Ask Dr. Forgiveness
My mother has been diagnosed with a mental illness, Borderline Personality Disorder. She is constantly accusing me of stealing her money, which I have not done. I am getting exasperated. Can I actually forgive her? I ask because she probably is not giving full consent of her free will to these thoughts.
You raise an important point about whether or not we can forgive if there was no intention to harm. I think it is appropriate to forgive in some cases even if there was no intention to harm. Here is one example: Smith is not paying attention while driving and hits and seriously injures Jones. Smith explains that he was distracted and did not mean it. Yet, in this circumstance, given the dire consequences that can occur when someone is distracted while driving, this action (driving while distracted) is an injustice. Therefore, Jones can go ahead with forgiveness even though there was no intent to harm.
In your mother’s case, she may not realize the depth of hurt she is causing you because of the Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms, but even so, a mother should not be treating her daughter with disrespect and in a consistently unjust way by stealing money repeatedly. This is an injustice and so you can forgive your mother. As a final point, the Borderline diagnosis suggests that your mother does have awareness at least to a degree of her actions (“borderline” means that she sometimes is rational and sometimes not) and so she may be aware at least at times of the impact of her actions on you. If this is the case, then she may (at times) be intentional in her stealing behavior. You should go ahead and forgive if you are ready.
Plato repeatedly stated that justice is the central virtue. Would you agree and if so, does this mean that forgiveness is less important than the seeking of justice?
While Plato did state that justice is the central virtue, it was Aristotle who reminded us that we never should practice any one virtue in isolation of the others. Thus, justice and forgiveness are of great importance because they balance each other. In other words, justice by itself can be cold and even uncaring. Forgiveness by itself could make us vulnerable to the cruelty of others as we fail to know how to seek a fair solution. I would rather not choose, then, between the two. Let them grow up together for the good of individuals and communities.
I hear colleagues tell me that it is child abuse to impose the education of forgiveness on unsuspecting students. How would you answer such a charge?
Good philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. Good education is the same. Part of being wise is to know how to control one’s anger, to reduce resentment, and to forge healthy relationships in the home and in the community. Forgiveness, seen in scientific studies, is one effective way of reducing resentment and fostering better behavior and relationships. If we then deprive a child of this part of wisdom, are we somehow aiding that child’s development or stifling it? Teaching about forgiveness is far from child abuse. Deliberately withholding knowledge of forgiveness is educational deprivation, which should happen to no child.
If I wanted to start teaching forgiveness in my first-grade classroom, what kind of resources do you have for this?
First, thank you for considering giving your first graders access to the amazing benefits of forgiveness education. To demonstrate to you that teaching forgiveness education is beneficial for both your students and you, please read the 3-page Why Forgiveness Education? on our website.
Starting a forgiveness education program either in your classroom or throughout your school is relatively simple since we provide all the materials. We have Curriculum Guides available for grades Pre-K through 12th Grade. The curriculum guides are comprehensive (most over 100 pages) making them easy for classroom teachers to use.
The guides are available in two formats–the standard version for public schools and the Christian version that includes supplemental information tying the lessons into Christian principles and values. Here is a preview of an actual curriculum guide for you to review–the introduction and first three lessons of the 1st Grade Curriculum Guide (Standard Version) and the 1st Grade Curriculum Guide (Christian Version).
The guides focus on Dr. Seuss books in the early grades and on other age-appropriate books, DVDs and websites for older students. Through stories, children learn about the five moral qualities most important to forgiving another person–inherent worth, moral love, kindness, respect and generosity.
In the Grade One Curriculum Guide, for example, Dr. Seuss’ book “Horton Hears a Who” is the centerpiece of all of the materials. Horton was chosen because of his oft repeated wisdom: “A person is a person no matter how small.” This idea captures well the concept of inherent worth.
For each grade level the curriculum gets progressively more challenging so that by the twelfth grade the students are encouraged, if they so choose, to bring the principles of forgiveness to their community outside of school. See Curriculum Guides Basic Description 5-2014 for details.
Each grade level has a number of children’s books and related materials suggested for use with the teacher guide. You may obtain the books yourself, or we have available, and will provide to you at no cost, two-page to six-page book summaries with each guide you purchase.
Finally, we highly recommend a two-hour teacher training program we have developed for all instructors who will be providing forgiveness education. We can provide that training on site, through Skype, or through audio CD. Teachers can listen to the CD as a group (preferred method) or can access it whenever they wish. Contact us for details at director@internationalforgiveness.com.
You can order complete sets of the curriculum guides (book summaries included) as well as the Instructional CD in our website Store. Deciding to teach forgiveness education to your first graders would be a smart investment.
If you could give just one reason why forgiveness is something good, what would that one reason be?
As your question implies, you are aware that there is more than one reason why forgiveness is good. To meet your challenge, I would say that the major reason why forgiveness is good is because it is linked to love, particularly what we call service love or agape love. When you forgive you are exercising this kind of love toward someone who has not been loving to you as seen in his or her unjust actions. Thus, forgiveness is good because it meets injustice with the heroic virtue of love. I call it heroic because it is so difficult to offer agape love in the face of others’ injustice.
