[The speaker is Jerome Franke. The questioner is Ron Clifford.]

Questioner: Children are impressionable, and I believe that most authorities agree that they are influenced by the violence they are exposed to, whether it's brutality in real life, on TV shows, in motion pictures, or in comic books. What can we as parents do to help children reject brutality, to see that they don't glory in hurting others?
Speaker: I think the important thing for us to remember is that we start with ourselves by seeing what we find entertaining. Our children reflect our way of thinking and going about things. And if we find violence entertaining, it isn't unusual that our children have somewhat the same response to it. Would you agree that our thinking affects our experience?
Questioner: Could you be a little more specific?
Speaker: Well, in the Bible we read (Prov. 23:7), "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." If we can appreciate the depth of this message and help our children to think more constructive thoughts about themselves and about the effect that thinking has on their experience, we can give them some helpful guidance. Have you had any experiences that would indicate that the actions we see are the result of thought manifested?
Questioner: I've seen my youngsters push each other around after watching a bruising tackle in a professional football game. I think children tend to imitate what they see and read.

Speaker: Violence can remain in thought. This is why it's so important that we bring to our children a deeply religious respect for what man really is. Entertaining a right view of man gives us the basis to really help our children respect themselves and others and thereby reject violence.

Probably no one more deeply respected the real life of man than did Christ Jesus. He provided a beautiful standard for parents and children alike. He said (John 15:12), "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." His commandment and his life taught respect for the identity and worth of others, and it emphasized that the real nature of each one of us is to be loving and kind, not violent or brutal.
Questioner: But my children know simply from picking up the morning newspaper that there is violence in real life, that there are people who are aggressive and hateful and brutal. I can't tell them that brutality does not exist, can I?
Speaker: No, you certainly can't just close your eyes to it. What I'm recommending is that we bring to our children assurance and confidence that the true nature of man is loving, compassionate, and understanding. It's not an attempt to shelter them from the world. It's endeavoring to give them the means by which they can meet brutality and violence as Christ Jesus met them, on the basis of what man really is—the beloved child of God, the spiritual likeness of divine Love.

We know that children respond to love. The more they grasp, insight by insight, of the nature of God as divine Love and what this really means for man, the freer from the influence of violence they will be. Then they really have a basis for rejecting violence.
Questioner: Why? Could you explain more what you mean?
Speaker: I'm sure that you've had an experience when someone has responded to you with animosity and you've had the privilege at that point of deciding whether you would respond in kind or follow the Bible directive (Prov. 15:1), "A soft answer turneth away wrath." If we can key our response to a concept of man as the child of God and realize that God is divine Love, we begin to find that God as divine Love imparts unchanging love and real worth, not violence or disrespect for life. He imparts unselfed motivation and tenderness, not senseless and aimless acts of brutality.
Questioner: What you are saying is that God is a kind and gentle God and that violence and brutality are directly contrary to His nature.
Speaker: Yes, and this great significance in determining and evaluating our true relationship to God. Entertaining this concept of God in thought helps us see ourselves in a new light as the spiritual likeness of divine Love, our true selfhood, which enables us to express Godlike qualities of brotherhood and compassion in all that we do. This begins to remove from our experience the concept of man as capable of expressing violence, animosity, and hatred.

Mary Baker Eddy speaks of this real selfhood of all of us in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She writes (p. 571), "Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you."
Questioner: How does this apply to parents who want to help their children be less influenced by violence?
Speaker: Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (pp. 234, 235): "Evil thoughts and aims reach no farther and do no more harm than one's belief permits. Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence." As we express the concepts we've been talking about, we're able to help our children and ourselves build a strong defense.

Perhaps sharing with you an actual experience might illustrate the points we've been discussing. A voting couple I know have a child in elementary school. From time to time this child would lash out verbally, sometimes even physically, against the parents. The child was usually well behaved, but these outbursts often appeared because of little things.

The parents are Christian Scientists, and this is how they handled this problem. They would rebuke the child and send him to his room. Then they'd tell him that they were all going to turn to God to correct the situation. The parents then would pray to entertain the right view of this child as man—the spiritual likeness of divine Love—to see his real selfhood, that he was attracted and responsive only to good, that he was motivated unselfishly and tenderly, that he wasn't being disrespectful of life or leaning to senseless and aimless acts of brutality, desiring to hurt or harm others.

They talked with the child to help him see that these violent acts and the thoughts that produced them were no part of his real selfhood. As a result there has been a dramatic improvement in the child's disposition. He's frequently jolly and helpful, wanting to do what's right. Over the years there's been a great change in the child's overall behavior. They are all seeing how to better reject violent thinking before it ripens into action. As a parent entertains the right view of man, he's better able to impart this view to his children by word and deed, by example.

The place to start helping our children reject violence is with ourselves. Entertaining the right view of man, who is actually the spiritual likeness of divine Love, gives us a basis to really help our children learn to respect themselves and others and to reject violence.