Teach children to rationalise their feelings & thoughts
We have 2 voices inside us, and children start knowing this as they become more conscious and as they grow. Sometimes, they know the right voice, but still falter for the wrong voice, just because they don’t have strong validation to look upto. That’s when we parents come into picture, to provide that external validation and concept understanding. Gradually, as we augment that external support, the right voice gets powerful, safeguarding the child from ill impacts of all other ill voices. It can be hatred, envy, jealousy, anger, malice, revenge, comparisons, self doubt, bad mouthing oneself and all other ill thoughts.
We must tell children that we will have all these voices inside us, good and bad, and it’s absolutely fine. And at the same time, we should teach them to differentiate the two and discard the wrong one. That can’t be done by just ignoring that wrong voice. The more we ignore it, the more loud it becomes. It can only be overpowered by good rationality, and we have to rationalise those ill thoughts for their own good, so that they don’t end up struggling within themselves.
What can we do to help children rationalise those thoughts? First of all, we need to understand that this journey starts from an early age, and not later on. Because it then gets too late to kill the devil.
- Tell them how hatred is bad for themselves – We need to tell children that hatred deprives them from harmony, and their precious time to work on self. Hatred only spoil our own internal ecosystem, rather than doing any bad to others. Teach them to ask themselves, what will happen with hate. If you didn’t like someone or his/her action, just get distanced from them and focus on your own being
- Tell them how comparisons are futile – Yes, teach them and put words in their mind that never compare. We all are blessed with different qualities. Look inwards rather than comparing with others. Be yourself what you truly are, unapologetically. Yes, do make improvements, but never leave your own true self. Teaching children to love themselves the way they are, is the biggest gift we can provide them
- Envy or jealousy only harm us, Tell them – How? By being envious, we give other people undesirable space in our mind, and we on the contrary hamper our own inner self. What would be better? Thinking about others, or focussing on our own beautiful self. Ask children to acknowledge good in others, than feeling jealous or envy
- Teach them how to control anger – emotional outbursts are sometimes good, but anger makes us unwise. We can’t make the right decisions when we are angry. Either we will say something foul, or in haste, our actions would be deteriorating. Anger harms us more than others. Ignore, distance yourself from negativity, but never be angry. Love yourself, and love your peace. This fundamental thought has to be put in children’s mind from an early age, so that they get directed towards their own journey than wasting their energy on frivolous things
- Never bad mouth yourself! A magic recipe for self love – Sometimes, we become negative and curse ourselves, or bad mouth our own self. In that pursuit, we kill our own soul, our own confidence and become severely negative. If we can’t be positive about ourselves, we can never radiate positivity. We will always talk negatively and become negative. By doing that, we would be calling for other ill thoughts as well like envy, hatred or even malice
- Malice is more malicious to us, than to others – why to spend time and energy bothering others and doing bad for them, where we can focus on ourselves and silent others through our own success. This does not mean not to confront negative people. Confront, but don’t waste time on him/her. We don’t need any validation. Just walking our own path gives us liberty and happiness. We need to coach children to have this thought process
All in all, we need to tell the children to love themselves and how to develop that self love. Ask them to have a constructive talk with oneself, and identify their own ill thoughts. Tell them that ill thoughts will come, and we can’t stop them. Better to rationalise them, than fight with them…
