Читать книгу Cutting more Ties That Bind - Phyllis Krystal - Страница 18

The Early Years: Pre-Puberty

On entering the world at birth, at some level, a child is probably aware of its forthcoming life-pattern, though as yet lacking the ability necessary to carry it out consciously.

It should be borne in mind that the parents are usually almost exclusively responsible for the early training of their children. So it is they who either start them out on a course designed to help them to achieve their potential or, as is unfortunately so often the case due to lack of knowledge and guidance, rear them in the haphazard manner in which they themselves were raised.

Parents faced for the first time with an unknown entity in the form of their new-born baby often lack the necessary knowledge to help with its development. I shall never forget how helpless I felt when I first held my newly born elder daughter. Here was this little unknown person about whom I knew nothing. I had not the faintest idea what to do with her. If only a list of instructions had come with her to explain what she needed from both her father and me to help her use this life to the best possible advantage.

At birth, a child relies almost totally on its parents to supply all its needs. It is obvious that parents must provide it with food, shelter and loving care until it grows independent. But beyond these practical necessities there exists a huge blank to be filled; all this is frequently accomplished in a hit-and-miss fashion as the child inevitably grows towards maturity. To the majority of parents it is a bewildering prospect. Usually, they have only the memories of their own childhood and their parents’ influence to guide them with their own children. In this way, many patterns of child-rearing are handed down from generation to generation, some positive and some negative in their effect upon the child’s development.

It is the reaction of the growing child to the entire environment, including everyone and everything in it, that determines its progress or the reverse.

Parents are authority-figures while a child is helpless to fend for itself. But if this parental control continues beyond childhood into adulthood, it prevents the developing youth from taking responsibility for their own life. They will be rendered too dependent, first on the parents and then on others in positions of authority.

However, if a child is to grow into an independent, responsible and mature adult, they need to be taught that there is a higher authority than their parents that they can contact within their own heart. They need to understand that this inner authority, or High C, is their own true self. It is, therefore, more reliable than any other guide, especially one’s own ego or personality.

As the child grows old enough to understand, they can be led by the parents to seek guidance from this inner source. They can teach the child to sit quietly and listen for thoughts or images to enter their mind in answer to their questions or appeals for help. When parents set the example by themselves following this practice, and are willing to sit with the child and initiate him or her into the habit, the results are often remarkable. Most children take to it very naturally if they are taught the process before they come under the influence of others, particularly their peers, who may ridicule such behaviour.

When this practice is successfully initiated and faithfully followed, by the time of puberty the child will be ready to cut the inner ties to the parents and continue more and more to seek the help and guidance of the High C, who alone knows best their destiny and needs.

Parental control and guidance of pre-pubescent children are largely missing, primarily because, in many families both parents need to work outside the home to support their desired life-style. The children of working parents are left to the care of baby-sitters, or older siblings, or in a nursery school, for far too many hours each day. They are often under the direct care of their parents for fewer hours than with non-family personnel. The result is that there is no conformity of supervision or training: children are exposed to one set of rules during the day and a different set when they are with their parents, causing them to receive confusing mixed messages.

To further complicate the scene, children whose parents are separated or divorced are invariably reduced to being mere pawns, caught in a crossfire of continued arguments, or as the objects of competition by each parent for their love and affection.

Children brought up by single parents do not have the problems caused by conflicting types of discipline, so often the case when the mother and father have different priorities, or their views on child-rearing are at variance. But, when one or other parent is missing from their everyday life, they suffer by being deprived of the two distinct role models of masculinity and femininity to help them in shaping their own future roles as men or women.

Practical instruction is badly needed to help all adults who have undertaken the care of children. They need to be shown how to help the child to develop its own inner qualities, acquire habits that will allow it to live more fully and enable it to contribute to the world with confidence and a deep sense of security that emanates from knowing its own true identity.

But any two prospective parents have themselves been trained in very different ways by their two separate families. It is therefore often extremely difficult for either of them to relinquish their own ideas of child-rearing in favour of their partner’s. When their two sets of rules or guidelines are so different that they clash, the only recourse is to seek an entirely new set that has been proved to work well and that they can both accept.

I remember when our two daughters were young children, I was given a book by Ilg and Gessell on child-rearing in which the authors described the so-called ‘normal’ accomplishments at each age. It was a great relief to have even this much help as a guide and measure.

Nowadays, there are innumerable books available on many aspects of child-rearing as well as classes for prospective parents to attend together. They are then both exposed to the same new method, which helps to prevent conflict.

Many systems emphasise the physical and mental education, but very often omit the extremely important moral and spiritual training. It is the latter that is so necessary to prepare children to take their place as honest, caring and responsible world citizens who will improve the quality of life by their example instead of adding to the confusion already rampant throughout our world today.

When children are taught from the very start of their [earthly] lives to retain the original contact they all have with the High C, they are more apt to develop from their inner pattern, just as flowers and trees produce blooms and fruits according to their own species. Too often the innate pattern is stifled or deformed when the child is forced to conform to the ideas or beliefs of its parents and elders, whether they are appropriate or not.

