1. “It is a remarkable fact, a scientific fact, that the healthiest children come from the happiest mothers.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Recommendation: Do all you can to help women be happy during their pregnancies.
2. “My child,” is often the parent’s fond manner of alluding to his offspring. But that isn’t ‘my child.’ That is Bobby-a person in his own right.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Recommendation: Do not own a child. Just as you own and control yourself, let the child own and control himself or herself.
3. “Children who have received too large a bonus for being children are those who progress the least satisfactorily.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Recommendation: Perhaps you know a young adult who still acts like a kid? If you admire and reward a child too much for being a child, he or she sees no reason to grow up and take responsibility in life. Instead, admire and reward children (and those who act like children) for behaving like adults.
4. “Forbidding children to work and, particularly, forbidding teenagers to make their own way in the world and earn their own money, creates a family difficulty so that it becomes almost impossible to raise a family. And it creates, as well, and particularly, a state of mind in the teenager that ‘the world does not want him’ and he has already lost his game before he has begun it.” “It is highly supportive of this fact that our greatest citizens worked, usually, when they were quite young.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Recommendation: Encourage children of all ages to work. Ensure they earn the praise or money they deserve.
5. “When children become unimportant to a society, that society has forfeited its future.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Recommendation: Raise the priority, in your mind, of the importance of all children. As a parent, give your children the time they need from you every day. If you do not have children, help and support parents to raise their children.
Your future, and the future of our society, depend on it!
Does Too Much Affection Spoil Children?
People who feel they failed as parents often share a common regret: “I did not show my kids my love often enough.”
On the other hand, no one ever regrets giving their children too much affection.
“Affection could no more spoil a child than the sun could be put out by a bucket of gasoline.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Giving a child an unlimited supply of toys and presents makes it difficult for a child to return a real exchange.
But giving a child an unlimited supply of love and affection is something a child can happily return to you . . . in abundance.
This advice applies to marriages as well. Showing a large amount lot of affection might put your spouse into a happy state of shock, but he or she will not be spoiled by it. Go try it!
Five Tips to Help Children Succeed
Raising kids is a difficult, yet important and rewarding responsibility. As a parent, you can succeed and add a valuable member to our world. Or you can fail as a parent and create an unhappy problem for the world to deal with.
Even if you are not currently raising children, they are a big part of your future. Today’s children are tomorrow’s parents and leaders. You can improve our future by helping parents raise their kids with these five tips.
The quotes are from The Way to Happiness by L. Ron Hubbard.
1. “What does have a workability is simply to try to be the child’s friend. It is certainly true that a child needs friends.”
As you were growing up, did you have adult friends? Who were your favorite relatives, sports coaches or teachers? If you smile at the memory, they probably treated you as a friend.
Because children learn more about life from adults like you than from other children (or television), they enjoy your company. They want to talk to you and follow your example. Let them!
2. “Try to find out what a child’s problem really is and without crushing their own solutions, try to help solve them.”
A child is a regular person in a small body. He or she is starting to figure out the world. If you encourage them to solve their own problems, you are building their confidence.
For example, asking the right questions is more valuable to children than giving the answers. “Why do you think he was mean to you? What do you want to do about it? Okay. What might be a better way to solve it?”
As another example, the child is trying to open a package or fix a toy. When the child has trouble or gets frustrated, do not bypass and take over the task. Instead, encourage him or her to work it out. You will help make a happier, prouder, more competent person.
3. “Observe them — and this applies even to babies. Listen to what children tell you about their lives.”
For example, you might observe a baby calms down when you play Mozart. You may discover your three-year-old gets excited when painting flowers. An eight-year-old may have a great idea for your career that you’ve never considered.
By observing children, you can be a better friend.
4. “Let them help — if you don’t, they become overwhelmed with a sense of obligation which they then must repress.” (Repress = hold back.)
How do you feel if someone gives you money or favors, but refuses to let you return the favor in any way? Perhaps you feel worthless as you have nothing valuable to give to that person. If you are not allowed to help, you’ll soon dislike or distrust the person and refuse all future gifts.
Examples: “If you fold the napkins, it would really help me.” “I’ll give you one dollar each week if you take care of all the garbage for the house.” “I’ll feel happy if you sing a song for me.”
5. “A child factually does not do well without love. Most children have an abundance of it to return.”
You can never give a child too much love. However, it’s fun to try.
The more love you give to your child, the more he or she will give to you, and the world.
“A child is not a special species of animal distinct from man. A child is a man or woman who has not attained full growth. Any law which applies to the behavior of men and women applies to children.”
LRH, “How to Live with Children” from Scientology, A New Slant on Life.
The sweetness and love of a child is preserved only so long as he can exert his own self-determinism. You interrupt that and, to a degree, you interrupt his life.” — LRH, “How to Life With Children”, from Scientology a New Slant on Life.
“Now when somebody will not listen to what you are telling them, you of course are put on an unintentional withhold.
“Little kids ARC break and become teenagers along one curve — of unintentional withholds. My little kids do pretty well on the basis that I’ll knock anybody’s head off that won’t acknowledge them….
“A little kid comes up and he says, ‘Mama, Mama, can I go outside?
Mama, can I go outside?’
“And Mama just goes on knitting the dishes or whatever she’s doing, and doesn’t say a blessed word to the kid, you know? And pretty soon the
kid gets the sensation of being mad at his mother and breaks her favourite teapot in the middle of the floor.
“Almost all breakage by children is totally occasioned by the fact they’ve been put on an unintentional withhold. And that’s your ARC break mechanism amongst children.”
— LRH, “Nature of Withholds”, 16 Jan 1962, from Academy Lectures Level 2 transcripts page 13.
“A child has a right to his self-determinism. You say that if he is not restrained from pulling things down on himself, running into the road, etc., etc., he’ll be hurt. What are you, as an adult, doing to make that child live in rooms or an environment where he can be hurt? The fault is yours, not his, if he breaks things.
The sweetness and love of a child is preserved only so long as he can exert his own self-determinism. You interrupt that and, to a degree, you interrupt his life.” — LRH, “How to Life With Children”, from Scientology a New Slant on Life.
“At 1.5, we enter the band of brutal treatment of children, heavy corporal punishment, the forcing of children into a mold with pain, breaking his dramatizations, upsets about his noise or clutter.
“At 1.1 on the Tone Scale, there may be two reactions to children.
There may be an actual and immediate desire for children, as a manifestation of sex. But we also may have the use of children forsadistic purposes. And we may find both of these in the same individual. We have a long-term general neglect of children, with an occasional sporadic interest in them; we have very little thought for the child’s future or the culture in which the child will grow up.”
LRH, Science of Survival, pages 130-131
“At 1.5, we enter the band of brutal treatment of children, heavy corporal punishment, the forcing of children into a mold with pain, breaking his dramatizations, upsets about his noise or clutter.
“At 1.1 on the Tone Scale, there may be two reactions to children.
There may be an actual and immediate desire for children, as a manifestation of sex. But we also may have the use of children for sadistic purposes. And we may find both of these in the same individual. We have a long-term general neglect of children, with an occasional sporadic interest in them; we have very little thought for the child’s future or the culture in which the child will grow up.
LRH, Science of Survival, pages 130-131
