Wednesday, February 24, 2010

117. The image of Ideal Child lives in our minds

Before we say or do anything we have a thought in our mind first, or an image. While we plan to raise a child we have an image of a child in our mind, an image of the Ideal Child. It shows us what our real child is supposed to look like.

Soloveychik founds the main reason why parenting often fails in many families. It appears that we people also have an image of the Ideal Man, who our child is supposed to grow up to be in the future. The quality of a Child is dependence. The quality of a Man is independence. Here is the contradiction from which confusion and disappointment come if we don't make special corrections in our mind.

116. Why do we have children?

It's important to ask this question time to time while we think of how we are going to raise our children. For joy! Or disappointment?

"What do we need to do so that children bring us joy now, in five years, and in twenty five years from now, joy, not disappointment?" Soloveychik prepares readers to ponder on parenting goals.

Monday, February 22, 2010

115. The detny man condition: when children are interesting

The word detny is coming from the Russian root word deti (children). It was used to differentiate people with children from people without children mainly for tax benefits. But in this book the author describes that special emotional state of having children when people become responsible for the way they live, think and behave. For example a detny man can't despair, or become lazy because children watch.

Not all people who have children are in the detny condition. They look at children as objects for teaching, for instance to say "thank you" or "please."

"It is easy to recognize the detny man: children are interesting to him," S.Soloveychik says.

Friday, February 19, 2010

114. Children make life complicated; however, they help us manage ourselves

Children make life complicated, they challenge us, they test us. It isn't just that an another human being is added to the family with all the physical demands for space, food, clothes, and toys. It's because of demands for love and justice in our home - that is why life becomes complicated. People, who think of having a baby, need to remember that there will be difficult times when the generosity of their hearts and availability of conscience will be challenged. Soloveychik calls it sphere of ethics.

The challenges usually are hidden under the questions starting with "What to do if the child…?" And parents hope that if they find the answer and solve the problem their life will become easier. But they would be better off looking for the roots of the problems instead. The sooner they start searching the better.

Friday, February 12, 2010

*113. Upbringing must be unnoticeable

Parenting For Everyone doesn't tell parents how to discipline a difficult toddler, or to talk to a rebellious teenager so that the teenager obeys. It doesn't give instructions or ready recipes on how to deal with troubled children. Instead it draws parents' attention to ordinary children, to the way they grow, so that they don't become troubled in the future. The book investigates the laws of raising children. What is possible and impossible in raising children? What real power do parents have? What results follow from what actions? What are those laws and truths of the science of upbringing?

Soloveychik states that if parents dealt more with ordinary children, there would be less difficult ones.

Teaching parents to teach children, itself, touches a parent's personality. Nobody wants to feel like "a dummy" when experts tell them what to do. So the author's approach is different. He offers his own forty years of experience in dealing with children, his own discoveries and wisdom gathered from deep research on the laws of upbringing. One of them is that upbringing must be unnoticeable. If you want to teach somebody how to live do it unnoticeable.

Interesting, what do we know about "Where do GOOD children come from?"

Thursday, February 11, 2010

112. It is better to be complex than to be wrong

Why was the subject of upbringing considered to be one of the most difficult tasks, art of the arts? Three parts are involved in upbringing: the parent, the child, and the relationship between them. These three variables are unknown. When parenting books address parents they usually describe to parents peculiarities of a child's development, and tips to improve the relationship between them. But those books may or may not work because one variable is left behind: knowledge about the parent. "What kind of knowledge is it ," you may ask, "I know all about myself!" Yes, and no. Therefore many parents are still disappointed about their children, about the parenting books, about their life. Parenting is complex. But if you look for an easy way, it may be wrong.

Soloveychik states, "It does not matter how high destiny lifts a man, or how low fate plunges him - his happiness or unhappiness is in his children. The older we become the more we understand this."

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

111. Parenting is the science about the art of upbringing

So it begins...

A big work on attempting to understand the roots of humanity in people. Soloveychik's first chapter is short. As a short but deep inhaling of air before running for a long journey, a journey of understanding the science about the art of child-rearing.

Why the art? As each individual is unique, each childhood is unique. Each child's way to grow may become a masterpiece of a talented parent, unique for each child, or it may become an ugly picture of unjust and heartless parent. It's an art because you need a talent to raise a child, talent of faith, hope and love. These concepts belong to an art category.

Why the science? Because there are laws there. Knowing those laws is essential. If we don't learn about them naturally from our parents, we have to learn about them from life, from our children, or from other people, the hard way. As Soloveychik says, "We all have to teach each other, because we cannot teach little children."

