One of the urgent problems not only of psychology and pedagogy, but also philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, history and many other Sciences was and remains the problem of personality.
Analyzing the approaches of scientists to the concept of “personality”, we are in one of his works was considered possible to allocate some basic items which, from our point of view, the maximum reveal the essence of this phenomenon. As such grounds, we highlight the fact that:
1) the person is a human individual as a subject of relations and conscious activity;
2) personality is a stable system of socially significant features that characterize an individual as a member of either society or community;
3) identity is a socially active personality” [6, p. 19].
In other words, a person in our sense, is a person actively and consciously manifests itself in the relationship with the surrounding world and the people around him.
However, according to B.F. Lomov [4], the personality is a product of the society in which man lives and with which he actively engages. It is society, society has a direct and often decisive influence on the development of personality, formation of its value system, spirituality and ethics, moral and ethical principles. This idea finds objective evidence in numerous studies of foreign (A. Adler, W. James, J. Kelly, A. Maslow, G. Allport, etc.) and domestic (B.G. Anan’ev, A.A. Volumes of L.S. Vygotsky, A.G. Kovalev, A.F. Lazursky, M.I. Lisin, V.N. Myasischev, etc.) scientists.
But is the society, the environment has a positive impact on the person?
If it was always that we would not talk about the fact that our society is experiencing a moral crisis that people are largely deprived of the human and are on the verge of social catastrophe. In confirmation of this conclusion we refer to the work of L.A. Surikovoy [9], which notes that a characteristic of the modern stage of development of our society is the aggravation of the crisis in moral and spiritual development not only of society as a whole and each member individually.
Awareness of this problem actualizes the search of means and ways of effective influence not only on the process of development of personality in society, but also on the transformation of society itself, refocusing on spirituality, morality, humanity, and value a culture of interaction.
Special attention, in our opinion, deserves the solution of this problem in relation to the provision of optimal conditions for personality development at the basic level of ontogeny, that is in early and preschool childhood when the foundations of personality and people sensitive to the development of social experience which it encounters, communicating with the world around him. The importance of developing the spirituality and morality of childhood is proved not only by the results of research scientists (R.I. Zhukovskaya, S.A. Kozlova, F.S. Levin-Shirinoy, D.V. Mendzheritskaya, V.G. Nechaeva, L.A. Penievskoy, T.A. Markova, E.I. Radina, A.S. Ahmanova, etc.). As one of the priorities of spiritual and moral education is defined across a range of regulatory acts concerning the sphere of education (the RF Law “On education”, the Strategy of education in the Russian Federation for the period until 2025 (the Decree of the RF Government dated may 29, 2015 No. 996-R)) and even developed the Concept of spiritually-moral development and education of the person citizen of Russia (authors – compilers danyluk A.Y., Kondakov A.M., Tishkov V.A.), which notes “the Multiplication of the Russian people in terms of improving the quality of life and labour, the strengthening of spirituality and morality, citizenship and statehood, the development of culture and creativity is a major national task. It is defined by modern national educational ideal – moral, creative, competent citizen of Russia accepting destiny of Fatherland as personal, conscious responsibility for the present and the future of their country, rooted in the spiritual and cultural traditions of the Russian people” [3].
As very rightly noted by researchers (the works of L.M. Abolina, L.I. Bozovic, L.S. Vygotsky, V.N. Myasishchev, S.L. Rubinstein, etc.), a special role in the formation of spirituality and morality of a person in these age stages of development belongs to the family. It is the family, the closest to people in this age – the main link between the child and the world in which he lives, the society, with whom the baby interacts. Having immediate opportunities for the inclusion of child in the household and even social activities in adults, the family is the guide of those moral, spiritual, ethical, values beliefs and attitudes that will continue to define the lifestyle and thinking of today’s little and tomorrow – an adult person as a full citizen.
So why is this not happening?
The answer to this question we find in many works of scientists that have concluded the fact that not only society, but the modern family as the most important institution of socialization, is currently experiencing major crises (research Baralgina A.M., L.A. Donici, V.V. Zenkovsky, S.P. Ivanova, O.A. Kolesnikova, O.G. Prokhorova, L.A. Serikova, etc.). Summarizing the works of these scientists, as well as relying on our own research we are interested in the field, we identified the following negative aspects (the crisis), typical for the modern family. They certainly have a negative impact on the education of spirituality and morals of children.
