Raising My Daughter with the Fa’s Guidance

(Minghui.org) Since I started to practice Falun Dafa in 1994, I have gradually changed from being a selfish person to being much more considerate. By steadily improving myself, I became a better parent to my daughter and raised her with the wisdom and patience gained from cultivation. With the guidance of the Fa, my daughter has grown into a kind, industrious, and independent young woman.

Planting the Seed of Kindness

Speaking of the educational system in China, it is an issue that raises eyebrows and induces headaches across the board. Fueled by the “class struggle” ideology and atheism embedded in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Party has systemically destroyed China’s rich cultural heritage and values. Moral decline is so significant that even educators and parents nowadays don’t know what’s good and what’s bad. How can they raise the next generation?

The CCP’s one-child policy has, for decades, dictated the size of Chinese families and created 150 million one-child families. The childern, in most cases, grew up with a pair of parents and two sets of grandparents focusing all of their attention and resources on them. Their needs and wants were catered to and most have never experienced a day of hard work. They are, as a result, sheltered and deeply narcissistic. The evil side of their nature is indulged and most can’t distinguish good from bad.

I came to understand the importance of educating children by studying the Fa. To raise them well, we have to start teaching them good values from a young age and start with the small things.

My daughter is high energy and has been very active from a young age. Since the day she started walking, she’s been busy non-stop and often ended up hurting herself. While playing in the living room one time, she rammed her head into the corner of the TV console. As she screamed in pain, my mother-in-law came running. Trying to comfort the crying child, Grandma pretended to hit the console and said, “It hurt my granddaughter. I’m going to kill it.” My daughter raised her chubby little hand and hit the console like Grandma did and seemed to accept this form of punishment.

I understood my mother-in-law’s love for my daughter, but the way she blamed the console might encourage bad habits of evading responsibility, resentment, and revenge. This is no small matter. What she taught my daughter was not how a person should behave. I could not criticize my mother-in-law but, as a Dafa practitioner, I could handle it with wisdom.

When my daughter hit her head on the table a few days later, she remembered what Grandma had taught her. So she raised her hand and hit the table, blaming it for hurting her. I said to her, “Sweetie. The table didn’t move. You walked into it and hurt your head. You might have hurt the table too when you bumped into it. Maybe it’s crying now.”

My daughter looked at me with her big brown eyes, paused for a second, then nodded, “Um, maybe.” I smiled, “How about you apologize and tell the table you’re sorry. If the table accepts your apology, maybe you will feel better too.” With her cute little voice, she genuinely apologized to the table, “Sorry.” When I asked if her head still hurt, she said no and ran out to play in the yard. With the wisdom I gained from Dafa cultivation, I guided my daughter to do the right thing. Although it’s been many years, I still remember and cherish that feel-good moment.

Small children are like a blank canvas; whatever we teach them will leave a mark. I planted a seed of kindness deep in my daughter’s heart so, when she grew up, she would always consider others in whatever she does. She would become an honest, kind, and tolerant person. Whatever difficulty or conflict she might encounter in life, she would be able to handle it with grace and strength.

Teaching My Daughter to Be Resilient

In order to raise children well, we have to first change our mindset and our tendency to seek comfort. As my daughter grew up, I purposely let her go through some hardships instead of taking care of everything for her. Even the first time she fell down when learning how to walk, I held myself back and did not rush over to help her. I watched from afar as she slowly pushed herself back up.

She took a hard fall playing outside one time—her knee was skinned, with dirt and sand ground into the wound and blood oozing out. It was hard to watch her in pain, but I made myself stay where I was. I thought she was going to cry, but to my surprise, she bit her lip and tried to look as if nothing happened. She got up and went right back to playing with other kids. I also communicated with my husband and in-laws about my intention to shape her into an independent and tough-minded person and asked them to help me by doing the same.

I started inviting my daughter to help with simple house chores since a young age. It’s her job to clear and wipe down the table and do the dishes after dinner. She does her own laundry. While doing dishes in the kitchen, she sang happily, “Washing-washing-washing, I’m washing-washing-washing.” Her cheerful song made me smile.

