(Clearwisdom.net) There are excellent articles on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website that explain how to bring up young practitioners. Reading these articles helped me immensely, and I would like to report on how I have been raising my daughter.
My mother and I are practitioners, but in matters regarding cultivation, my mother has more influence on my daughter, who is now 10 years old.
1. The child is here to begin practicing Falun Gong. A cultivator should meet all the requirements of a practitioner.
It is my firm belief that my child was born into my family to become a practitioner. When she was less than a month old, she developed a fever and a cough. My mother and I had her listen to Master's lectures. We also both looked inward for any attachments. We studied the Fa and did the exercises in her presence for about half a day, and she recovered quickly and completely.
There have been many events similar to the one above. I think that the key issue for me is to fully understand that my daughter is here for the Fa, and that I should treat her as a practitioner.
When she started to talk, we asked her to memorize and recite "Hong Yin." I learned several of the poems in Hong Yin by listening to my daughter recite them.
We realized that in Fa study, there is a difference between a child and an adult. We know that a child cannot sit still for a long period of time. When we read the Fa, we let her play alongside us. Occasionally we asked her to repeat the last sentence we read, and she always did it correctly. She did not miss anything we read. Once she began school, we asked her to read "Zhuan Falun" with us. We taught her how to pronounce the words she did not know and encouraged her as she read. Before going to bed, we asked her to recite Lunyu, Hong Yin, and "True Cultivation." When she entered the fourth grade, we asked her to read the "Minghui Weekly." She enjoyed reading and discussing the meaning of the articles with us.
When my daughter was five years old, my mother started teaching her the exercises. She had no problem sitting in full-lotus position and could sit for an hour without any difficulty. Generally, she did not want to sit that long, and we had to encourage her to persist. My mother was particularly careful in making sure that she did the exercises correctly. On weekends we performed the exercises together at 3:50 a.m.
2. We are practitioners first; our mother-daughter relationship is second.
My daughter is bright and beautiful. She is very attractive, but I realized that any emotional ties between mother and daughter needed to be replaced with benevolence. Although we have not quite accomplished this yet, I believe that our continued practice will lead us there.
3. All practitioners form one body.
From studying the Fa, I understand that each one of us is a part of a group of practitioners. When one of us is not doing well, it affects the whole group. In our three-member group, when I was lazy in my practice, my daughter also wanted to do something else or find an excuse not to do the exercises.
When I strove forward and cultivated diligently, my daughter would recite Essentials for Further Advancement on her own and do the exercises. When we study the Fa together, we usually share our understandings following study. Every time my daughter describes her understanding, it is in complete agreement with ours and does not seem to have come from a child.
4. Emphasize looking inward.
According to the Fa, whenever there is a problem, we should look inward. We constantly remind my daughter to follow this approach in order to solve problems in school or at home, with relatives or with friends. We also help her to analyze situations and remind her that there are no accidents. Gradually, she has adopted this approach.
5. A child-practitioner should also do the three things.
My mother pays special attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. This has a positive impact on my daughter. Regardless of her playtime activities, she always returns at noon and 6:00 p.m. to send righteous thoughts. When we travel, she usually sits in the back in the car and watches the time so that she can tell us when to change hand positions. We always send forth righteous thoughts when we are in a public place. I downloaded related articles on sending forth righteous thoughts for her, and asked her to send forth righteous thoughts during the "raising of the flag" ceremony held every Monday in school.
When my daughter was in the second grade, she went to the school principal and asked for permission to not wear a red scarf, and then withdrew from the communist Young Pioneers. While in grades three and four, she advised several of her friends to withdraw from the Young Pioneers. We also discussed how she could help more friends and classmates withdraw. In the meantime, I downloaded several articles so that she could utilize more reference materials.
When she was three years old, my daughter helped me carry informational materials about Falun Gong for distribution. Now when I explain the facts about the practice to people, she sends forth righteous thoughts near us to provide a clean environment for our activities.
6. Handling schoolwork and Fa study.
I was not able to help my daughter with her schoolwork, because I was too busy with my own work (although I think that this was just an excuse). I only asked her to do well, because she represented a child-practitioner (her status as a practitioner was not made known in school). I thought that if my daughter did not do well in school, then it would be more difficult for me to tell the teachers about Dafa. Because of this attachment, there was a period when my daughter's grades fell. When I realized that I had this attachment and corrected myself, her grades began to improve. Dafa can bring greater wisdom to a child if she is diligent in her study of the Fa and eliminates her attachments. Then, miracles will happen.
7. Be sure to remove the communist Party culture.
All children like to watch movies and shows. In mainland China, the television shows are full of the evil communist culture. My daughter observed with her celestial eye that the movie "Return of the Mummy" had a harmful effect on the people watching it. For this reason, I do not allow her to watch movies, especially TV series (all practitioners who are parents should be particularly careful about this problem). It is better for the children to watch Anderson's fairy tales, the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, or other Dafa productions and sing Dafa songs. It is also important to remind the children to be careful of what they say. Do not let our own emotions, human ways of thinking, or lack of diligence affect the child. We are obligated and responsible for the well-being of the child-practitioner. There was a time when I had regrets because I was not sufficiently diligent. Now my daughter and I are striving forward together diligently. We want to ensure that we reach consummation and not let our Master down.
