Young children and spirituality

Although now quite old, this is a thoughtful and easily accessible discussion of young children’s spirituality and its implications for adults. Maintaining that spiritual development is an integral element in child development, Barbara Kimes Myers provides a framework for the discussion of spirit and spirituality in the lives of children. Through her discussion of the four core conditions of a spirituality of caring, she crosses the borders of various faiths and applies her theories to a variety of practical and professional settings, providing a common language that can be used to talk about the centrality of spirit--that which fuels development and learning. She discusses transcendence, family life, cognition, church and state, fundamentalism and multiculturalism. Her framework emerges from her understanding of the thinking of key child developmental theorists such as Vygtosky, Piaget, Erikson, Gardner, Giroux and Noddings.