Table of content

Parenting for Everyone
By Simon Soloveychik
Copyright translation by Aigul Aubanova and Victor Dull



Book one: Man for Man

Part 1. Goals of Upbringing

Chapters
111. Parenting is the science of the art of upbringing.
112. It is better that it is complicated than deceiving.
*113. Upbringing must be unnoticeable.
114. Children make life complicated; however, they help us manage ourselves.
115. The detny condition: children are interesting to those in the detny condition.
116. Why do we have children?
117. The image of Ideal Child lives in our minds.
118. You cannot bring up your child by my image.
119. The first goal of upbringing is independence.
1110. A child is developed by his own self-liberation.
1111. There are 7 stages of self-liberation on the road from birth to birth.
1112. Parenting without lofty words and concepts is deceptive.
1113. Love and conscience lead the world.
1114. What is the main word in this phrase?
1115. If we want our children to become kind and honest, we must believe in kindness and honesty.
1116. How can we raise good children in bad conditions?
1117. How to prepare our child to have an independent life among other children at school?
1118. Prohibitions of a science of parenting, or what is possible and what is impossible to do.
1119. Do you know what happiness is?
1120. Language is the main teacher of a nation.
1121. Wish your children happiness.
1122. The art of upbringing is in imparting to a child a burning desire of happiness.
*1123. It seems to us that we give too much to children, but in fact, we constantly don’t give them enough of something very important.
1124. One person ponders the minutes of happiness in his life, they totaled 4.
1125. The mechanism of happiness always triggers a man to action.
1126. Happiness is when duty and truth go together.
1127. Duty is a joyful component of happiness.
1128. When a man’s spiritual strivings are satisfied he feels happy.
1129. Children learn happiness in childhood.
1130. Stress is harmful for child’s spirit and health.
1131. Work of soul is aimed against stress.
1132. The moral codex of children reveals the main quality of a man.
1133. Be yourself!
1134. The truth is the key concept of upbringing, of a spiritual life.
1135. The truth is a measure of a man.
1136. The best security of a man is people’s respect.
1137. Two problems parents have; how to raise a kind, honest and truthful man, and how then he will live.
1138. When thinking of the virtues of children we face insoluble contradictions.
1139. Upbringing power is a spiritual power to unite contradictions.
1140. The success of our upbringing depends on whether we can draw our child to the ideal image and whether this image meets the image of Man.

Book one: Man for Man

Part 2. Conditions of Upbringing

Chapters
121. There is an art of upbringing, and there is a science about that art - parenting.
122. For whom are the scientific books about the art of upbringing written?
*123. Parenting faith lives in us.
124. Commonplace parenting faith meets unexplainable results.
125. Faith is the same, common sense is the same, but conditions change enormously.
126. In old times parental faith was strengthened by fear.
127. Children are different now.
128. One of the most important changes is in the work environment.
129. In the past the goals of upbringing were different.
1210. Do you know how much time parents spend communicating with their children?
1211. Nothing will work if we are guided by forceless faith.
1212. Maybe there is upbringing without upbringing.
1213. I teach one thing and he learns another.
1214. It seems to me that I found the essence of upbringing.
1215. There is one moral law.
1216. What to do if you’re encroached upon is the wrong question.
1217. Everything related to the goals of men, is their spirituality, and everything related to means – morality.
1218. The father teaches a moral lesson: don’t encroach, by immoral means, by encroaching.
1219. Culture or morality?
1220. Vicious mother means the whole world is vicious.
1221. We have to refuse some goals if we can’t reach them without encroaching upon our child.
1222. We must make a choice.
1223. Upbringing is different but the result is the same.
*1224. I hate you! How to decrease evil, one atom less.
1225. There are two parenting faiths.
1226. Let a child love somebody!



Book one: Man for Man

Part 3. Means of Upbringing

Chapters
131. Why does upbringing succeed?
132. Passion for teaching in human beings is one of the first passions and it is very strong.
133. There are two foundations in parenting: psychology and ethics.
134. What can we do if a child is difficult?
135. To have a good attitude towards a child means to win over the evil parental passions in us.
136. We raise not a child but a man.
137. Please treat me as a man – please believe in me!
*138. Suspicion is especially dreadful for our children’s souls.
139. Please treat me as a man – rely on me.
1310. Hope is a good thing in upbringing!
1311. Please understand me!
1312. How difficult is a child’s life by comparison with an adult’s.
1313. Is the child always guilty in our eyes?
1314. Mother accepts a child, father understands.
1315. Be magnanimous to me!
1316. Those fathers didn’t allow any freedom.
1317. I am different!
1318. Don’t use me in your selfish endeavors!
1319. Don‘t be afraid for me!
1320. Be patient with me!
1321. This is a hard time of “twos.”
*1322. Teen age is a test for parental love and faithfulness.
1323. Old parental faith contains three conventional models of upbringing.
1324. Let’s determine that to weed out faults is a senseless act.
1325. The world doesn’t stand on fines and rewards.
1326. Children soften our hearts by their existence, by their laughter and antics.