Ever since she started middle school, my daughter has been working seasonal jobs at restaurants during summer and winter breaks. Her high school was far away from home. While many parents dropped off and picked up their children every day, my daughter rode her electric scooter to and from school, rain or shine, throughout high school.

We started with small things to demonstrate and teach her the value of hard work. I also continued to rectify myself in cultivation to better guide my daughter. Little by little, my daughter learned to deal with problems with courage. She is not afraid of hardships and is willing to endure.

Dafa Gave Me Wisdom to Become a Better Person and a Better Parent

I’m the youngest in my family. Growing up, I was overprotected and spoiled rotten by my parents, as well as by my older brother and sister. I was headstrong, bossy, and unforgiving. Nobody ever told me what a narrow-minded and selfish person I was as I cruised through half my life feeling pretty good about myself. It wasn’t until I started cultivating in Dafa and tried to measure up to the universal principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, did I realize how dangerously far I had strayed from being a good person. Of course, as I cultivated, I gradually rectified and improved myself.

As my daughter got older, her social circle expanded and grew more complex. Overexposed to materialism, counterfeiting and fraud, flashy celebrities, social media influencers, violence, pornography, homosexuality and so on, young people today can easily pick up bad habits and lose themselves. Many of my daughter’s peers dressed outlandishly, were addicted to video games or the Internet, dated at a young age, and compulsively lied to their parents and friends. In this big dye vat of a society, how many can resist the trends and hold onto traditional values?

I was worried about my daughter becoming contaminated in this chaotic world and often felt stressed out. How should I guide my child to walk a straight path in life? I was, at times, confused and at a loss, as it was so challenging and mentally exhausting. But I had no choice—she was already in middle school. If I didn’t discipline her now, it would be even more difficult to rectify her when she was older. I firmly believed that only Dafa could give me the wisdom to raise my daughter well.

As I continued to study the Fa, I drew many ideas from Master’s teachings and figured it out as I went on. I became more and more rational and mature as a parent and remained firm and consistent with my expectations for my daughter.

Dafa Brings Many Blessings

I took up Dafa cultivation before I became pregnant with my daughter. When she was just a month old, I started taking her to group Fa study. While the adults read, she slept or listened quietly but never cried. When she started talking, I taught her poems from Hong Yin and, as she got older, we studied Master’s Fa, including lectures and articles, together. Dafa’s universal principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance have been deeply rooted in her heart.

Although she never truly took up Dafa cultivation, Master watches over my daughter and has kept her from harm. From elementary school to high school, my daughter was involved in a few accidents, some minor and some more serious. On her way home from school one time, a car made a fast turn around the corner and hit her. She flew off her electric scooter and landed on the street. Yet with Master’s protection, she was fine.

Whenever my daughter suffered a minor discomfort such as a headache or a fever, I always told her to recite “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” or listen to Master’s Fa teachings. I let her decide if she would like to go see a doctor or take any medicine. Oftentimes, before I made it back from the pharmacy, her symptoms were already gone. With Dafa’s protection, my daughter rarely had to see a doctor and was a healthy kid.

Guiding My Daughter to Look Inward

Since my daughter has Dafa in her heart, I try to guide her to look inward whenever there is a conflict. One of her friends twisted her ankle at school and it hurt to walk. After school, my daughter let her friend lean on her shoulder and walked her all the way home.

When they got to her friend’s apartment building, her friend expressed concern that she wouldn’t be able to climb up the stairs. So my daughter offered to carry her on her back. Her friend was a little on the heavy side, and my daughter felt her chest tighten as she climbed the stairs. When they finally got to her friend’s unit, the girls said goodbye to each other, but her friend didn’t say “thank you.” This bothered my daughter, and she told me about it that night. I praised her for caring and being helpful. I told her she did a good thing and her kindness will be rewarded with virtue, regardless of whether her friend thanked her or not.

