The Impact of Parenting on Child Development : หน้า 4/207

The presence of the newborn will force the parents to work even harder, so they will have enough to care for the child. The more children they decide to have; the more their responsibilities will increase accordingly. Kilesa is like a destructive disease that resides in every human mind from the time of birth. Even a one day old infant will have kilesa within. No one knows how the kilesa came to be within us, but it is embedded in every human being, even in our own children. Whether the children will grow up to be good persons, or not, is dependent on the actions demonstrated by the parents in the process of raising them; by each bite of food, each drop of water and each ounce of milk. These are their methods of demonstrating the correct way to raise a child. If we raise them properly, their kilesa will diminish, and virtues will develop within them. Then, the world will benefit from their existence. However, if we raise them incorrectly, their kilesa will grow and bad behavior will develop as a result. The world then will suffer from their existence. The family problems of today will not be going away easily or any time soon. This stems from the parents’ inability to control their children and their own kilesa. In order to develop a warm family, one must have a system to train oneself to control and eliminate the kilesa. These are the three ways: 1) Control your kilesa so that your bad behavior does not spread onto other people. 2) Share your knowledge, capability and virtues with others. 3) Absorb the virtues of others, develop and incorporate these positive qualities within yourself. This book presents a collection of knowledge, experiences and recommendations, which can be found in the teachings of Buddhism and those handed down to us from our ancestors, as methods that we can incorporate to create a warm and loving family. The team behind this book hopes that everything found in this book can be a companion in helping every reader achieve success in creating a warm and happy family who supports one another with love and understanding. May everyone have a strong family foundation, complete with knowledge, capability, and virtues that will contribute to only more excellent and virtuous individuals in the generations to follow. They will be the representatives of their parents’ knowledge, capability and virtues that will ultimately be useful to themselves and the world. S. Phongsawadsi And The Exemplary Youth Development Foundation