CHAPTER XV - BRINGING UP CHILDREN
"One cannot give what one does not have" - goes the old and wise saying.
Unfortunately, in our day and age only a minority of men and women are prepared to raise their children in a manner that meets the demands of spiritual and material life
People who are truly worthy of the name of parents are not those who limit themselves to irresponsible procreation. Real parents are those who measure and weight their matrimonial responsibilities and prepare themselves to conscientiously fulfil the duties of parenthood.
Procreation per se is merely instinctive considering the general source of animal life. However, as far as human beings are concerned, the resulting consequences are very serious and relevant.
As a rule, children are the image of their parents. With the immense power of assimilation they have in childhood, they try to imitate what they see adults do and this is indelibly recorded in their subconscious.
Therefore, it is impossible to dissociate the home from school. After all, the home is above all a school - a good or bad one - where parents (teachers) are continuously giving to students (their children) lessons and examples of discipline or indiscipline, virtue or vice, work or idleness, honesty or dishonesty, courage or cowardice, truth or falsity, dignity or abasement, order or disorder, shame or shamelessness, loyalty or treason, sincerity or hypocrisy.
Upbringing begins in the cradle. A few days after birth, children already display inclinations and tendencies which need stimulation when good and severe, uncompromising repression when unreasonable and inconvenient.
The responsibilities of a couple, during their children's childhood are enormous. In addition to constant watchfulness, they demand from both husband and wife, for the sake of their children's upbringing, all the courage, sacrifice and self-denial they are capable of offering. Giving their children a good upbringing should come first on the parents' list of priorities and should never be neglected.
INSIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING
Parents should not frighten their children with threats and shouting. They should act calmly, using insight and understanding, in order to gain their trust, love and respect. A good educational approach consists of frequent informal conversations in the course of which parents can intelligently tackle the faults they have observed in their children and help them to correct themselves by showing them how to do the right things.
Although they may not show it outwardly, deep inside children feel grateful to parents whenever they perceive parental interest in their future, security and well-being.
Parents should prefer restriction of privileges for a specified period of time to physical punishment, which should be used only in extreme cases and, even so, in a moderate fashion.
Nevertheless, if the wrongdoing is serious enough to call for physical punishment, it should be applied only if the mother or father are complete serene. Nervousness and the resulting change in the tone of voice weaken their authority to punish. It also arises a feeling of rebellion in the child, which is the opposite of what parent had in mind.
Every educational action should have, as a goal and source of inspiration, a sincere desire on the part of parents to strengthen their children's personality and character.
Criticism in the presence of strangers is entirely inadvisable because it humiliates children and hurts their feelings.
ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR
Many parents vent their anger on their children, thereby making them scapegoats of their nervousness and ill humour. This attitude, besides being wrong, is also deeply abusive. As a result of it, children tend to see their parents as heartless and cruel. Consequently, these children become deceptive and insincere, in their endeavour to conceal their actions (which they formerly practised in the presence of their parents) in order to escape punishment.
Fathers and mothers should give advice whenever necessary and timely. Attentive, constant watch, aiming at the discovery of character flaws as they are revealed, will indicate the right moment.
Among the indicators of character flaws are vanity, lack of punctuality, carelessness, negligence, malicious gossip, untruthfulness, impoliteness, disrespect, tattletaling, cowardice, cruelty, mockery, disloyalty and pretence. Children should be made aware of these flaws and should listen with due attention and respect to their parents' admonitions. These should be administered with love and concern in clear, objective, and no uncertain terms.
Sincerity, loyalty, fairness and truthfulness should always be the mainstays of children's upbringing. The natural curiosity of the little ones should be appeased but never by means of makeshift, conventional untruths which are always discrediting. Rational, convincing explanations within the reach of young minds should always be preferred.
There is nothing ugly or shameful in Nature when the limitations of natural law are respected. Vice, corruption, affront to sound habits, lack of respect and morals, these are shameful.
Those who are willing to reason and make good use of their intelligence will not lack the means of expression to convey to their children sound ideas about the subtleties of earthly life.
TRUST IN PARENTS
Children should learn to trust their parents. This will enable parents to guide, enlighten and help their children so that they can learn to find solutions to their problems. However, this trust will cease to exist if parents lack morality, decency, moderation, common sense, self-respect, consistency and exemplary conduct. In other words, if they do not do as they want their children to do.
Discreet supervision and watch are two techniques that should always be present in the educational approach of parents. According to an old adage, "Birds of a feather flock together". Bad company is always detrimental and the tendency for evil is a fact of life. Furthermore, both the ominous influence of the Inferior Astral and the errors accumulated in past incarnations contribute to this tendency.
Bad company, excessive freedom, unreasonable compromise and apparently harmless concessions have been known to lead countless people off the right path.
It is in the home - and not outside of it - that children and youth should try to find a comforting, pleasant environment and a shelter against temptation and danger.
Radical changes are unattable, even in the intimacy of the home. However, a great deal can be achieved in the home towards personality development. Even if this cannot be done on account of the temperamental rebellion of certain incarnate spirits, any improvement whatsoever should be a reason for rejoicing because such improvement, no matter how small, is always worth something.
Parents' efforts towards raising their children can never be too great. Good upbringing should invariably be founded on an important trilogy: work, honesty and discipline. It is a constructive process, the results of which multiply in the course of generations.