Episode 22: Inspiring Wonder, Awe, and Empathy – Spiritual Development in Young Children (with Deborah Schein PhD)

Deb’s book came to me shortly after I wrote the post, Is Child Development Spiritually Empty?, which explores my shifting understanding of how spiritual development fits into a whole child development construct.

One of the things I really worked on in that post, was defining spiritual development in a way that was not exclusively linked to religion. That isn’t to say that it’s NOT found in religion, but I felt that if Spirituality is part of whole child development, then the construct built around that development needed to apply to all children. It needed to be defined in a way that would apply equally to a child being raised in a Christian context, or a Muslim context, or a Jewish context, or a non-religious context.

So, in the process of my own effort to find how spiritual development can be talked about in an academic construct, I received Deb’s book and found confirmation for some of those things that I had found in the research as well. That spiritual development takes us beyond ourselves and into something bigger. Wonder, awe, and a deeper sense of meaning in life and relationships.

I’ve been excited to bring Deborah Schein on to talk about what spiritual development looks like, and how it drives the other areas of development. I’d love to hear what you think of the topic as well!