Dr. Michael Laitman Education Series
With Limor Soffer-Fetman, educational psychologist and psychotherapist, and
Eli Vinokur, education content manager for the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute
Eli Vinokur: So far, we detailed all the stages from conception to age three and we reached the point where the child begins to recognize that there is a world around him. This is where we begin our show today.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: At this age, age three, many parents talk about the difficulties in setting boundaries. How in your view should that be done?
Michael Laitman: It all depends on starting with that even earlier. The child understands and senses these things from the very first day. He cannot accept leaving something for a certain age and only then beginning to stabilize it because for him, it is already registered in the brain and in his habits, that it should be different. So now when the same people who used to allow him to do this or that, suddenly don’t allow it, he doesn’t understand it. It is like a different nature, as if he landed into a different world, in which he is now being required to do things that he cannot accept.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Are you saying that it should be linked to what existed previously? Is the recommendation to set up a schedule for the children when they are younger?
Michael Laitman: If you want to limit him afterward, you should start from the very beginning, from the moment he comes into contact with that thing. It can’t be that he grows accustomed to taking something and suddenly you tell him, “No, that’s not allowed.” He doesn’t understand why it is now forbidden because initially you got him used to touching and using it.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: You’re saying not to hesitate to be authoritative earlier as well.
Michael Laitman: By doing that, you are making it easier for him; it is no longer a limit. The fact that he knows up to here it is permitted but not beyond does not limit him anymore. He lives with it. But if we suddenly tell him, “Now you can’t do this, now you can’t do that,” why is it forbidden now? We also don’t like that. I get to the age of 15, 16, or 17 and I’m told, “You must go to the army, you must get a job, you must, must, and must.” I don’t want to be obligated. Why should I be obligated? I know I have to go to school, and after that, my life is mine. Suddenly having to worry about my food, my laundry, to build my home, my family ... Do I have to? I don’t want this world.
Eli Vinokur: So from what age does a child even perceive that he is allowed or forbidden to do something?
Michael Laitman: Even if he can’t understand, he should hear your approach regarding what he’s touching and what he’s doing all the time, from age zero.
He should be talked to constantly, so he will hear your approach: this is okay and that is not okay; this way is good, that way is not; this is allowed and that is forbidden. That way, you build the boundaries of the world, the surroundings, that envelop which he now knows, and he accepts it. You are establishing his approach to the world for him, how to touch and where, so that afterward it will not seem strange and cruel to him, that he is being jailed all of a sudden after having been free.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: There are many trends in that regard and many approaches and it could be confusing.
Michael Laitman: But there needs to be the same approach from the beginning. It’ll be easy for him, he won’t feel any difficulty about it. We need to give children those habits that they will need to use later in life anyway as early as possible.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: So how does Kabbalah suggest to do that, from the aspect of punishment?
Michael Laitman: No, no punishments, why punish? Only habits.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: And what if he doesn’t want to?
Michael Laitman: There’s no such thing as not wanting to.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: There is such a thing as not wanting to.
Michael Laitman: No, because a child wants to learn from the older ones.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: True.
Michael Laitman: And if he knows that that’s what the grownups do, and they let him understand that it is good that way, he gradually gets used to it. You don’t sit him down beside you for an entire day, obviously, but still, he knows that’s the way and that he has no choice. And he gets it from the grownups, accepts it well, nicely. It doesn’t limit him, he doesn’t fight it, nature begins to operate in order to perceive those things and continue with them.
Eli Vinokur: But let’s say he did something wrong, or if you would like to reprove a certain behavior, what is the right way to go about it, if not through punishing?
Michael Laitman: You need to go over it with him and explain. He needs to understand that it is undesirable.
Eli Vinokur: And which explanation is best?
Michael Laitman: Repetition, reiteration.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: You mean an explanation that repeats itself?
Michael Laitman: If I tell him a thousand times, he won’t understand. I have to repeat the same act and explain what is right and what isn’t, and why it’s wrong, through precisely the same act, the same incident. If I go over it with him, he’ll understand what I am saying to him, we are talking about ages two-three.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: But there is a kind of rebellion at ages two-three, exactly toward the way adults behave, something is projected from them.
