The Effect of Beauty on Children

By Pierre Bruni
The Effect of Beauty on Children

I doubt I ever realized how thoughtful my parents were when I was still a child. Looking back I see so much of what they did for me in terms of my formation and I am truly grateful. Art, of course, played a significant role in my young life. And this was in as much a result of the type of art my parents decided to introduce in our home as was the “art” that they intentional excluded.

Imagine, if you can, the difference between a child who prays with multiple beautiful images of Christ, Mary and the Saints placed around the home and the child who has no image to turn too. I for one looked to the Christ Child when I said my morning and evening prayers. When our family rosary was said we faced a beautifully crafted statue of our Lady. In world as cheap and ugly as the one in which we currently live, the role of beauty in the life and formation of child cannot be underestimated.

Where is a child to look for beauty in this world if it is not first shown to him by his parents? Anything he is likely to find will be a cheap imitation or counterfeit but it is that first interaction with beauty that will stay with him for the rest of his life and it is against those first beautiful images that he will compare all others.  Give the gift of beauty to your children, it will give them light in the darkest of times and it will never cease to inspire them to greatness.