They cannot fit into our outdated boundaries, and this is not their fault but ours. Therefore, we must immediately revisit our behavioral standards and develop a different attitude toward children so we don’t keep them “imprisoned” all the time. We are trying to impose our norms of behavior and our limitations on them. But they can no longer live that way.
In the past, people had no problem living their whole lives in the same village without ever leaving it. Today even the villagers are different: They feel they have to travel, to see many things and learn many things so that once they return to their village, they will still be connected to the world. People today are different!
Therefore, it is us that we have to curb, not the children.
– But this is very difficult because we have habits.
– Of course. And children are the easiest to break. But nothing will come out of it because that way we are breaking Nature.
Nature is showing us the new phase of its development. It’s telling us, “Here he is, the human being of the future. He’s not corrected, not finished, and not molded yet, but these are his true initial qualities, his desires, motions, and drives.” This is a challenge that’s being presented to us, and we have to respond to it.
– You call modern children “the people of the future.” But many parents and teachers say that they are more like monkeys.
A woman I knew had a pet monkey at home and I had a first-hand experience that convinced me how unruly and dumb this animal is, destroying everything in its way. And now many people are ascribing precisely this behavioral model to their children.
– I am certain that if someone would take the right stewardship over this monkey, then it would start eating with a fork and knife, and would tie a napkin around its neck. And it would look wonderful sitting at the table.
If a person does not receive an upbringing, he will act as if he just came out of the jungle. Everything depends on the surrounding environment. Therefore, we have to create an environment for children, which corresponds to the demands of our era.
We cannot say, “We can’t do anything with them because they are not like us.” So what! Can we really treat our children that way, the most precious thing we have? It’s astounding how egoistic we are.
A system of upbringing does not exist. The education system does exist because we want to get children off our backs, give them some kind of profession, and send them on their way. But upbringing is something we don’t give them. We don’t build people out of them. When we do something for children, we don’t worry about their comfort, and we don’t make it our objective to coordinate our actions with their nature.
Today there are enormous desires, urges, restlessness, and inattention being expressed in our children. Internally, they work at an enormous speed. What can we do to make things simple and easy for them, so they would feel good and free?
What difference does it make what kind of world we will build? It can be anything as long as the children are happy. That should be everyone’s attitude toward their children. So why don’t we feel that way? We, adults, are egoists, wishing to break them as it suits us, for our own convenience, and that’s all there is to it.