Anyway, these are the 10:
1. On Becoming A Person
Ask your children 'Who do you want to be?' NOT "What do you want to be?". The first speaks to character, not career. Do you want to be a good person or do you want to be a bad person?
The author believes that every choice in life is subordinate to the moral choice. You child can be the president of USA but if he is a bad person, you have failed as a parent.
He also believes that a child who is asked to think about the type of person he wants to be will begin changing on his own, without nagging and prodding. But parents have to INSPIRE him to do so.
Children know all about goodness (when they hurt someone, they know to regret it; when they make their parents lives difficult, they know to feel lousy). Real effective parenting is all about helping the child reconnect with his essence, putting him in touch with his innermost self.
You yell at your child to stop a bad behaviour and you get immediate results. He stops but he learns nothing. This is the short, longer way of parenting. If you talk with you kid (many times) about his bad behaviour and you do it because you really care about him and not because you're worried about being embarrassed, you are taking the long, shorter way. The child will find his own voice and learns to listen to it.
"There is simply no greater motivator than to have a child develop a commitment to himself, to who he wants to be, rather than to his parents, who are telling him what he should be. When misbehaving, a child should never be made to feel as if he has betrayed his parents or his teachers; it is much more effective if he feels he has betrayed himself."
2. Childhood & Happiness
The author tells his children "Don't be in such a hurry to grow up". It is important to teach children to be in the moment. To focus on the journey, learning to enjoy it (means-oriented) and not being in focused on the destination (goal-oriented), living with anxiety and nervousness, always worried about when you're going to get there. When such a person reaches his goal he feels empty because the race is over and he must now set for himself yet another goal.
Teach your children that they can control their emotions by controlling their actions. Author gives example of the conversation he had with his son who is unhappy because he didn't have a lot of friends. He told his son firstly, never to give someone the key to his self-esteem; secondly, friendship is not the necessity, the right friendship is; and thirdly, to go and find another neglected kid and befriend him. Do something joyous with the unhappiness.
3. Knowledge & Inspiration
The author tells his kids his kids he doesn't measure success by grades. The more important question is Are you intellectually curious? Do you want to know?
Kids today have lost the capacity to be intrigued by life, in part because they are overstimulated by the make-believe.
Everything that happens in your life provides an opportunity for conversation with your children (something that happens to you or local news, or from story books). Discuss humanity, human weakness and strengths. Tell your kids that everybody has a story and every story is interesting. If you listen intently, you can learn from someone you meet.
"What did you do at school today?"
"Nothing. It's just another regular day."
- short, longer way
"I was driving home when I heard the story about...."
- long, shorter way
"When you no longer find other people interesting, you life becomes diminished, and you are touched by less. If you let this happen to your children, they will begin to live their lives vicariously, through the fantasy mediums of movies, television, and video games, and they will lose their connection to other people."
4. Bestowing Dignity
Author tells his children that their mission in life is to confer dignity on all of God's creatures. They have the power to make people feel special, that they truly matter. The people from whom you expect the least are often the ones with the most to offer.
"Every human being has value, and every human encounter is a fresh chance to let him know it"
Author inspired his daughters to give to the beggars after he explained that he didn't give that dollar to the homeless drunkard to buy him food or booze but because when a man is reduced to asking, he has lost his dignity. By giving him a dollar, the author has bought himself a chance to confer dignity on the beggar. When people feel dignified, they sometimes shape up their lives - they feel as if they have betrayed their own dignity.
5. Honouring the Feminine
Author tells his children (both sons and daughters) that he wants them to grow up to be nurturers, to have soft hearts and kind hands.
He brings up interesting observations that the Jewish people have always tried to develop and cultivate their feminine side. Moses referred to himself as the nursemaid. King David was a warrior but with a passion for the harp and lyre.
A woman's gift to the world is her femininity. A man's gift is to honour the feminine and an added obligation is to nurture the feminine in his own heart.
He gave example of a man on the verge of divorce pouring his bitterness and loneliness to his friend and all his friend said was: "You sound like a girl." Author was appalled that this "friend" not only failed to reached out to his injured friend, but had berated and insulted him for expressing his true feelings and for being "weak enough" to experience pain. Only those who has never developed a gift of nurturing would have done that to a friend. Author also gave his own son a lecture when he found out that his son associates himself with a boy who use the word "B****" on girls. (He also made him his son confront his friend on this matter!)
