The importance of social development in the family

Sociality should be something that is developed in the home. In order for our kids to have an upright sense of sociality, we must teach them proper social skills at home before sending them out to society.

Due to our obsession to raise our kids as socially skilled individuals, there are many parents who do not raise their kids at home, but instead take them to various places where they can interact and play with other kids their age. However, we should be aware that these actions are much more likely to result in unsatisfactory results than expected. This is because the social skills taught in society generally contain much more negative elements than positive ones.

Sociality isn’t always unconditionally good or useful. There are two aspects to sociality. One is positive and desirable sociality, and the other is negative sociality. Positive sociality means things like responsibility, cooperation, kindness, love and trust. Negative sociability, on the other hand, is exemplified by tendencies of differentiation, competitiveness, selfishness, ridicule and narrow-mindedness. Therefore, we must understand that sociality has its bad side along with its good. In other words, there is no need to send our kids out into society at once.

When we go into society, men tend to be friends with other men and women tend to be friends with other women. We also tend to make friends who are in the same age group we are in. Although this seems ideal, our social contact range is becoming narrower as a result of us mixing solely with our peer groups. This means that we will find it difficult and discomforting to deal with people who are older or younger than us, and also those of the opposite sex. In fact, in everyday life, there aren’t many opportunities for peers to get together, whereas there are many instances where we have to interact those who are older or younger than we are. Therefore, if you want your child to be able to have a comfortable, natural relationship with anyone despite their age or sex, you should think twice about sending your kid out into society in a defenseless state merely for them to socialize with their peers.

Society is where the principle “survival of the fittest” directly applies. Competition is an inevitable social phenomenon, and if left untouched in the highly competitive environment we live in, a sense of destructive competition is developed rather than constructive competition. In other words, there is no space for leadership, cooperation and concession in an environment where we are constantly put under pressure to win and survive. That’s not all. The competitive spirit learned in society leads to negative behavior. Consequently, it is much more likely for an individual to strive to overtake others by committing despicable acts rather than to develop oneself for healthy competition. Living in such an environment ultimately leads us to become selfish and ruthless. The possibilities for leadership development are also lost, and we grow up living a self-centered life.

Man is a social animal. We feel happy when we are loved and acknowledged. It is normal for this kind of love to come from parents and from God. However, if we send our kids out into society without having them experience God’s love and parental love, they only hope to be recognized and respected in society while living in harmony with societal standards. In other words, society itself becomes the standard and takes the role of God and parents. This makes an individual move in the direction suggested by society inside the value system created by society. Therefore, if we entrust our children to society and let it encourage their sociality, our children will become individuals under the control of the latest trends and will be forced to follow the instructions of society blindly. If left alone in society, our kids are likely to grow up not knowing how to go against mainstream culture and always jump on the bandwagon.

We should not leave our children to society. When the members of society gather together and compete with one another, some of them become full of arrogance, some live with indifference and the rest live feeling inferior and dissatisfied. Again, we must not let society raise our children on behalf of God. Then how should we cultivate their sociality?

Sociality must be developed first in the family. Because human beings are born with an evil nature, positive sociality cannot be created by itself. Positive sociality must be learnt through the process of proper guidance and strict training. To do so, our children must learn positive sociality at home and put it into practice in society before going out into society without training and learning negative sociality.

The sociality we must have as citizens of Heaven can only be learnt in the home, and it must be taught to our kids before we send them out into society. The Bible tells us that we should be able to lead a family in order to be able to lead a church. This is because it is the home where the father who plays the role of God, the mother who plays the role of Jesus and the Holy Spirit who leads the family, exist. The only place where you can learn how to speak and act like a citizen of Heaven, what to do and why to do so is the family. Therefore, through the guidance of the Word in the family, an individual becomes able to act in accordance with the Word.

Wisdom must be learned in the family before going out to society. Jesus said, “be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Having both wisdom and purity is difficult because in society, it’s easy to learn tricks instead of wisdom and inflexibility instead of purity. Kibbutz, a collective rural community in Israel, is renowned for having a thorough system of education. However, when the Six-Day War broke out, soldiers from the kibbutz were killed by about 30 percent more than soldiers from ordinary homes. An investigation concluded that there were much more instances where the soldiers who grew up in the kibbutz community died unnecessary deaths, compared to soldiers from ordinary homes. More specifically, there were many instances where soldiers from the kibbutz brought death upon themselves by jumping into a fatal situation merely to uphold loyalty. In other words, children who are educated in an ordinary household have the wisdom to avoid situations that should be avoided. The story of the kibbutz soldiers tells us that in the case where sociality is learned at home, you will have a more realistic and wise set of social skills than a textbook example of sociality by looking at the lives of your parents.

In order to become an individual who can trust another individual, you must have had received a sincere trust from someone and have trusted someone before. A person who cannot trust anyone cannot be a leader. God slowly molds us into trustworthy people by considering us, the untrustworthy, as subjects of trust. You can be a leader if you can trust your neighbors. To do that, you first need to experience gaining trust, because it is very rare that someone who has never been trusted can trust his neighbors. This means that children who are raised in a society that is operated by pros and cons rather than a relationship of trust tend to doubt others easily and have a hard time breaking free from a lifestyle of guile and impurity, no matter how much you show them trustworthy words and actions. Therefore, to be a person who has the leadership qualities to trust even the untrustworthy, you must be equipped with positive sociality by having lived receiving trust from your family before learning the feel of distrust in a society full of suspicion.  

Love is the same. People who have not eaten an apple and have only heard about it cannot know what an apple tastes like. Likewise, those who have never received Agape love cannot know what love is. The love that society teaches is the so-called “sentimental love” of people who are selfish, self-centered and controlled by their emotions. Therefore, if we truly want our children to practice the principle of “love one another” as Jesus said in the Bible, we must teach them in the family how to love one another before sending them out into society. This will enable our children to have positive sociality that allows them to practice Agape love rather than sentimental love.

For us the children of God, this world is not the ultimate destination, but a mission field where we must carry out our calling. Therefore, we should not allow society, which is the target of our mission work, instead teach our kids sociality. God did not choose us to learn the negative sociality of this world and live our lives boasting. He chose us to be the salt and light of this world, and continues to bless us with His grace. From now on, rather than trying to send our children out into the world, we must teach them the Word of God in the home, teach them Godly qualities, make sure they have the proper attitude towards life according to God’s will and the ability to carry it out. By teaching our children positive social character traits of love, trust, cooperation, etc., we must nurture them to become leaders who will advance society in a positive, clean, fair and righteous direction.

We must never forget that this world is a mission field for which believers are accountable. In other words, believers must bear in mind that society is solely a domain to carry out our mission, not a life goal or standard. Our first priority must be to train our children in the family so that they can be equipped with the positive sociality fit for a citizen of Heaven.