園訓:「教養孩童,使他走當行的道,就是到老他也不偏離。」箴言二十二章6節

Written by : Dr. Hui Long Kit

In today’s society with advanced information and fast-paced information dissemination, children inevitably come into contact with various healthy and unhealthy information from a young age. For example, social networks are filled with verbal violence, and computer and mobile games are filled with bloody fights and war violence, which may lead to imitative behavior in the next generation.

From a biological perspective, violence is an inherent instinct of living beings; otherwise, survival would be impossible in the law of the jungle. Newborn babies are closest to their instincts, but the cultivation of rationality is a matter of upbringing and the responsibility of parents.

Parents should try to guide their children to reflect on the harm of violence:

1. Violence cannot solve people’s problems; it can only solve the problems of those who are problematic.

2. We live in a world full of challenges. Since rationality cannot solve all problems, violence certainly cannot.

3. Rationality sows the seeds of civilization, while violence spreads the poison of hatred in society.

4. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”? When will the cycle of revenge end?

5. When others have different opinions from you, can you try to think: What common ground do we share? What can we share together?

6. There are no two identical individuals in the world. If violence is used to eliminate others just because they are different from you, the demise of humanity is not far away.

7. Schools teach Chinese history and Western history, and the history of humanity is a history of violence. Regarding the last global war – World War II, it was a self-inflicted massacre of the entire human race, resulting in the annihilation of a population equivalent to ten times that of Hong Kong. What problems did it actually solve?

8. Excluding individual regional conflicts, today’s era of peace and the stable, prosperous, and harmonious state of society are by no means inevitable.

9. Only with social stability and world peace can humanity have the space to pursue knowledge, advance technology, develop the economy, and improve social and cultural life. Only by distancing ourselves from violence can humanity have a future.