Question

In what ways can Buddhism help in raising children?

Answer

In every way, in every way. Now I am not sure if that question is about whether to teach Buddhist meditation to children or not. But if you think of the Ten Paramis, they can all be taught to children in various ways, not as intensively as you would do for an adult, but you can teach a kid to be generous, you can teach a kid to have good ethics and morality, you can teach a kid not to be so selfish, to let go, to renounce certain things. You can teach a kid a little bit of wisdom, but this is harder to do, because kids don't have enough world experience to develop a great deal of wisdom. You can definitely teach a kid about energy and determination. All the Ten Paramis can to a certain degree be taught to kids.

As to the meditation practice itself, depending on the age of the kid and depending on their personality, and for example, how hyped up they perhaps are, you certainly cannot expect them to sit down for an hour. It may be five minutes in the beginning. A three year old can sit down for 3 minutes, that is about all they can do, about three minutes. The meditation subject that you might want to try with a three year old might just be to look at a candle flame or look at a flower. A flower in particular can be combined with having loving thoughts. Sit down and tell them, ok let us think today is Mummy's birthday, let us wish Mummy well in our heart. Today is Daddy's birthday, let us wish Daddy well in our heart. A little kid can often identify with those kinds of thoughts

On a different level, and depending on what age they are, you can vary the meditations until you can go a bit deeper with them. But this will also depend on their basic level of maturity because as I think all of you would know, some kids are very hyperactive, they can not stop, they can not rest. Other kids are more calm. So personalities are very greatly. Now if a kid can't sit down though to learn the formal practice, you can still help them in informal ways. You can help them to be generous, to develop the Ten Paramis, etc. There are a lot of different ways that you can try to teach the kid.

The biggest way that you teach the kid is through example. So as much as you develop your own Buddhist practice, you will be an example for your kid. Kids like to imitate Daddy and Mummy, they like to imitate a nice uncle or aunt that they have. There are a lot of different ways that you can influence kids; teachers, athletics coaches, etc. When I was a swimming coach, I had as many as 170 kids on my squad, that's a lot of kids. There is a lot of influence that I had on them. And many teachers and coaches have terrible influences on kids, and many have a good influences,. The more you develop as a good, kind, wise human being, then the more, hopefully, you will be able to have a good influence on the younger people that you are around.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.