Michael Laitman: That’s impossible. It means that the adults are suddenly demanding things they didn’t form in them before. Don’t wait for surprises. You know he will surely break a glass or do other things. This is how he learns
But he isn’t rebelling. We should study it as an environment, just like in the wisdom of Kabbalah: if we use the environment properly, he’ll begin to understand that his parents, grownups, or environment approve of this or disapprove of that, and he will have no choice.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Like toilet-training at this age?
Michael Laitman: Yes.
Eli Vinokur: Should he be rewarded in some way? How should we give him some feeling that something is pleasing?
Michael Laitman: Compliment him, give him reinforcements, so he will know that this is good. It’s just like a little animal, what’s the difference?
Eli Vinokur: And if the behavior is not good, should we show that we are unhappy with it?
Michael Laitman: Yes, show you’re unhappy, right, but don’t punish, he doesn’t understand punishment, he won’t associate it properly to what he did.
Eli Vinokur: And from age three, say, three to six, in that range is there a concept of “punishment” or does it never exist, because at age three he understands causation?
Michael Laitman: That’s true, but again, we need to repeat the situation, the act, and explain all its consequences. That is, he needs to understand the act, and then it’s education. Otherwise it isn’t education.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: This is extremely significant for parents, because you are saying that the current perception of “the terrible twos,” or that age two-three is a terribly difficult age, basically depends on prior education.
Michael Laitman: It depends on prior education and on the extent to which the child is treated as a grownup.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: In choosing a certain method out of all the existing methods, there are approaches that talk about a schedule, boundaries, putting a child into a framework, as opposed to approaches that say, “the baby determines.”
Michael Laitman: No, no, no.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: So they claim, “The baby knows.”
Michael Laitman: No, that’s totally wrong. The child should constantly see the boundaries. There is a good reason why it is written, “He who withholds his rod hates his son”.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: What about the connection with the siblings at these ages?
Michael Laitman: You need to put that social environment to good use in how they affect each other. We should constantly develop an attitude toward him that will make him see himself as a friend.
Eli Vinokur: As the parents’ friend?
Michael Laitman: Yes, to be sad when they are sad and happy when they are happy. Otherwise he’ll feel resistance, a clash. If they are superior, then he already has an attitude of for or against, beneath or above them.
Eli Vinokur: They also influence him much less because if he feels he is not on the same level, he is not influenced by them as much as he is influenced by his equals.
Michael Laitman: Right.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: So how can the parents be authoritative on the one hand, and be friends with the child on the other hand? How does that coincide?
Michael Laitman: It is like a “student friend,” there is such a concept in the wisdom of Kabbalah. It means that I treat him as an equal.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: On the one hand.
Michael Laitman: On the one hand. And I also teach him, and expect a response on the level that I relate to him: with respect, love, and appreciation. And you will see how at age three he suddenly becomes mature and begins to understand how to say, to answer, and to hold his own. Don’t think we are building out of him some type of artificial figure of a human, no, it all depends on how we behave.
Also, at this point it is important to distinguish between boys and girls.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: From what age?
Michael Laitman: From age three for sure, perhaps even a little before, but at age three for sure. A boy needs to be educated by the men, and girls by women.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Why? What is the significance in that?
Michael Laitman: They already sense it. They already begin to sense a different perception on life, behavior, stories, everything is already different. The way the mother will now tell him stories is different to how the father or a male teacher will tell them. In our generation, our problem is that in kindergartens and at school, boys are taught by women.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: So the toll is more on the boys? Because the girls have women around them all the time.
Michael Laitman: Yes.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: What type of harm can you see?
Michael Laitman: He shouldn’t receive from the mother anymore; he should already receive from the father. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, he already needs to be under the Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom), to develop like Zeir Anpin from Hochma. He should already resemble a grown man. He is already inclined toward it. He can’t play the same games anymore; he already notices the gender in games, he’s already beginning to relate to the world differently. So from that moment on we need to separate them. When kindergartens and schools are mixed, it’s not good.
Eli Vinokur: Is it because here is when personal example begins to play a part?
Michael Laitman: A male teacher setting personal example for boys and a female teacher for girls.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Just like the student/friend issue you mentioned?
Michael Laitman: A student/friend, yes. Everything should be through discussion. Everyone sits in a circle, so no one is big and no one is small; everything is done through discussion.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Not by preaching.
Michael Laitman: No, no, no.
Eli Vinokur: How large are the groups? What is the size of the circle you recommend at this age, three-six?
Michael Laitman: I’m not sure about these ages, but never more than ten, ever.
Eli Vinokur: Never, including teachers?
