When I look at our society and think of the millions of children exposed every day to its toxicity, I am near despair.
My despair comes not only from the progressive loss of spiritual and idealistic values, but from the fact that our present society is simply not working.Underneath the other flaws and malignancies of our society is a general weakening of ideals and beliefs and their replacement by undiluted materialism.
I believe the self-centeredness that so dominates our society today is caused, in part, by a loss of spiritual values.
This loss is compounded by the uncertainty many parents feel about how values should be taught and what values should be included.
Excessive competitiveness, for example, causes some parents to try - unwisely, I believe - to raise superkids.
Since I base my new book, "A Better World for Our Children," on the conviction that loss of beliefs underlies many of the stresses and flaws in our society, I want to explain where ideals come from and - to keep skeptical readers from dismissing them as mere fantasies - to establish that they are real.
A strong factor in the weakening of beliefs and loss of self-respect is that to many people science seems to have replaced religion as an explanation of the mysteries of the world and for the meaning of human-kind's place in it.
For my principal solutions, I emphasize that the most crucial area for making a better world is in rearing our children.
I believe that we should not raise them with the major aim of getting ahead in the world financially, as many are raised today.
Instead, they should be reared from the age of 2 through adolescence with the ideals of helpfulness, kindliness and service to others, whether they eventually choose to work in a helping profession, business or industry.
School and educators can play a powerful role, second only to the influence of parents in informing children's attitudes and values.
Old-fashioned traditions and methods simply aren't working in a society that has changed as much as ours has in this century.
I urge schools and universities to stop judging students solely on their grades.
I also recommend a vast overhaul of the way we prepare young people for working in a changing world.
Another broad area in which we must change our present pattern is by increasing greatly our political activity.
I fear that as our society becomes more dependent on technical knowledge and technical means such as computers and electronics, and as schools conform to the shift, the whole area of human feelings and human relations may be neglected.
As our society becomes increasingly technical, education in regard to human feelings and relations should receive ever more attention.
Another danger in our increasingly materialistic, nonspiritual society is that our preoccupation with money and advancement will crowd out our innate love for people.
Already I see this process accelerating, and I expect it will continue unless we deliberately reverse the trend.
I believe that the key to a better world for our children - and ourselves - is to reassert the importance of values and to encourage idealism.
But before we can think of ways to do so, we have to recognize just how and why our society has lost its way.
Some people believe that the American family is dying because of skyrocketing divorce, the increase in parents working far from home and the feeling that jobs demand more attention than chil-dren.
Because of grossly inadequate high-quality day care and the impact and influence of amoral and immoral television programs, the family has lost its dominant role.
In addition to these trends that have a particular impact on children, there are the general trends that are corrupting the whole society - excessive competition and materialism, the shocking amount of violence that younger and younger children are participating in, the coarsening and despiritualization of society.
As a pediatrician, I've been impressed that when parents are visibly respectful and loving toward each other and toward their children, the children, most of the time, are kind to each other and naturally helpful and polite toward their parents.
A first step in getting spirituality, love and kindliness back into the family is to cultivate them in the marriage.
Some parents need to be more aware of the atmosphere they create between themselves and their spouses and between themselves and their children.
A time to observe these relationships is when they first get home from work. Do they get a friendly response or does the rest of the family turn glum?
Few people realize that they themselves have the power to evoke one response or the other: A hug or a loving greeting may be enough to initiate a good mood.
It used to be that most children in America grew up within their family's religion. They stayed with it and passed it on to their children.
This holding to a family religious tradition is still common but not nearly as much so as before.
I feel that the children and adults in families that adhere to a specific religion (as I don't) or a firm set of moral standards (as I do) are fortunate.
Most human beings, by their nature, want to live by some set of spiritual beliefs, whether or not they are part of a formal religion.
That's why most societies around the world have established religions, based on more or less similar moral precepts. It gives people's lives a firm, comforting framework.
Religion explains the mysteries of nature. It tells people clearly what their God and their fellow human beings expect of them, what the rewards are for obedience and what the punishments are for dis-o-bedience.
Religious leaders interpret the details and the applications of the major beliefs, but the principles remain universal.
Today, many young parents are rejecting the religion of their parents, while others raised with little or no religion now feel they missed it and want to give their children some kind of religious training.
Is it fair for parents who don't attend church to require their children to go to religious schools?
This is a question that seems to bother a lot of parents. After all, parents and society don't give children a choice about attending regular school.
I suggest that parents who feel positive about the value of Sunday school send their children matter-of-factly, without asking them, from the age of 3 to 6 when children are not highly opinionated about such matters, especially if their friends attend.
After age 6 the parents should discuss attendance with the children and arrive at a consensus. Then parents can let their children decide in the teen years.
I envy adult believers and their children for two reasons.
First, it gives them a moral and spiritual framework to support and inspire them - at least until the children get to late adolescence or early adulthood when they may want to rethink their religious or spiritual beliefs.
The second reason is more cultural.
It is good for children to get a sense of the background from which they have sprung - including the religious one, so that they will understand what their relatives and friends are talking about.
When children begin to study history and find that their ancestors belonged to this or that wave of immigrants to America, it makes them feel proud.
To find where "the old country" is on a map of Europe, Africa, Latin America or Asia and learn what some of its history is connects them with the rest of the world and with the past.
In a similar way, millions learn Bible stories in Sunday school, sing traditional hymns and recognize Biblical allusions in the arts.
This knowledge broadens and enriches children's minds, making them feel they are part of the world, part of civilization.
Our greatest hope for a better world and the best antidote for today's cynicism is to bring up children inspired by their oppor-tun-i-ties for being helpful and loving.
