Children need to be kept away from any bad influence at any cost, for above their fragile souls looms today an entire stream of wretchedness. Their parents’ piety is a very good example for their children. Things that oppose to it such as: drunkenness, lack of spirituality, immoral behaviour, are sadly, also an efficient example but on the way of perdition.

His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II of Russia has made a very accurate observation, and that is “if in the soul there is not the conscience of holiness, in it will grow strong the abomination of desolation”. Parents need to understand that the foundation of the child’s health is laid since the pregnancy. The physical and mental health of the child depends on the way the mother bears her pregnancy.

(Translation from Dr. Dmitri Avdeev, Nervozitatea la copii și adolescenți, translated from Russian by Adrian and Xenia Tănăsescu-Vlas, Editura Sophia, București, 2008, pp. 13-14)