Michael Laitman: Including teachers, because they become part of the circle. They should sit that way and behave that way. They should be only one level higher than the children so the children will have the possibility of resembling them, to reach their level. It’s just as we learn in Kabbalah: you perceive the adjacent higher and not the one above the higher on ladder of degrees.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: According to what you are describing, the kindergartens, other than being mixed, are not built so badly. There are circles, there is discussion, there is play. There is no studying, which you say must be at this age.
Michael Laitman: It’s a must, there must be studying, there must be a plan, there must be a curriculum according to ages; there must be a plan in all the seven teachings, just like we said, and it has to progress from day to day, in arithmetic and writing, too.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: At this age they have questions about life.
Michael Laitman: Yes, of course. Those questions exist in every person and we should already nurture them into asking these questions. But regardless, they should certainly study those teachings—writing, reading, dance, painting, music, math, and nature.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: So all of the teachings are for girls as well as boys, but separately?
Michael Laitman: The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about boys.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: And the girls?
Michael Laitman: Regarding the girls I need to see how, in what way. Of course, I’m not saying they needn’t learn, but the question is the ratio of these things in boys and in girls. The problem is that the boys must also bond among them. They have a different connection; they feel the friend; they feel that they belong to him. They have a natural inner bond, whereas for girls it is like between little women. They don’t have the tendency for the inner bond, but through playing together or something. This is why the numbers of girls we bring together are insignificant.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Can they also be in larger groups than ten?
Michael Laitman: Yes.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Is it true in your opinion that girls tend to share more than boys? I see that in girls’ games.
Michael Laitman: Yes, but it’s superficial sharing; they are willing to bond in order to do stuff, but each of them actually remains within herself. Whereas boys do tend to bond more and to be in groups. It becomes clearer later.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Is there a connection between violence and mixed education of boys and girls?
Michael Laitman: Violence must very simply be stopped at the youngest age. It has to be treated as something that has no place. There is no place for anything like that, no. Unless we have to teach the children in their own society, but that already has to do with social relationships.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Yes, at three to six they do have social relationships.
Michael Laitman: They must examine themselves and judge themselves. They need to know how to sit and discuss such things, and solve them in the way it is customary among the well brought up men. They need to do their analysis in a positive manner.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Is that possible already at ages three to six?
Michael Laitman: Yes, with the teacher of course, but they can already talk about things like why they did it, what for, how it should be done and how it shouldn’t, and what they think about it.
Eli Vinokur: Should it be done immediately, at the moment of violence or later?
Michael Laitman: We need to see to what extent the event remains in the society. The question is how long they can still remember it. We must sit them down with the teachers being like them and start talking, “This child did this, and another child did that.”
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Can it be acted out?
Michael Laitman: Sure. It can be acted out like in the theater; it can be done through a story, and each of them will say what he thinks. They need to develop an eye for such things, to be alert, critical toward such things.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Develop an ability to judge.
Michael Laitman: Yes, yes, yes.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: You are actually talking about an ability to judge very early on.
Michael Laitman: From age three.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Should it be done at home as well?
Michael Laitman: At home we don’t know. Whether at home, at school, or at kindergarten, the child must have that from a young age.
Eli Vinokur: And what conclusion needs to be reached at that discussion? What message should be extracted from such a discussion?
Michael Laitman: “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” of course. I don’t understand the question.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: How, on the child’s level?
Michael Laitman: It’s not a problem if after age three they can understand relating to others. They are already in this process of development so we mustn’t neglect it. We should constantly talk about it and lead them to proper critical thinking.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: You’re describing it like a window of opportunity.
Michael Laitman: It’s an obligation, what opportunity?
Limor Soffer-Fetman: But if we don’t do that?
Michael Laitman: So it’s not done. This is what we have today.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: You’re talking about a generation in which people don’t have a sense of each other, where one has no consideration of the other.
Michael Laitman: But we don’t know what kind of generation we would get if it were otherwise in education. They would be totally different people: how they would view each other, how they would drive their cars, how they would judge each other.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: That is a fundamental change.
Michael Laitman: Very much so.
Eli Vinokur: We will develop this in our next show. We discussed many topics on this show...
Michael Laitman: But primarily about courts, I think.
Eli Vinokur: Yes, that is the main conclusion.
Michael Laitman: If we could have courts from a young age, we wouldn’t need courts at an older age.
July 19, 2010