| Answer
from Jesus:
Do unto your children, as
you would have your children do unto you. That is the answer from the
New Testament.
How does that relate to physical punishment? The simple fact is that
one of the obligations of parents is to teach the children how to set
limits for their own behavior. If you think about this, you realize
that one of the characteristics of children is that they have to learn
the proper balance between their short-term, self-centered desires and
the long-term desires whose fulfillment depends on their ability to
get along with other human beings. This means that the children need
to learn how to limit their short-term desires in order to avoid making
it impossible to fulfill their long-term desires. One might say this
is the basic lesson of life—do you want a temporary reward in
this world or an eternal reward in Heaven?
When the children are young, they simply cannot learn this through the
reasoning faculties of the mind, because these faculties and not yet
sufficiently developed. Therefore, they need to learn this by their
parents taking on the role of loving guides who set appropriate and
firm limits for their children's egotistical behavior. When you think
about it, this is what you would have wanted your parents to do for
you, and therefore it is what you should do for your children.
Teaching a child limits must start at the very earliest age, in fact
it starts while the baby is nursing. You need to teach the baby that
the mother is not at its disposal 24 hours a day. Yet the challenge
is to do this in a loving way, so that the child never feels abandoned.
I realize this can be a very delicate balance, and I realize there is
no black-and-white rule that can be applied.
The most important thing parents can understand about children is that
each child is a unique individual. A child is not a new soul but an
old soul with a very complex psychology formed over many lifetimes.
Therefore, you simply cannot create a system for how to raise children,
and you cannot set up a black-and-white rule for how to deal with all
children. That is the great fallacy of some modern child psychologists
and educators. They are pursuing the holy grail of finding the ultimate
system, a kind of mind control machine that you can run all children
through and have perfect citizens come out the other end. Such a system
simply does not exist, and the reason is that God has given every soul
a unique individuality.
As a result of this, each child must be treated as a unique individual,
and ideally this can be done only when the parents have a strong sense
of intuition, which means that they have reached a certain level of
Christhood. Thereby, the parents can tune in to their own Christ selves
and therefore receive the inner directions for how a particular child
should be treated in a particular situation. The parents can then fill
their intended role as spiritual teachers who lovingly guide the child’s
evolution until the child can begin to do so by its own inner attunement.
In the context of physical punishment, the important point is that the
parents need to set appropriate limits for the child's egotistical behavior.
For some children this will necessitate physical punishment, yet there
are many children who will never need to be spanked. If necessary, this
can be done from the age of two and forward, in some cases a bit earlier.
There is a reason why people talk about the terrible two’s, and
it is that at this age the child needs to learn to set limits for its
own behavior. If the child does not learn at this age, it will be extremely
difficult for the child to set these limits during puberty—and
at that age the parents have lost their opportunity to teach the child
limits. A difficult teenager is born at the age of two.
Obviously, I am not advocating that young children be spanked harshly.
I am not advocating that children of any age be punished harshly in
any way, be it physical or not physical. The important point to understand
is that the role of the parent should be to set limits for the child's
egotistical behavior. It should never be the goal of the parent to punish
the child.
There is a fundamental difference between setting firm limits and punishing
the child. Setting limits is done from a pure and loving motive of helping
the child grow up. Punishing the child is done from and impure and unloving
motive, whereby the parent takes out his or her own frustrations upon
the child. This is never appropriate, and I mean NEVER. It is your personal
responsibility to learn how to deal with your own frustrations without
taking them out on other people.
I realize that bringing up children is not an easy task, and it can
often lead to frustration. Nevertheless, when people take on the responsibility
of bearing children, they should approach this as a unique opportunity
to advance their spiritual growth. There is hardly any human activity
which affords you greater opportunity for spiritual growth than having
children. The reason being that having children gives you a unique opportunity
to learn how to set aside your ego and put yourself in the role of being
the servant of another human being. This truly is a unique opportunity
to free yourself from the slavery of the human ego and rise to the level
of Christhood I talked about in the following quote:
46 Then there arose
a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest.
47 And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child,
and set him by him,
48 And said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child in my name
receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent
me: for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.
(Luke, Chapter 9)
The point being that the
person with the greatest level of personal Christhood sees him/herself
as the servant of all, including your own children. It would be extremely
valuable for parents in today's age to make a sincere effort to let
go of the old culture that parents own their children. Your children
are not your property, and you cannot treat them any way you want.
However, your children are your responsibility. In order to fulfill
the responsibility toward your children and toward yourself as a spiritual
seeker, you need to learn the lesson that I said you must teach to your
children. You need to learn how to set aside your egotistical desires
and set limits for your own ego. Obviously, this does not mean that
you make yourself the slave of your children’s egos, and that
is why you need to set limits for them. This can be done by realizing
that you serve your children best by serving God within both yourself
and them. Therefore, the very purpose of your relationship should be
the spiritual growth of all. The head of the household truly should
be the mind of Christ.
If you can approach parenting from this perspective, you can avoid many
of the frustrations caused by parenting. You can avoid the most dangerous
trap of parenting, namely that you build up negative feelings and negative
energies in your relationship with your children. The most dangerous
aspect of parenting is that you create at downward spiral with your
children that lead you to gradually build up so much negative emotional
energy that you cannot get beyond it to have a normal relationship with
your children.
Yet if you can stay above such negative spirals, and you can do so only
by being spiritually alert and by using appropriate spiritual protection
for yourself and your children, having children can be a wonderful opportunity
for growth. To take full advantage of this opportunity, you need to
start by disciplining yourself and learning how to set limits for your
own egotistical desires. You then need to use that foundation to set
appropriate limits for your children. When this is done successfully,
you can enjoy a positive relationship with your children for most of
their lives.
I am not saying that it is possible to be a parent without experiencing
frustration. This is hardly realistic in today's age where few parents
have reached personal Christhood and where most children are born with
psychological wounds from past lives. So I am not trying to set up an
ideal that is so lofty that no one could possibly live up to it. I am
simply trying to give you some hints that can help you meat the challenge
of parenting. My point here is that so many Christians have sought to
use my life to create and idol about the ideal family that no human
being can possibly live up to. I have no desire to see the perpetuation
of this idol, because I do not want my life to be used as a way to make
other people feel inadequate or guilty.
My parents were not the perfect parents, and I was not the perfect child.
Parenthood is a learning experience, and if you were perfect at the
beginning, why would you need to learn? So you need to approach parenting
with a lot of forgiveness toward yourself and toward your children.
Do not expect yourself to be a perfect parent, and do not expect your
children to be perfect children. In fact, if you could get rid of all
man-made standards for how you should be as a parent and for how your
children should be, then you would make the job a lot easier for yourself
and for your children. Expectations are the seeds of frustration.
Finally, I would like to say that many parents choose to give birth
to souls with whom they have severe karma from past lives. This karma
makes it highly likely that a negative spiral will emerge, and you see
this in many of today's families. To overcome the karma between themselves
and between themselves and their children, all parents should make a
diligent effort to transform negative energy in the family. The most
efficient way to do this is to use Mother Mary’s rosaries and
the other tools I give on this website.
It should also be noted that in today's world the family is under severe
attack in most nations, especially in the West. This attack is engineered
by dark forces who want to destroy the family, which for thousands of
years has been the nucleus of society. Therefore, it is extremely important
for all parents to invoke spiritual protection for themselves and their
children. Again, I highly recommend Archangel Michael's Rosary for this
purpose.
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Copyright
© 2004 by Kim Michaels |
