THE ROLE OF MOSQUES IN CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT / ÇOCUKLARIN DİNİ GELİŞİMLERİNDE CAMİLERİN ROLÜ

Childhood period demonstrates a harmonious development with the home psychology of a family in which we are shaped. It is observed that children growing in a happy, peaceful, harmonious and qualified family adopt and internalize these similar features. In this process, the children tasting the spiritual peace in their family have a stronger sense of faith when they also experience the same atmosphere in mosques. Especially in the early childhood period, it is seen that the positive relationship of a child's mother-father with mosque reflects on the child. Therefore, making mosques suitable also for mothers and children will affect positively the relationship between a child and mosque in his future life. Mosques occupy a remarkable place in the emergence of God concept in children. Mosques or temples are the places where spirituality is felt most intensively in regard to time and space in the childhood period. The psychological notion of the religious experiences and atmosphere in these holy places shape and direct children's religious lives and feed their unconscious part of their minds in the context of space and mind, thereby making it essential to guide children in a healthy way and lay the basis of the required psychological background. Mosques or temples are the places mostly direct attention of children thanks to religious emotions and religious interest. Those holy places enlighten both the spiritual (inner) and the outer world of children owing to their gardens, fountains, inner architectures, and minarets that lead to sky. Children feel and breath peace, smile, love, and tenderness in those holy places and they grout their belief with those emotions.