonite
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“When you cut a tree, its branches dry up immediately, and if you water its root, the branches are filled with force. So you, parents, can be likened to a tree: you are the root of your children, and when you water yourself with fasting, Prayers, alms and kind deeds, God preserves your children. If an apple tree gives sour apples, who is to blame: an apple tree or apples? An apple tree. So, do the right thing, parents, so that your “apples” become sweet.”
Saint Kosmas Aitolos
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“The Soul of a child is like soft wax, whatever falls on it leaves an impression. Watch over it with care.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“It is good for children to have contact and meetings with lots of young people. Because in this way they will realise that relations with the opposite sex are not confined to the carnal level, as happens in marriage.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“Keep in mind that you must always be setting an example through your moral life and your actions.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“A child’s upbringing commences at the moment of its conception. The embryo hears and feels in its mothers womb. Yes, it hears and it sees with its mother’s eyes. It is aware of her movements and her emotions, even though its mind has not developed… Whatever the mother experiences — sorrow, pain, fear, anxiety, etc. — is also experienced by the embryo.
If the mother doesn’t want the child, if she doesn’t love it, then the embryo senses this and traumas are created in its little soul that accompany it all its life. The opposite occurs through the mother’s holy emotions. When she is filled with joy, peace and love for the embryo, she transmits these things to it mystically, just as happens to children that have been born.
For this reason a mother must Pray a lot during her pregnancy and love the child growing within her, caressing her abdomen, reading Psalms, singing hymns and living a holy life. This is also for her own benefit. But she makes sacrifices for the sake of the embryo so that the child will become more holy and will acquire from the very outset holy foundations.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Speak more to God about your children than to your children about God… The Soul of the teenager is in a state of an explosion of freedom. This is why it is hard for them to accept counsel. Rather than counselling them continuously and reproaching them again and again, leave the situation to Christ, to the Panagia, and to the Saints, asking that they bring them to reason.”
Elder Epiphanios of Athens
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“We should Pray God to give inspiration. God enlightens everyone, especially mothers, and gives them inspiration. This is the only way we can bring up children.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“When a child smiles in a dream, an Angel plays with him.”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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“A child needs to be surrounded by people who Pray and Pray ardently. “
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“We are so concerned with our children’s schooling; if only we were equally zealous in bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord!… Let us give them a pattern to imitate; from their earliest years let us teach them to study the Bible.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“If a child does not respect their parents how can they possibly respect and love God?”
Saint Paisios the Athonite
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“The aim is not simply that the infant should partake of the Most Pure Mysteries, but that it should live in an atmosphere of Prayer at home. The atmosphere of the home should be one of Prayer. The parents ought to inspire the children with their love for Christ and the All-Holy Virgin.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“A great influence is exercised on the child by frequently taking him to Church, by having him kiss the Holy Cross, the Gospel, the Icons, and by covering him with the veils. Likewise, at home frequently placing him under the Icons, frequently signing him with the Sign of the Cross, sprinkling him with Holy Water, the burning of incense, making the Sign of the Cross over his cradle, his food, and everything connected with him, the Blessing of a Priest, the bringing into the house of Icons from Church – the Service of Supplication – and in general everything from the Church, in a wondrous way warms and nourished the life of Grace in the child and is always the most safe and impenetrable protection against the attacks of the invisible dark powers who everywhere are ready to penetrate into the developing Soul so as to infect it by their activity.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“You don’t need to say a lot to children. Words hammer at the ears, but prayer goes to the heart. Prayer is required, with faith and without anxiety, along with a good example.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Freedom plays a major role in bringing up children.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“The best inheritance parents can bestow upon their children is their own Spiritual devotion”
Saint Paisios the Athonite
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“Teach your children this lesson: The rewards of evil are temporary; while the rewards of Godliness are Eternal.”
Saint Cyprian of Carthage
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“If the mother Prays during the child’s conception, pregnancy and birth, she gives it Spiritual birth as well as physical birth – she gives birth to a Spiritual being.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“Don’t pressure your children. In your Prayers say the things that you want to tell them. Children don’t listen through their ears, but only when Divine Grace comes to enlighten them do they listen to the things we want to tell them. When you want to say something to your children, tell it to the Panagia and she will bring it to pass. This Prayer of yours will be like a spiritual caress which will embrace your children and will grab their attention.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“The upbringing in the home is the root and foundation of everything that follows. One who is well brought up and directed at home will not so easily be knocked off the straight path by a wrong teaching at school.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Parents should love their children as their children and not as their idols. That is to say, they should love their children as they are and not how they would like them to be – to be like them.”
