In the supportive environment of the family, parents offer attentive guidance to their children to learn to live a meaningful and purposeful life of devotion, virtue, and service. To this end, through their example and the pattern of their daily lives and interactions, as well as countless conversations, parents lovingly nurture in their children a host of qualities, attitudes, habits and capabilities of increasing complexity, adapting their methods and approaches across every stage of child development, from infancy to maturity. From an early age children learn to turn to God and to love Him, to pray and recite the Word of God daily, to see themselves as noble souls striving to develop spiritual qualities, to prefer others before themselves, and to express these qualities in caring and cooperative relationships. As they progress, they learn to become accustomed to hardship, to practice self-discipline and accountability, to become forgetful of self, and to acquire knowledge of the arts and sciences. And as they increasingly step into the world on their own, they learn to develop an attitude of service, to diffuse and apply the divine teachings, to resolve differences and participate in consultation, to remain steadfast in the Covenant, to work for the betterment of the world, and to direct themselves to those things that lead to everlasting honour. The Bahá’í Writings offer parents a boundless source of insight with which to cultivate these and so many other vital attitudes, skills, and abilities, and the training institute provides essential support for the family by enhancing the understanding and capabilities of all its members. There may also be other resources available to assist in the material, social, and spiritual education of young people of which the family can take advantage—schools, community life, service projects, and so on. Yet the ultimate responsibility to ensure the proper and complete education of children resides with the parents.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 19 March 2025; online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
