| A child's first school is the home. It's first teacher is its mother. Since a child's personality is shaped at home, the responsibility of parents is extremely heavy. The most important thing in bringing up children is to help them develop the courage and strength to face life. This is why, instinctively, parents try to encourage their children to do things on their own initiative and to cultivate an independent spirit. However, developing an independent spirit is not the only important factor in a child's education. By developing an independent spirit parents may surely be able to implant the seeds of courage and strength. But, unless parents teach their children another important lesson, to be good-natured, their children could become self-centered and selfish and it will be too late to undo the damage. Being good-natured, and especially obedient, could function as a counterpoint to strength. Unless individuals develop in their childhood humility by which they are able to listen attentively to others and to cooperate humbly with people by controlling their personal feelings, they will end up becoming like wild animals. And once they have grown up nothing can be done to fix this. To make a rough analogy with computers, it seems to me that good-naturedness functions when something is input, while strength functions when something is output. The two are equally important, like the two wheels of a bicycle. It would be difficult for individuals to survive successfully this complex society unless individuals input a variety of things just like computers. Efforts at home education should place great stress on training children to listen attentively to others with the aim of understanding them and on cultivating the good-naturedness necessary to act in concert with others. Often, however, parents focus only on output factors such as strength or self-assertion. This is why, I'm afraid, an increasing number of parents are having trouble with their children. |