6. Forgiveness
The author observes that children today seem to be angrier and more unforgiving than at any other time in history. If your child is angry with you, you need to deal with it. If you've done something to make your child angry, you need to face it. You mustn't let anger fester.
The author who comes from a broken home himself realised that he yells a lot in his own household. One day, he told all his kids to listen to him for 20 minutes. He told them he loved them and what he wished for them. He also asked them to forgive him for hurting them. He promised them he would change. Then he told the kids that it was their turn to say what he as a father has done to hurt them. (I think it was an extremely brave thing to do!) His kids pointed out about his yelling. One pointed out that he didn't always listen, another was not happy that he smoke an occasional cigar. But the one sharing that shocked him was when one kid observed that he was disrespectful to his wife sometimes.
I believed when he said that that evening was a life-changing one for him!
"An unforgiving heart is a heavy heart. when you don't forgive someone, you become bitter, and that feeling festers, affecting you more than it affects them. when you forgive, the one you are truly freeing is yourself."
7. Family & Tradition
Here the author shares what he does to promote the sense of family (like reading the bible to his kids, celebrate Jewish festivals). He also shares his observation from the cases he counseled - that usually the family with the problems spends very little time together. And he'll tell those parents who want him to counsel their kids: "That's why you're having problems with your child. He doesn't need me, he needs you."
He also shares his understanding of the commandment of honouring your father and mother. It's honouring not loving. A child may not always feel love for his parents. There will be times when he is angry, frustrated, bitter or hostile. Because parents do make mistakes and the child feels wronged. But this doesn't give him the right to treat his parents with disrespect.
8. Love
Author believes that parents should keep telling their kids that they love them. A child who believes in love, who feels your love, knows that he will never be alone in the world.
"While you can spoil your spoil, you can never love your child too much. The love you share with your child remains stored in his heart. And it will help him through the dark patches ahead. Children are not likely to remember all the things you gave them, but they will always remember the love you poured into their lives."
9. Fear
Kids are afraid of family discord, afraid of not being beautiful /handsome enough or popular enough. They are afraid of poor grades, of not being picked for the team and in some cases, afraid of life itself. The parents' job is to inspire the child to understand his fears and thereby master them. Most of our fears are rooted in the feeling that we don't really matter. A child must learn to be the arbiter of his own value.
The author tells his kids: every human being is born with 3 inherent virtues: One, uniqueness - there is no one on earth like you. Two, equality - no one is better than you, we are all equally God's children. And three, infinite value - every human being is of incalculable worth."
There is one legitimate fear though and that is the fear of God. If you cross that line, you're crossing the moral threshold - flirting with wickedness and inhumanity.
10. God
The greatest destroyer of childhood and of a child's security is purposelessness.
(This is a funny one)
A parent who allows his child to sit in front of the TV for 5 hours a day is sending the wrong message. Life is meaningless. Go ahead and burn 5 hours in front of the tube. In the end you die. It's all stupid.
"But a parent who teaches his child about God is on the right track. God is the supreme designer of creation. God has a plan for your life; God gave you unique gifts; God has never created a single person in error."
Author shares a significant conversation he had with kids when they questioned about the tragedy in which their friends perished in the fire (4 kids from a single household died). He tells his kids that they must always have a real and honest relationship with God and part of that relationship gives them the right to be angry when He allows bad things to happen.
He also raised interesting differences between Judaism's view of God and that of Christianity's and Islam's (i.e. God is always right) . Israel means literally He who wrestles with God. We are promoting a fake relationship when children are not allowed to feel disappointment and anger around God and not allowed to question Him.
I love this story that the author shared:
The story is told of the Rabbi Zusya of Anipoli, who began to cry as he lay on his deathbed. Many of his devoted students were gathered around him, and they asked him what had brought forth his tears. "I'm afraid of what I'll tell God when I meet him," he answered. "You see when God asks me, 'Zusya, why weren't you as great as Abraham?' I'll answer,"Lord, you did not make me Abraham,' And when God asks,"Then why weren't you as great as Moses?' I'll answer,'Lord,you did not make me Moses.' But when He asks me 'Zusya, why weren't you as great as Zusya could have been?' I will have nothing to answer.""God gives us a sense of purpose. God tells us that the world has a design and a plan. God's existence tells the child that his own existence is meaningful."
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