Protecting children from the immoral influences of present-day society stands as one of the mighty challenges facing Bahá’í parents. Your expression of concern about the effect which media, especially television programmes, has on children, has been sympathetically noted. As you well know, there is no practical way children can be shielded entirely from the moral problems of the society in which they are growing up. It therefore devolves upon parents to do all they can to ensure that their children receive spiritual education from their earliest years, both through Bahá’í classes sponsored by institutions of the Faith and through the moral instruction and example they receive at home. The published compilation on Bahá’í education offers many useful guidelines.
Since it is impossible for Bahá’í children to avoid exposure to unsavoury behaviour, it becomes important that the encounters that children may have with such behaviour through the media and in daily life be used wisely by parents as a means of guiding and assisting them to appreciate the practical as well as spiritual importance of being different. The extent to which you seek to reduce your child’s exposure to such influences is left to your best judgement in the light of the Teachings.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 4 September 2001 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to a Bahá’í couple; compilation: ‘Family Life’, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, revised March 2008)