Children are quick to detect the slightest trace of disapproval and will often suppress whatever does not evoke a positive response from their parents or guardians. Their very life depends on gaining approval from their parents; they will try very hard to earn it unless the demands are so severe that they force them to negate their own inner truth. In such cases, they will either rebel in an effort to express their right to their own identity, or withdraw within in an endeavour to protect their right to be themselves. Obviously, neither of these reactions can lead to healthy growth, balance or eventual maturity.

However, when parents have themselves learned to seek guidance from the High C, they are more likely to encourage their children to do the same. Those children whose parents have given them a living example of relying on the High C usually follow their lead and mature into responsible adults who continue to be guided in this way wherever they go. As Baba often says, only in this way can the world be changed for the better. Since the world is composed of people, as the people change, so will the world. To this end, he has initiated an extensive programme in which children from the age of 5 attend special classes specifically designed to teach them moral values and encourage them to keep in touch with the indwelling God-force for help and guidance.

His Education in Human Values programme for older children contains all the basic guidelines for a more effective and complete education. It includes the teaching of moral values in addition to the usual academic subjects now being exclusively taught in schools.

This programme has been accepted in one form or another by several state governments in India in addition to their usual school curriculum. Authorities in other parts of the world, too, are gradually paying attention to Sai Baba’s educational programmes.

By such means, the children of the world can gradually be taught true values which will develop positive habits. When they mature and take responsible positions in their countries, a major step will have been taken towards a better world under their stewardship. Instead of instinctively following the behaviour patterns of their parents, they will be capable of making their own choices, which at times may not necessarily be in accordance with those of the parents.

The two motivating forces of instinct and free will often conflict in a person’s life, causing great confusion, guilt, indecision and a host of other problems.

The instinctive action dictated by time-honoured and proven habits of the group may lead to one type of behaviour; but, if it runs counter to either a person’s desire or their beliefs about what is right, they may be drawn to two opposite types of behaviour. If they have a strong will, they may be able to stand firm by their own convictions. But, an unconscious guilt that they have deserted the instinctual mores of their heritage may be lurking in the background causing indecision.

Those who are not endowed with a strong will take the path of least resistance and follow the dictates of their particular family or group. They then often have an unacknowledged fear that by thus conforming they have denied expression to an important part of themselves. This is an undeniable loss and it too can cause guilt.

Parents and teachers are, therefore, faced with the necessity of steering a course between these two paths in training the children under their care. They need to define, first for themselves and then for the children, the true eternal values underlying all cultures, world religions and philosophies.

Baba has presented many of these tenets in the Education in Human Values programme. The five values that form the basis, Sathya (Truth), Dharma (Right Action), Shanti (Peace), Prema (Love) and Ahimsa (Nonviolence) cannot exist separately from one another, for each is connected to all the others.

All five are to be practised simultaneously to bring about harmony, balance and true maturity or wholeness. Actually, love is the most important of the five and each of the others can be attained only when it is combined with love as its most creative component.

But how can parents teach their children about love when they themselves may not have been taught either how to love or how to experience being loved? It has been proved that the most important aspect of bringing up children is love. But unless the true significance of that much maligned word is understood, many parents may not have the slightest idea of how to proceed.

To add to the confusion, it is well known that too much love of the wrong kind can be just as disastrous to the child as too little. Again, it is necessary to find that fine line between the two extremes.

Children who have never received love are incapable of loving others and, worse still, of loving themselves or receiving love from others. But those who have been spoiled by doting parents are in an equally serious condition. They are often only interested in themselves and the instant gratification of their desires. They demand from everyone they meet the same crippling adulation they have become accustomed to receiving from their parents. When they do succeed in attracting it to themselves, they then become even more spoiled, self-involved and demanding; but, if they fail to receive it, they tend to become disgruntled, complaining and helpless grown-up children, a burden to their families and friends and to society in general.

So, how can parents avoid these major pitfalls of loving their children either too little or too dotingly, each equally crippling to the child in their different ways? The only way to successful parenting is to understand and constantly remember that all are one at the High C level, though the individual personalities are very different from one another.

Parents need first to recognise the High C in themselves and ask It to direct them, since It is far wiser and more truly loving than they are. But at the same time, they must also honour the High C as the true Self residing within the children under their care. Only then can they be instrumental in helping their children to reveal this same true Self hidden within them, just as a particular type of tree or flower is hidden within a seed or bulb, waiting to be activated and brought to maturity as flower or fruit.

If parents fall into the common trap of thinking that the children they have borne belong to them, they will be tempted to treat them more like possessions than separate individuals with their own life-pattern. This will lead to the erroneous practice of trying to control their every move, thought, word and deed in an attempt to mould them to fit their own image and to become replicas of themselves. This unfortunate tendency in parents has been the cause of a tremendous amount of suffering for hosts of children, as well as for their parents when the end result is estrangement.