My daughter came home from school the next day and told me her chest still hurt. She complained again about her friend not saying “thank you” and seemed unhappy. I was making dinner at the time and didn’t say anything. When we sat down at dinner, she told me her chest pain worsened.

I told her, “How about let’s look inward to examine ourselves and see if we harbor resentment toward this friend? Do we seek recognition or something in return when we perform good deeds?” She thought about it for a second and said, “You’re right, Mother. That’s exactly what it is. I helped her home and carried her up the stairs. She didn’t even thank me. I am not happy about it because I’m attached to getting something in return.” As soon as she said that, her eyes lit up with surprise, “Mother, my chest is fine now. It’s not hurting anymore.” I replied, “You should thank Master. When you do the right thing, Master will help get rid of your karma.”

My daughter’s chest no longer hurt and the pain never occurred again. This is how extraordinary Dafa is. She witnessed the power of Dafa and learned how to look inward to examine herself.

Keeping Healthy Boundaries with Boys

Kids nowadays mature very early. Since my daughter was in fifth grade, I started talking to her about keeping an appropriate distance from the opposite gender. I introduced her to stories of traditional Chinese culture that model proper conduct.

The boy sitting next to her in middle school once said some naughty words to my daughter and referenced pornography and other indecent content. My daughter told me about it, and I considered it a serious matter. It wasn’t just bad an influence on my child but could induce serious problems for the boy if he continued down this path. Pornography has led many teenage boys into participating in criminal activities and causing harm to their own bodies.

To be responsible to all parties, I called my daughter’s homeroom teacher and requested that my daughter be moved to a different seat. I expressed my concerns and suggested that the boy might be consuming adult content. The homeroom teacher happened to know the boy’s parents well. Together, they put a stop to it and helped the boy quit pornography. The boy held resentment toward me for tattling, but he eventually came to understand what I did was for his own good. His behavior and grades started to improve, and he was grateful. My daughter and the boy were good friends again.

With firm guidance, my daughter learned how to act appropriately in social settings involving the opposite gender. She didn’t start dating until after college.

The Value of Cherishing Lives and Respecting Others

Master has warned disciples not to kill lives and told us “suicide is sinful” (Lecture Given at the Conference in Sydney). I often talked to my daughter about cherishing lives, protecting animals and all beings, and not to harm plants. I also talked to her about self-respect, respect for others, especially toward elders, parents and teachers, and not to discriminate against anybody based on wealth or social status. She was not to curse nor waste time playing video games, either.

I told her to always communicate with her father and me about her concerns so we could talk it over and work it out. Together, we’ve created a family culture where communication is open and frequent. We help, encourage, and support each other. My daughter is very rational and open to others’ opinions and advice. She is respectful to elders, caring for children, and is kind to everything and everybody.

With the guidance of Falun Dafa, my daughter transitioned into and out of her teenage years without a rebellious streak like most of her peers.

Letting Go of My Attachment and Raising a Happy Kid

Since taking power, the communist regime in China has systematically replaced traditional Chinese culture and values with atheist ideology. The morals of society are in sharp decline. Even in the education field, we often heard things such as teachers molesting students, officials being pedophiles, and college girls having affairs with married men. School teachers charging high fees for after-school programs is also a common practice.

With a tight grip on nearly every aspect of people’s lives, the CCP placed “thought education” above knowledge and filled curricula from elementary school to college with its propaganda. Schools reiterate the Party’s lies slandering and smearing Falun Dafa and turn the students against Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Without moral constraints, people make fake diplomas, cheat on tests, and rip off others’ work and ideas in academia.

For fame and benefit, teachers focus solely on students’ grades and rankings. Parents exhaust all means to help their kids pass the college entrance exams so they can get into a good college and eventually find a good job. With an enormous amount of pressure from teachers and parents, the kids are highly competitive with each other. Not knowing how to cope nor where to find help, many kids become isolated and fall into depression. More and more school-aged kids commit suicide. The education system in China has failed our kids completely.