Elder Epiphanios of Athens
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“A mother should not be satisfied by giving her child a physical caress, but should also coddle it with the caress of Prayer. In the depths of its soul the child senses the spiritual caress that its mother conveys to it and is drawn to her. It feels security and certainty when its mother mystically embraces it with constant, intense and fervent prayer and releases it from whatever is oppressing it.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“It is not a matter of giving birth to beings for historical reality, but of giving birth to persons for the reality that transcends history, that they may enter Paradise.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“When your children are still small, you have to help them understand what is good. That is the deepest meaning of life.”
Saint Paisios the Athonite
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“We must see God in the faces of our children and give God’s love to our children.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Children look more at their parents’ lives and reflect them in their young Souls than they listen to their words.”
Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk
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“What saves and makes for good children is the life of the parents in the home. The parents need to devote themselves to the love of God. They need to become Saints in their relation to their children through their mildness, patience and love. They need to make a new start every day, with a fresh outlook, renewed enthusiasm and love for their children. And the joy that will come to them, the Holiness that will visit them, will shower Grace on their children.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Give me a generation of Christian mothers, and I will change the world.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“The aim in bringing up children is that they may acquire personal love for Christ and the All-Holy Virgin. We ought not to advise them simply to become good people. Also, we have to help them to stay in the Orthodox Church, not merely to avoid sin. The fact that they stay within Orthodoxy is a great thing, and may be the cause of Salvation, even if they have made some mistakes in their lives. Children ought to be inspired by love for Christ and the All-Holy Virgin.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“The primary lesson for life must be implanted in the Soul from the earliest age. The primary lesson for children is to know the Eternal God, the One Who gives Everlasting Life.”
Saint Clement of Alexandria
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“An important part of a child’s education is story-telling, since good stories excite the imagination and strengthen the bond between parent and child. Stories from the Bible are preferred, and the child should repeat them often, to underscore full comprehension.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“Children cannot endure coercion. Don’t compel them to come with you to Church. You can say, ‘Whoever wants can come with me now or come later.’ Leave God to speak to their Souls. The reason why the children of some devout parents become rebellious when they grow up and reject the Church and everything connected with it and go off to seek satisfaction elsewhere is because of this pressure which they feel from their ‘good’ parents. The so-called ‘devout’ parents, who were anxious to make good Christians of their children with their human love, pressurised their children and produced the opposite result… When children grow up in an atmosphere of freedom and at the same time are surrounded by the good example of grown-ups, they are a joy to see… what does your child see in you? How do you live and what do you radiate? Does Christ radiate in you? That is what is transmitted to your child.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“…the seeds of all sins are to be found in the children too; show them all the danger of sin on the path of life; do not hide sins from them lest through ignorance and want of comprehension they should be confirmed in sinful habits and attachments, which grow stronger and stronger and bring forth corresponding fruits when the children grow up.”
Saint John of Kronstadt
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“Take great care of your children. We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth. Teach them to love truth.”
Saint Macarius of Optina
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“Constructive leisure activities are essential for those who live in the world. It is preferable for children to get out of the house rather than to stay at home and watch television.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“… Don’t be sad about your son who you say is not close to the Church. It saddens us, but what can we do? Pray! Pray to God. Your child is good, but now he is at war, he wrestles with youth and sin. In any case, you’ll do whatever you can, because in the other life our Christ will ask of you either your children saved or calloused knees from your Prayers. Unfortunately, parents don’t know the obligation they have toward their children.”