Book two: Man in Man

Part 1. Upbringing of Heart

Chapters
*211. Maybe someday people will create a world that doesn’t require fixing.
212. The internal world of a man is purposeful.
213. How does a reliable behavior look like?
214. Desires are personality itself.
215. What does it mean to respect a man?
216. Remember that a child has two needs: for safety and for development.
217. Need for safety is divided into two parts: security –I and security – We.
218. When children do unimaginable things and risk their lives, we scold and punish them.
219. The personality of a child is the sum of his habits.
2110. New acquisitions call for a new order in the internal world of a child.
2111. When a child is under his parents’ control he is the strongest and the weakest.
2112. He didn’t know what goodness is.
2113. We are gifted with two things: inquisitiveness and imagination.
2114. Seven problems, one answer – development.
2115. How long does the mechanism for development work?
2116. Almost all parental problems have one and the same reason, namely inequality of two developmental programs: natural and cultural.
2117. Inquisitiveness is an engine of development.
2118. Imagination is a key.
2119. A child doesn’t strive to search for the essence of things because he already knows it.
2120. Compassion is result of developed imagination.
2121. Needs and natural gifts are the foundation of all desires of a child.
2122. Soul is developed feelings.
2123. Feelings go ahead of thoughts.
2124. There is no feeling without faith and hope.
2125. Conviction is knowledge, connected by with faith in it.
2126. Doubt is part of the process.
2127. Knowledge is function of mind, faith is function of soul.
2128. For the heart, it needs to believe.
2129. Faith is goodness instilled in a child undergoes a serious test in early adolescence.
2130. Life without hope is hell.
2131. Reliability is adults’ business.
2132. That was the first time I realized what love is.
2133. To bring up a heart of a child means to manage the child’s joy.
2135. Goodness is stronger than evil.
2136. It is impossible to indulge a child by joy?
2137. We dream our child feel compassion for us, parents.
2138. Where does evil come from?
2139. If the soul’s movement doesn’t meet a mutual movement from the outside world – it disappears.
*2140. We ourselves sow the seeds of evil – no one else.
2141. Any encroachment upon something dear to a man is evil.
2142. We try to awaken in a child good feelings for a man.
2143. She can’t take anything from a child, just as she can’t take anything from an adult.
2144. He didn’t try to bring up his son; he had an appointment with his son.
2145. Maybe the secret word is excitement.
2146. An evil feeling occurs instantly – the good feeling is put on hold.
2147. A feeling cannot be illusory.
2148. There are two tasks before us – not to call for evil feelings and to call for good desires in a child’s heart.
2149. The greatest source of feeling is first love.
2150. Love is…

Book two: Man in Man

Part 2. Upbringing of Spirit

Chapters
221. Why can someone kill another man?
222. Personality is the most complicated phenomenon in the Universe.
223. Why in some souls, suddenly good and honest intentions occur, and it other souls the opposite?
224. There is something in the human soul that stands against instincts at their very birth.
225. Conscience is striving for the truth.
226. There are finite and infinite desires.
227. What is the spirit of a man?
228. When we “justify” our actions, we want them to look “just” in people’s eyes.
229. How does spirit occur and develop in a child?
2210. What is the truth?
2211. Where did he get the idea that to lie is bad, it is a shame?
*2212. Our business is to raise conscientiousness.
2213. Conscience versus group morale.
2214. Each action of a man is with conscience or against it.
2215. The truth, conscience, is a law within me.
2216. If a child doesn’t know what conscience is it means there is no justice around the child.
2217. Unjust adults strike children.
2218. Problems of upbringing turn out to be problems of justice.
2219. What is fair in relations with children?
2220. Diligence is the first feature of conscientiousness.
2221 There is a great “No, I can’t”.
2222. There is a hope for better if a bad action of a child is left secret.
2223. Should we shame children?
*2224. Children risk to test their conscience.
2225. Do I believe in the truth?
2226. Goodness is love to people.
2227. Do I love people?
2228. In our home we say only good things about people.
2229. Upbringing power is in direct proportion to the strength of our love for people.
2230. How do I choose my future spouse?
2231. Beauty has its own role.
2232. The higher we go by the levels of spirit the easier and firmer a child learns the laws of people.
2233. What does the result of upbringing depend on?
2234. Why did she kill her friend?
2235. Only the spirit and worthy life conditions, taken together, formulate the dignity of a man.
2236. In everything a man does – there are degrees of truth, goodness and beauty.
2237. Common laws of parenting.
2238. The holy spirit lives in the earth’s inhabitants – in people.
2239. Family is the opposite to theatre.

