THAT LITTLE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD
Learning about your conscience
By Andrew David Naselli
Christian Focus. 40 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 1 527 101 593
The front cover of this children’s book displays John Piper’s endorsement that if his kids ‘could be five years old again,’ he ‘would definitely read this book to them’.
It struck me that I hadn’t talked about conscience with my children before and that I probably ought to. So I thought the wisest thing to do would be to get on and read this book to my children, little girls of seven, five and two years old. The two-year-old, true to form, decided to roll around on the carpet, but the other two listened very quietly – unusually for them – perhaps because, to quote the repeated phrase of book: ‘This was a new idea for me. I wanted to think about it some more.’
A girl called Emma
The story starts with a little girl called Emma who decides to eat some chocolate after being told not to by her mother and subsequently feels guilty. It’s told from her point of view and through conversations with ‘mommy’ as she asks various questions. It’s a fairly long book to read all in one sitting as it covers many different aspects of the subject: Conscience is a gift from God, so why does it make me feel bad? How can our consciences be made clean? Should we use our consciences to judge others? Can we always trust our consciences? All good and helpful questions, with well-explained answers, but perhaps too much to take in all at once for a little person.
Visually, it is a little old-fashioned; I don’t think my children would have picked it out of a pile of books at the library. And the depth in which the subject is explored meant that some of it went over their heads a bit: for instance, they were a little confused when the mother was explaining how her conscience and feelings about women wearing jeans had changed over time. But we will definitely read through it again sometime. As a tool for starting an ongoing conversation with your children, I think it could be very useful.