Saint Ieronymos of Aegina
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“What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“When the parents are Saintly and transmit this to the child and give the child an upbringing ‘in the Lord’, then the child, whatever the bad influences around it, will not be affected because by the door of its heart will be Wisdom — Christ Himself. The child will not undergo great travail to acquire Wisdom. It seems very difficult to become good, but in reality it is very easy when from an early age you start with good experiences. As you grow up effort is not required; you have goodness within you and you experience it. You don’t weary yourself; it is yours, a possession which you preserve, if you are careful, throughout your life.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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The upbringing of children begins from the day of the wedding. The couple ought to live with Prayer and the fear of God. When a mother Prays when she is pregnant, the embryo feels the energy of the Prayer. When a child is conceived the parents ought not to be angry. When it is born, they ought to Pray; they should also Pray when they have the child in their arms. Whatever the mother does, she should do it with Prayer. She should make the Sign of the Cross over the child when it is asleep, and Pray when she breastfeeds it or gives it food.
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“Your children should not hear you arguing even once, not even if you raise the tone of your voices to one another.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“If a man trains his child correctly, and the child trains his child correctly and so on, the succession of good Christians will be like a golden chain.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“Your own children must be educated… not limited to external wisdom. Let them learn at the same time the Wisdom from Above and the Highest Truth… only then above all will they always have Christian Wisdom, the knowledge of God.”
Saint Luke the Surgeon
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“Take great care of your children. We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth. Teach them to love truth.”
Saint Ambrose of Optina
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“When the children are young, talk to them about God; when they grow up, talk to God about them.”
Saint Ieronymos of Aegina
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“When you cut a tree, its branches dry up immediately, and if you water its root, the branches are filled with force. So you, parents, can be likened to a tree: you are the root of your children, and when you water yourself with fasting, Prayers, alms and kind deeds, God preserves your children. If an apple tree gives sour apples, who is to blame: an apple tree or apples? An apple tree. So, do the right thing, parents, so that your “apples” become sweet.”
Saint Cosmas of Aitolia
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“Things will come out of the schools that your mind does not even imagine.”
Saint Cosmas of Aitolia
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“The Martyrs won Paradise through their blood; the Ascetics, through their Ascetic life. Now you, my brethren, who have children, how will you win Paradise? By means of hospitality, by giving to your brothers who are poor, blind, or lame.”
Saint Cosmas of Aitolia
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The Saint spoke with sweet words and with discernment in order to comfort the pained and exhausted mother, and with discernment and a smile he said to the father: “I was proud of you last night. You chanted all night and Prayed. Good job! But you would have had an even greater blessing and reward if you sat a half hour instead of three, near your wife helping her to feed the children and put them to bed, because for married people, your Prayer Ropes and prostrations are your children. When they grow up you will have time to do them, but “a brother is helped by a brother”. Let everything be done by mutual consent.
Saint Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia
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“Children would like to feel their parents’ love. Neither clothes nor jewelry have any value for them. As soon as they grow up a little, they will recognize that all these are worthless and will throw them away. But they will be left with their parents’ love and understanding. This is the big gain!”
Elder Joseph of Vatopedi
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“When a mother Prays for her children, she must melt like a candle. She should Pray silently and with her hands raised high towards Christ, to embrace her child in secret.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Children weren’t born by chance and we are held responsible for their Salvation.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“It is well known how powerfully corrupt images act upon the Soul, no matter in what form they may touch it! How unfortunate is the child who, closing his eyes, or being left alone and going within himself, is stifled by a multitude of improper images – vain, tempting, breathing of the passions. This is the same thing for the Soul as smoke is for the head.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“When the child begins to understand, the general means of fighting passions can be used. One must arm oneself against the passions from the beginning, and persecute them thereafter for the whole time of upbringing, so that the child might be able and might become accustomed to mastering them; for their disturbing attacks will not cease to the end of one’s life.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“It is necessary that in the gaze of the parents there should be not only love, which is so natural, but also the faith that in their arms there is something more than a simple child. The parents must have the hope that He Who gave them this treasure under their watch as a vessel of Grace might furnish them also with sufficient means to preserve him. And finally, there should be ceaseless Prayer performed in the spirit, aroused by hope according to faith.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Of all Holy works, the education of children is the most Holy.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“When you see the devil at the throat of your child, instead of becoming angry with your offspring for going astray, speak to God about it. Whatever you’d have said to the child (because they’d react badly, given their character), tell it to God. Get down on your knees and, by God’s Grace, your words will be passed on to the child.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Do not think that you are without fruit because you have no physical children. The Soul that is united to Christ bears Spiritual children: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Saint Peter of Damaskos
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