Sai Re­flec­tions

?The fol­low­ing words (au­thor un­known) are worth pon­der­ing over:

If a child lives with crit­i­cism,

he learns to con­demn

If a child lives with hos­til­i­ty,

he learns to fight.

If a child lives with ridicule,

he learns to be shy.

If a child lives with shame,

he learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with tol­er­ance,

he learns to be pa­tient.

If a child lives with en­cour­age­ment,

he learns con­fi­dence.

If a child lives with praise,

he learns to ap­pre­ci­ate.

If a child lives with fair­ness,

he learns jus­tice.

If a child lives with se­cu­ri­ty,

he learns to have faith.

If a child lives with ap­proval,

he learns to like him­self.

If a child lives with ac­cep­tance and friend­ship, he learns to find love.

Praise is good, but don't over­do it: It has at last been re­alised that a child does need some en­cour­age­ment and praise but, like most things, this can be over­done. Give praise when it is due, but don't show­er praise on shod­dy work and half-baked ef­forts. Your child is no fool, and knows per­fect­ly well that it could have done much bet­ter, and so los­es re­spect for your judge­ment if you are too eas­i­ly sat­is­fied. It is much more help­ful to ex­am­ine the work care­ful­ly (whether pic­ture, home­work, sand­cas­tle, or any­thing else) praise the good parts, then give con­struc­tive hints on how it could be im­proved.

In that way, the child will ap­pre­ci­ate that you have shown gen­uine in­ter­est, while, at the same time, be­ing en­cour­aged to do bet­ter. One needs to build the child's self con­fi­dence, but giv­ing praise where it is not due can pro­duce the op­po­site re­sult. The child can be­come ad­dict­ed to praise and, when it is not forth­com­ing, a feel­ing of in­sur­mount­able in­ad­e­qua­cy then of­ten takes over. The need for ideals: Our aim should al­ways be to pre­pare our chil­dren for life. This means giv­ing them ideals, self-con­fi­dence, ad­her­ence to val­ues, con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­ers, and the courage to face dif­fi­cul­ties. But this al­so im­plies that you, your­selves, must prac­tice these virtues. "Peo­ple want hap­pi­ness in the fam­i­ly, but they fail to lead ex­em­plary lives. The fault lies with both the hus­band and the wife. If chil­dren have tak­en to wrong paths these days, the par­ents alone are re­spon­si­ble, as they are not ex­em­plary in their be­hav­iour ei­ther."

Chil­dren learn by ex­am­ple: As Sathya Sai Ba­ba says else­where, "Par­ents must set good ex­am­ples for their chil­dren. Par­ents talk of hon­esty, but they ut­ter lies in the pres­ence of their chil­dren, and even en­cour­age them to speak false­hood. The fa­ther, while at home, asks the child to tell the un­wel­come vis­i­tor that he is not at home! The child is thus taught his first les­son in pre­var­i­ca­tion by the fa­ther him­self. There is no use blam­ing the child if he grows in­to a so­cial men­ace." It is nat­ur­al for chil­dren to im­i­tate the grown-ups around them; that is how they learn. It is no use scold­ing your child for us­ing some four-let­ter word that you, your­self, use at every turn. By all means cor­rect the child, but say al­so that you re­alise that you must cor­rect your­self as well; you can even ask him to help you cor­rect your­self–he will be very good at it, and you might even suc­ceed in break­ing the habit! "You should have prop­er con­trol over your chil­dren, but first of all you must have con­trol over your­self. On­ly when the fa­ther is good, can he ex­pect his son to be good. Is it pos­si­ble for him to keep his son at home if he, him­self, roams about as he pleas­es and goes to paces that he should avoid?"

Com­piled by Sai In­sti­tute of

Ed­u­ca­tion West In­dies. (sioe­witt@gmail.com)