![]() ![]() The development of the individual child is not simply a matter of fulfilling one’s individual potential. ![]() Children manifest the natural variation of capacity among human beings: "This difference does not imply good or evil," ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states, "but is simply a difference of degree." 2 ![]() ![]() Thus no child is inherently bad or inherently good. Possessing both a spiritual and a material nature, the one attuned to God and the other to the material world, the child is born with an individual temperament and with spiritual and intellectual capacities for developing virtues, abilities, and talents. The child’s unsullied heart is not a blank slate, however. "They are mirrors upon which no dust has fallen." 1 "The hearts of all children are of the utmost purity," ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states. Children are born in a state of potentiality rather than of either goodness or sin. They do not belong to their parents but to the Creator, their true parent. Children, according to the Bahá’í teachings, are independent beings of great intrinsic value. ![]()
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