Children and spirituality

Abstract

Interest in the area of children’s spirituality is not new. Already in the early nineteenth century, Friedrich Fröbel, the educationalist credited with the concept of kindergarten, is known to have insisted on the central role of spirituality in the education of the young. His concept of spirituality led him to insist that his kindergartens would be shaped by a "quest for an all-embracing and coherent account of the world, and of the nature of humankind, … [akin] to the concept of the (Divine) Unity of all things – God – and to the enunciation of some fundamental laws or principles (of opposites/ contrasts, the connection of opposites, the principle of self-action and the idea of enfoldment), by which that unity may be grasped and realized in the life of the individual." (Best 2016, 280) [excerpt]