The Pope has said that parents who do not set limits for their children are doing it wrong because true education requires “limits.”
“You have to educate with limits. If you make a boy, a girl, a child grow without limits, you are doing it wrong. They need the caress, the love, but also the no to love,” he assured. “No to whims”, the pontiff stressed in the interview he gave to the public television program Rai A Sua Immagine, recorded on May 27.
The Pope has reflected on the problems of the world, but also on personal life and families.
Francisco has reflected on education and, speaking about the figure of teachers, has pointed out that in addition to “attracting” and making “feel good”, he also “sets limits”. “A teacher who only gives you candy is not good. A teacher is the one who helps you walk, but tells you the limit and scolds you. If there is a father and mother who do not scold a child, something is wrong”, has considered.
The Pope also referred to bullying phenomena by pointing out that those who perpetrate bullying “seem to be winners”, but “it is a false victory because it is a victory over aggression, over the pain of others”.
“True victory is harmonious, it is not aggressive, it is meek. The true word is meekness. Today meekness is not educated so much, because they make us see that being meek is being stupid,” he assured.
Regarding the episodes of school bullying, he has indicated that there is “a certain pleasure in torture”. “We are seeing it in the war, in the war movies, the pleasure… And so many soldiers who work there torturing the Ukrainian soldiers. I have seen the movies. And this sometimes happens with the boys,” he pointed out.
The Pope also recalled that the way of God is “closeness, compassion and tenderness” and urged parents to “teach it to their children”. “There is no way out: either we choose the path of love, of tenderness, or we choose the path of indifference”, he exclaimed.
“Educate children free of charge, but always with limits”, he stressed. During the interview, the Pope also referred to the war in Ukraine and said that armed conflicts are “a story as old as humanity”. “With peace you always win, maybe little but you win, with war you lose everything. Everything. And the supposed gains are losses,” he pointed out.
Francis thus reiterated the appeal of Pius XII in his radio message to political leaders in 1939, when, on the eve of the Second World War, he said: “Nothing is lost with peace. Everything can be lost with war.”
The Pontiff has also spoken about what he has called the “peacock complex”. And he added: “I don’t know if this category exists in psychology, but I call it ‘peacock complex’, whoever does not act like a peacock feels small. And there is that man, that woman who goes to work, able to buy a house, to start a family. Nobody is a peacock with them! But those who are a bit superficial fall into the temptation of the peacock, they try to pretend, to pretend…” “That’s not the way” , the Pope said.