Book two: Man in Man

Part 3. Upbringing of Intelligence

Chapters
231. The wrong perception of superiority of mind over feelings.
*232. What intelligence do we mean in our book?
233. Postulates of the right image of the world.
234. The world for a child is how he sees it for the first time.
235. We explain to a child how the world is built.
236. Failures are part of life.
237. What are criteria of choices a child makes?
238. There are several levels of moral consciousness.
239. A man steals because he knows he is a theft.
2310. There is a firm law called the law of deserved conversationalist.
*2311. We instill in a child that he is intelligent and he will become intelligent.
2312. You are OK and I am OK.
2313. A suppressed creature doesn’t dare to think or to wish.
2314. The formula of will.
2315. When three components of the formula of heart grow to tremendous size people have the genius ability to work.
2316. Feeling is oppositely proportional to confidence ( hope and faith).
2317. He doesn’t love, he acts.
2318. Everything that relates to will is called character.
2319. There is a secret in successful parenting.
2320. Everything is from nature and everything is from upbringing.
2321. While upbringing, let’s learn to work by our soul, intelligence and spirit, let’s teach our child to work by his soul – and a man in a man will grow up, and everything will be alright


Book three: Man and Man

Part 1. Upbringing by Communication

Chapters
311. I love you too.
312. Contact, we need contact with children.
*313. Common language is the language of desires not of command and obedience.
314. There is a gift of feeling another man.
315. Common secret with a child.
316. Equality of strivings.
317. A voice and a glance, the first instruments of communication.
318. How to look at a child with a kind glance?
319. The poorer a man is emotionally, the less he is able to communicate, the more he is irritable.
3110. Who has a right for irritation?
3111. Irritation is a feature of vanishing love.
3112. Children don’t bear evil in themselves.
3113. One person with spirit is enough in successful parenting.


Book three: Man and Man

Part 2. Upbringing by Cooperation

Chapters
321. A child comes to us as a guest.
322. The worst thing in parenting is power battle.
323. Are parents responsible for cooperation with their children?
324. Children and parents are like co-workers in different departments.
325. It seems that he obeys me, but he doesn’t. We together do something important for us.
326. They don’t listen to me, but they hear me!
327. How is life together with parents?
328. The only person who owes is me.
329. Home chores are the worst beneficial in parenting.
3210. There is a law of care.
3211.How cooperation with children work?
3212. In our family where the culture of request is developed.
3213. Work of soul.
*3214. Money and things.
3215. May our home always be beautiful!
3216. Instill confidence and help!
3217. Remember our goal – increase a child’s dignity.
*3218. The law of the cat: No one from the outside can improve relationships between two people.
3219. We should not be quick to help our children when they collide with the world.
3220. Any fault of a child is our, parents, fault.
3221. Politeness versus heart hearing.
3222. Don’t make difficulties for other people!

Book three: Man and Man

Part 3. Upbringing by Mutual Creativity

Chapters
331. Mutual creativity is a higher form of relationship between people.
332. The inquisitive child and his interest should be valued.
333. The imagination of a child is his unique world.
334. Give the child the opportunity to learn different languages: the language of music, flowers, lines, colors, poetry, fairy tales, and beauty.
335. Cooperation, communication, mutual creativity.
336. Children learn from their successes and achievements, not from their mistakes.
337. Why doesn’t a conventional scheme work?
*338. Children are thankful people, children are thankless people.
339. Instill in your children that they are beautiful people!

Back to the future!

I am back to work on ParentingForEveryone.com!
I start commenting the chapters of the book Parenting For Everyone here in this blog. I believe the future is bright for the book as more and more spiritual movement is growing worldwide.
It is a monumental work of Simon Soloveychik, a parenting manual for life. That is why it is a great challenge for me.

Each chapters of the book are coded according to the book structure. It has three books inside and each enside book has three parts. So the first two digits of chapters stand for the book and part numbers. Soloveychik wrote his book simply numbering chapters. In order to facilitate reading and orientation I gave each chapter a title. I present the whole book content in the next post.