It's Not What You Say

It's what you do

One of the strongest urges children are born with is the urge to imitate. It is absolutely essential for survival and it is by far the dominant way children learn. This is a very significant fact, because it means that children will tend to do what they see us doing, rather than what we tell or ask them to do. It means that the most and perhaps only effective form of education possible is personal example. Our children, in fact, are some sort of a mirror of ourselves. Sometimes the mirror gets twisted in various ways, but even then it is still fundamentally a mirror, albeit a twisted one. (Even a mirror which reflects exactly the opposite of what it sees is some kind of a mirror). Children are, in a sense, shaped in our own image; they are a reflection of who we are in relation to them, of what they perceive in us.

When we are strict, or angry, or sarcastic, etc., usually we are so because we want to make the child do one thing or another, or because of some emotion we need to discharge. But we should always ask ourselves: do we really want to teach this child to be strict, angry, or sarcastic? Do we want them to be like that to their own children and to other people? Because that is the main thing they will learn from that situation (not the thing that we intended them to learn).

If, on the other hand, we want to teach them to be kind, forgiving, encouraging, accepting etc., then we must behave in that way towards them, we must be kind, accepting, forgiving and understanding in our dealings with them (and with other people, as they are constantly watching us). If we are stubborn with them we will teach them to be stubborn and if we are cruel towards them we will teach them to be cruel. And when we raise our voice or are angry with them, what they learn is not the lesson we are trying to instill in them, but rather to shout and be angry. To repeat, it is what we do, not what we say. They would generally shut their ears to what we say, but would be very attuned to what we do (they listen to the music, not to the words). They are tuned to what we practice rather than to what we preach.

In the very first years of their lives they cannot even understand what we preach, but they are very attuned to what we practice. They will detect an angry undertone in what we say even if they do not understand the words themselves. This ability to read us, rather than our words, stays with them for life and it is therefore almost impossible for us to lie or in any way pretend to our children. On some level they will always be able to recognize a lie or a pretension on our part towards them. It is therefore important not to try to pretend, because by doing so we will run the risk of creating confusion and psychological insecurity, since they will experience a contradiction between what they read in us and what they hear from us.

Another important implication of this reflective mirror relationship between us and our children is that many of the feelings we experience towards our child, are to a large extent feelings towards our own image. This is why education is so tied up with self-improvement. We create and shape the child and then we like or dislike what we see. But what we see is in a sense our own image in the mirror that the child is.

There is a very powerful circularity involved here. Every child can be positive and creative, every child can shine, every child can be lovable. The more positive the image we reflect towards our children, the more they will become lovable and the more it will be possible for us to love and be inspired by them. When we give positively to a child we will get back from them so much more; we will be able to love them and our relationship with them will be so much more beneficial to us both. On the other hand, the more negative the input the child gets from us, the less lovable the child will tend to become, since more of this negativity will be reflected in their behavior. As a result, the more difficult it will be for us to love the child, and this will tend to encourage more negative feelings towards the child, which will make him even less lovable, and so on - a dangerously vicious circle, with miserable results.

It is important to remember that children never start with any negative feelings. Any negative feeling they display is always a reaction to some negative behavior on our part towards them. Even the most trying external circumstances will not harm their inborn goodness as long as they experience love and emotional security from their immediate adult surroundings.

Education is, in the last analysis, a process of self-improvement. And because of their ability to reflect and mirror, children are very powerful teachers. If you do not like what you see in your child, take a second look at yourself. Strive to be what you would like your child to be and you will need very few words (silence is very powerful and vastly underused in education). Interacting with children is also a tremendous opportunity for self-healing and growth. A child gives us a rare opportunity to interact with someone who is mostly pure and innocent to begin with. It is an opportunity for us to have a fresh start with a relatively clean slate. Such an interaction is potentially very healing and we should take extreme care to make good use of it and not to spoil it.