My daughter was never one of the top students, but she tries to be a good person guided by the universal principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. While going through school, she never cheated on her tests nor copied work from other students. I, however, used to put a lot of pressure on her because of my own attachments, and this caused a negative effect.

When my daughter was little, she preferred language arts over math. For the longest time, she couldn’t tell time on a clock and was easily confused with word problems. She consistently scored lower than average in math tests and quizzes. Every time she brought home bad grades, I couldn’t help but scold her with a harsh tone. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t solve such simple problems. I tried helping her with math, but my patience ran out quickly and, before I knew it, I was yelling and calling her “dumb.” I really didn’t get it, “My grades were pretty good across all subjects when I was in school. Why don’t you take after me?” The more impatient I got, the less likely she’d understand the problem, then I’d blow up, and she’d start crying.

But I’m a Dafa practitioner—I shouldn’t have lost my temper with my daughter. I needed to be rational and more patient. I told my daughter, “As a student, your responsibility is to study. I don’t blame you if you don’t get it right away, but you have to take it seriously and work hard. Always trying your best is one of the criteria for being a good person.” I hired an experienced math teacher to tutor her one-on-one, but he didn’t prove to be much of a help.

Over time, my daughter lost her confidence in academics, and her self-esteem slipped. She seemed sad and avoided interacting with her classmates. It was hard to watch, and I wondered if the problem was on me. Did I place too much weight on grades and rankings, like an ordinary person? Through looking inward, I found a hidden attachment within me—I hoped that one day my daughter would ace the college entrance exam and go to a prestigeous university. Wouldn’t that make me look good in front of family and friends? But, isn’t this an attachment to fame and self-interest? Once I recognized it, I worked on letting it go.

Not only does each person have their own unique path in life, I believe that the entire human society has been meticulously arranged and planned out by higher beings. As all kids go to school, not everybody can make it into to a top university, nor get a high-paying, stable job. We need architects, but also construction workers to build the buildings, and we need street sweepers, babysitters, security guards, small business owners, and vegetables farmers.

Every profession has its purpose, and we need people to do these jobs. Heaven is fair in that when you lose an opportunity, another door will open up for you. I had no clue whether my daughter could go to college or what she would do for a living, nor could I alter any of it. Then why not just let it be and go with the flow?

As I chipped away at my attachment to fame and self-interest, I no longer put pressure on my daughter. She became much happier and more outgoing. Her mental state improved. She took us all by surprised at the end of middle school and passed the high school entrance exams. Although she had always struggled with math, she picked a STEM track in high school instead of language arts and literature, which she was good at. I supported her decision regardless, as I knew everything would work out in the end. As long as she worked hard, she would be able to achieve her goals.

The three years of high school were very intense, but I encouraged her to just do her best. Starting out at the bottom of her class in the STEM track, she worked hard and kept plowing through it. In the end, she was accepted by a college in a major city and graduated within four years. She went on to graduate school and got her master’s degree before landing a job at a foreign investment company. Throughout her formative years, my daughter was able to rise above and beyond the chaotic and corrupt world around her and stayed true to her self, which is the most comforting thing to me.

Epilogue

Raising kids is indeed an art, a hard but rewarding endeavor. It is a big commitment and parents have to invest a lot of resources, time, and energy. Although it’s a lot of work and can be frustrating at times, I want to tell parents who spoil their kids, are too permissive, or neglect their kids, to please not use a screen or smartphone to babysit, even when it seems to save you time and headache. Don’t give in to your children’s unreasonable requests and don’t always let them have it their way. Don’t let them only know how to take but never learn how to give. Don’t let them focus only on what to gain in everything they do. Don’t let them only know how to indulge but not how to work hard. And don’t be afraid of letting them suffer some hardships.

Teach them to be kind to others and to contribute positively to society. Make sure they know what is good and what is bad. Most importantly, make sure they know the purpose and meaning of life. I suggest all parents read the book Zhuan Falun, as the wisdom imparted by Dafa will profoundly benefit you and your kids.