Gurukula Disciplines

[suchandra]

Wonder if there's any discipline like mentioned below in the Gurukula system about "breaking a child's will" ?

 

 

These strong-willed kids are not going to let the world change them. They will change the world. That's something to admire.

"When I was mother of a 2-year-old, I bought Dobson's "The Strong-Willed Child" and sought advice on how to cope with tantrums and willfulness. But after some reading, I grew skeptical. His prescriptions for breaking a child's will seemed like boot camp in the Army. For children as young as 15 months, he recommends, "two or three stinging strokes on the legs or bottom" for disobedience. He equates a child's self-will with original sin but somehow thinks that parents, unlike God, should be able to win this battle and produce docile children. Fortunately, I found other books with very different philosophies, and as my children grew older, I began to admire their strong wills. After all, how would a weak-willed child make it in this world? Would he or she become a teen who could "just say no"?

 

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/924

 

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August 21, 1968 Montreal, Quebec

 

My Dear Krishna devi,

 

...Regarding the child problem: I may inform you that all our children born of the Krishna conscious parents, they are welcome and I want hundreds of children like that. Because in future we expect to change the face of the whole world, because child is the father of man. Anyway, I have seen Malati is nursing her child so nicely that she attended my meeting every day and the child was playing and she never cried. Similarly, Lilavati's child also never cries or disturbs the meeting. Lilavati was always present with her child, so it depends on the mother. How to keep the child comfortable, so that it will not cry. The child cries only when it feels uncomfortable.

 

The child's comfort and discomfort depends on the mother's attention. So the best solution is that we should train our all first-day small babies in such a way that they are always satisfied and there will be no disturbance in the meeting, and there will be no complaint. But there cannot be any hard and fast rules that only children who are grown up, 7 or 8 years old, can be admitted and no other children can be admitted. That is not possible, and I am not going to sanction any such rule.

 

Rather I shall welcome a baby from the very beginning, so that the transcendental vibration may enter into its ear, and from the very beginning of its life, it becomes purified. But of course, the children cannot be allowed to disturb in the meeting by crying; and that is the mother's responsibility to keep them comfortable, and not to disturb the meeting....

 

With all my blessings, I beg to remain your

 

Ever-well-wisher,

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

[Murali_Mohan_das]

I *want* my children to have strong wills.

 

They can be royal pains in the butt at times, but I'm pretty certain they won't grow up to be conformists like many of the Nazis were.

 

At the same time, I don't want them forgetting who's boss--Krishna (certainly not Daddy--he's just our order-supplier)!

[Murali_Mohan_das]

By the way, my own experience confirms what Srila Prabhupada is saying here. My kids only seem to act out when they need/want attention. When they are nicely engaged, they are almost always well-behaved.

 

That said, I *do* hope to help them grow to be more self-satisfied and less dependent upon the attention of others.

 

 

The child's comfort and discomfort depends on the mother's attention.