1. The destruction of the foundations of family traditions and family upbringing. First of all it concerns the leveling of centuries of evolving in the history of Russian hierarchy of family relations and traditions of the lifestyle of the family. Here you can talk about, if not complete destruction, of a significant violation of intergenerational relations: the modern the younger generation often ceases to respect elders, respectfully applies to them, but unquestioning obedience and obedience to parents is almost a thing of the past. On change to it’s active opposition, the confrontation between the experienced and the young generations that cannot be considered a positive influence on spiritual and moral development of young people.
2. Has changed dramatically, and not for the better, moral ideas about marriage and family. As he writes in one of his works of V.V. Zenkovsky [2], “bracing effects of the family, not lost and not rejected by the gracious power of the sacrament of marriage, often unnoticed, and sometimes pauses as if paralyzed counter bad influence on the child nesamani environment”, And the author is absolutely right! In today’s world almost ceased to exist, and to be an expression of love, loyalty, spiritual unity relations between spouses, that objectively leads to a catastrophic number razvodov. According to statistics, breaks up more than 40 % of marriages [7]. The value of family and marriage among young people is practically absent [7, 8]. Lost and the traditional notion of parenthood. Raising children is perceived by many people as a heavy and unwanted burden. The consequence of these changes the consciousness of people becomes either the birth of “unwanted”, unplanned children, who often live with the parents or social orphans become street children, or such children, the parents just get rid, interrupting the pregnancy, thereby encroaching on the lives though not born but of man. As a result, almost 60-ies of XX century we are actively talking about a demographic catastrophe, the decline in the birth rate. But no social programs, which is currently quite a lot yet to change the situation failed. Speaking about this aspect, we are discussing the problem, the British pediatrician and child psychoanalyst D.V. Winnicott [1] suggests that, despite the fact that parental love is an innate biological components, it is cultural and historical, changing phenomenon, influenced by social norms and values. Lost the value of childhood as an important period in the life of human society, and as an objective consequence – children cease to be valuable for their parents. And even before getting married, people tend not to their birth. The desire of many modern people not focused on achieving success in the field of parenting, and the success in the implementation plan of the cult of life material well-being. But who is not a parent of his care, attention, unconditional love to the child will help him understand what he needed, valuable, and meaningful to them???!!! A special role here, of course, belongs to the mother. However, as noted by Suvorova O.V., Cheremisova I.V., Mamonova E.B. “the crisis of family values affects the parental attitude and parental attitude to the child, first of all, on the emotional relation to mother-to-child” [10].
3. Another crisis phenomenon typical for the modern family we highlight the many and varied challenges of childhood. The leveling of older spiritual and moral canons and standards of behavior objectively leads to significant violations in the field of behavioral manifestations of children: they have not formed a system of moral standards and patterns of behaviour; and children can not and do not want to coordinate their behavior with the system of rules and moral standards that exists in society. The worst thing is that it often leads not only to deformation of spirituality, morality of the child, numerous abnormalities in the development of his emotional, and behavioral areas, but also to the deviations in the intellectual development, up to organic, very serious pathologies.
4. The traditions of education in the family are violated. Not wishing to listen to the advice of the older generation, the recommendations of grandmothers and grandfathers who have the experience of educating their own children, young parents show amazing imagination in the matter of raising children. The most negative is that it affects the spiritual and moral development of the kids. Having no idea of the laws, features, mechanisms of education of spirituality, the morality of the child, and resorting to moralizing, reproaches, notations, instead of showing the child an example of spirituality and morality with his own relationships, the family often becomes simply unable to carry out this effective process. Institutions of public education, for example, pre-school educational organizations, can not radically change the situation and restore the traditional values of the family and upbringing in the family of children. Not able to solve this problem and socio-cultural space, media. As noted by O.M. Potapov [5], media topics of educational nature, primarily – problems of education of children in the family, climb rarely and haphazardly.
Is there a way out of this situation? No doubt – there!
The first thing, from our point of view, it is necessary to say, is about the organization of purposeful work on formation of motivation of parenthood to those who can and should physiologically be parents. We believe that only sustained effort, focused on comprehensive upbringing of absolute love for the child (even if it is in a distant projection) will allow to move towards solutions to these challenges.
Not less important is the organization of purposeful and systematic assistance in matters spiritual and moral formation of children to those families that already have children.
Development and experimental approbation of the program for parents to help them in the education of spirituality and morals of children in the family context we define for ourselves the purpose of our future activities. The emphasis will be on spiritual and moral education of children of secondary school age – of the age of transition from the youngest preschooler to the eldest and, from our point of view, the most favorable for the education of the heart and soul of the child.