Teaching Values and Virtues to Children : หน้า 23/62

child and vice-versa. It is like a puzzle that fits perfectly with its adjoining pieces, arranged by merits. When a child is born full of merits, he will be blessed with all the good qualities of fortunate existence. The strength of his merits will bring prosperity, admiration and good fortune to himself and his family. However, if the child lacks merits, he brings with him numerous behavioural problems and causes calamity and misfortune for the parents. To add value to our own child's good merits, it is imperative for us to accumulate many merits ourselves and to set good examples for the child so they are accustomed to seeing and doing good deeds. In order for our children to achieve meaningful goals in life, we must teach them well and be good role models for them. We can find invaluable lessons in the Lord Buddha's teachings. Learning these lessons before committing to a marriage will ensure that one is aware of the grounds for a happy, stable family. For that reason, the traditional Thai custom encourages young men to ordain and study the Dhamma and live the life of a disciplined and wholesome person. Parents are their children's first and most influential teachers. Once the mother and father are educated in the teachings of the Buddha, they will be equipped to impart essential wisdom to their children. If they are unable to provide their children with the right kind of knowledge, their children will end up getting knowledge from other sources such as friends, television, the internet and books. Unfortunately, these sources do not always offer the right information or positive influences. An important guidance that parents should give to their children pertains to love and lust. They must teach their children not to engage in sexual intimacy before marriage because it goes against Buddhist traditions and it jeopardizes one's virtues. Abstinence is not an outdated idea but is in fact a contemporary practice that exemplifies the nobleness in human behaviour. It is very important that we teach our children about abstinence without fear of offending them because it is our duty to look after PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com