1.The Parent-Child Relationship # 2

Meditation

Meditation for Beginners

 

1.The Parent-Child Relationship # 2

 

 

The first and most immediate environment to the child are the parents themselves.

 

 

Parents responsibilities to their children

 

The said proper upbringing can be measured in terms of the fulfillment of five parental responsibilities to a child:

 

1. Restraining the child from evil: parents need to take great care in teaching their children to distinguish right from wrong, as the basis of positive core values. Parents should not be afraid to tell their children, “This is evil-even if someone holds a knife at your throat or a gun at your head forcing you to do this, you should still refuse to do it – it would be better for you to die than to do this”. If parents were to take the effort to teach this point clearly to their children, we would not have nearly so many troublemakers in the present day. Not allowing your child to do evil is to prevent your child exhibiting any of the sixteen traits already mentioned in the second chapter for “false friends” . Whether a child grows up into a fool or a wise one depends on their environment. The first and most immediate environment to the child are the parents themselves. So here are some practical tips for how to prevent you child from doing evil: Set a good example: Thus the first thing you must do to teach your child to do no evil is never to say or do anything evil in front of your children. Hypocritical behaviour in front of your children will ruin their sense of discretion. Some par-ents drink alcohol and smoke in front of their children and even send their children to buy liquor and cigarettes. They explain to the child “don’t drink or smoke when you grow up-its bad for you!”, but they think they themselves are too lid to change and therefore they think they themselves are too old to change and therefore they make the mistale of not even trying to set an example. Such a lesson is of no value to the child. Similarly, parents who teach their children to lie will eventually end up as the victim of their child’s insincerity.

 

 

 

Parents responsibilities to their children

 

 

Keep devices for evil-doing out of the house: In order to make sure the home environment doesn’t encourage evil, you should make sure that you don’t allow equipment for doing evil into the house right from the time your first child is born. Objects such liquor bottles, wine brewing kits, gambling tables or pornographic materials should be cleared out of the house and no such items should ever be allowed into the house again.

 

Help choose your child’s friends: Parents need to have a close relationship with both their child and their child’s friends. This is to make sure that your child is not associating with friends who are going to influence him in a damaging way. Here are two suggestions which may be useful in this respect:

 

 

 

Whether a child grows up into a fool or a wise one depends on their environment.

 

 

Regular tea parties for a child and their friends: Tell your child to invite his friends to come to tea once a week. It may be extra work to prepare cakes for all those friends but while the friends are tucking in to their tea, the parents will learn enough about the character of the friends from the things they say to advise their child which friends to associate with.

 

At least on communal family meal per day: There should be at least one meal a day when all the family come together – maybe the evening meal – to give the chance for the parents to notice any indications of guilt on a child’s face. The first time the child does some thing wrong (such as lying, smoking or shoplifting), the guilt will be very noticeable, the second and subsequent times, less and less noticeable, until in the end there is no guilt. If the family are all together once each day, then the parent can correct a child’s behaviour while it in still fresh in the child’s mind.

 

If your child continues to play with friends who are bad examples, he will absorb their bad habits as his own.

 

 

 

If they do not receive corporal punishment they may be spoiled for the rest of their lives.

 

 

Dare to discipline: Little guidance will be necessary for children who have done a lot of good deeds in their past. Some children seen to know instinctively what is right or  wrong and always keep themselves on the straight and narrow. For some children, being told off a single time will be enough to keep them from doing told off a single time will be enough to keep them from doing anything unwholesome for the rest of their life. However, there are some children who take no notice however many times they are warned. If after sufficient criticism and reasoning the child is still stubborn or unresponsive or tries to see how far they can “try it on” with their parents’ authority, they may need to be punished. If they do not receive corporal punishment they may be spoiled for the rest of their lives. Parents who need to punish their children must give serious consideration to what long term effects the punishment will have on the child. The long term aim in educating a child to avoid evil is to build up shame of doing evil [hiri] and fear of the consequences of evil [ottappa]. Many cultures think that punishing a child is a necessary part of a child’s education, however, to beat a child, especially out of anger, teaches a child only to fear the parent or fear the stick, rather than fearing evil. Besides undermining parent child relationships, as the child grows bigger and stronger, the parent will be less and less able to control the child’s behaviour by force, The objective parents should have in punishing a child is to shame the child from doing such an evil thing again.

 

to be continued...

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