We should not let them grow up believing that they are in the world primarily to acquire possessions or to get ahead.
For if we give them no spiritual values to live by, they are wide open to the materialism pounded in by television programs, music videos and other commercial hucksterism.
Parents can set the example by not overemphasizing their jobs at the expense of families.
Many children, while proud of their parents' important jobs, are bitter about the small amount of time spent with them. Parents will never regret spending more time with their children and less time at the office.
By age 2 or 3 a child watches his parents carefully and wants to imitate every action. He wants to set the table, for instance. While this is partly imitation, it's also kindness.
A parent may miss the chance to show appreciation if he or she is afraid a plate may be broken and decides that it is easier and faster to do the job himself.
However, the child can set the spoons and forks, which can't be broken.
By complimenting him and giving him the joy of having his usefulness appreciated, the child gains confidence and self-esteem.
A parent can also appeal to the child's striving to grow up by holding out the promise that pretty soon he will be able to set the plates, too. Then the glasses.
Later in childhood, children help clean and vacuum their rooms, make their beds and cook simple dishes for the family.
Instead of buying cards for birthdays and holidays, children by the age of 3 can make them - for parents and siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
Later in childhood they can make simple gifts such as bead necklaces and solid wood airplane models.
There are enough people and enough occasions to remind children throughout the year that they have the power to please others - and that it's just as exciting to give as it is to receive.
The same goes for making decorations for the Christmas tree and helping to choose the favors for the birthday party.
Children also enjoy knowing that the toys and clothes they have outgrown can be cleaned, repaired and given to younger children or to others through charitable organizations.
A crucial aspect of these expressions of concern, generosity and love is how they are introduced and how they are maintained.
The best way is when the child volunteers spontaneously, out of love or because the school has a tradition that appeals to the child. Some of the value is lost if the parents or the school require the service.
But even if the child, whether at 3 or 16, truly volunteers, a minor crisis often occurs when the novelty wears off and the child ceases to volunteer.
This is less likely to happen if the parent has had a very warm, uncritical relationship with the child all along and if the parent has daily expressed appreciation of help.
But if the volunteering does cease, I think it is crucial that the parent not turn cross but sit down with the child and explain in a loving way what a help the child's contribution has been and why the parent therefore asks the child to continue.
This kind of serious but affectionate appeal is hard for a child to turn down.
Teenagers can be encouraged to do volunteer work in hospitals and other community institutions, or can tutor younger children. Day-care centers can be set up in high schools, with older children caring for younger ones under proper supervision.
By doing this, not only do teenagers learn child care, child development and human relations, but at the same time they also provide vitally needed help to working parents.
Adolescents can be encouraged to do volunteer work for causes charitable, environmental, educational, political - including participating in election campaigns if they have a definite preference about candidates and issues.
In early childhood, parents should point out that everyone wants people to be helpful and kind.
Parents should let children know how pleased they are when people treat them with respect and how unhappy they are when others are mean.
This kind of teaching needn't be a sermon coming out of nowhere. It can be most effective when children have fights within the family or with their playmates.
When this happens, it is time to ask questions such as "What do you think made him so mad?" or "What would be a better way to ask for a turn?"
Most American parents (including me) give all the gifts their children ask for, whether or not they are sensible or whether or not they can really afford them.
It expresses their delight in their children, and that is good.
But telling the department store Santa Claus every plaything they want and then having a frenzy of opening the presents on Christmas morning encourages a selfish and greedy attitude.
I think it would be better as the holidays approach for the parents to steer some of the talk to the opportunity for making simple presents or greeting cards for relatives and friends. That fosters the children's spirituality and is closer to the meaning of a religious holiday.
Actually, children fall readily into the attitude that it's as blessed to give as to receive.
I remember well my joy in making for my parents, in school, a stack of three small blotters tied with a ribbon. Adults needed blotters in 1910 because the ink in pens dried slowly.
On the top blotter I glued a calendar and a picture I had drawn of a house with a winding path leading up to it and a winding wisp of smoke coming out of the chimney.
And I remember my wild impatience waiting for my parents to unwrap my gift.
I'm not implying that giving takes the place of receiving, only that giving should be equally important.
Greediness shouldn't be whipped up by parents in their asking for lists of all the presents wanted or by taking their children to the department store to tell Santa the same thing.
We know for a fact now that watching violence on television or in movies gradually decreases the sense of horror of children and adults.
That is, it has a desensitizing, brutalizing effect - not enough to turn a sensitively raised child into a criminal but enough to encourage murderousness in those reared without much love.
We know that murder, rape, wife and child abuse are increasing at an alarming rate. It's clear that certain television programs and movies are fostering brutality and murder. As long as they are tolerated, families as well as society suffers.
Sexuality is being despiritualized, coarsened and brutalized.
Teen promiscuity, teen pregnancy and venereal diseases are being fostered by television and movies because lawmakers are afraid of accusations of cen-sor-ship.
At least parents should keep their children from viewing such harmful stuff by reasoning and appeal.
Parents should watch television and movies with their children so that they know what is available and what their children are viewing.
Parents should stop their children from watching inappropriate sex and violence. No excuse by parents is really valid.
Perhaps you think this is all so obvious that it doesn't need mentioning.
Then why are the indices of spiritual well-being plummeting? Why the skyrocketing of marital instability, teenage suicide, violence within the family, teenage pregnancy, drug misuse?
I urge parents to count on mutual love and reasoning as the best ways to motivate a child to behave.
These will, in the long run, preserve and enhance the child's spirituality, make him or her the kind of adult who will deal with his or her family, co-workers and others in a friendly, cooperative, honorable way.
This, in turn, will bring out the best in other people.