Every parent desires that their children should be cultured. Hence, it is our duty to take efforts to imbibe good sanskaras in our children. Each parent should keep the perspective that he is developing a future citizen of India while raising his child. This attitude the parent will not restrict the outlook to just imbibing sanskars in his child but that he is making efforts to build the nation. Parents are the most important and the initial tutors of every child.
Parents teach children to love and cooperate with each other. When a child is encouraged from childhood, he is able to handle things better. A parent teaches the child everything, from taking his meals using spoon to flushing the toilet. Children start enjoying the reading if the parents read them stories everyday. Since child is prone to imitation it picks up the parents’ hobbies automatically.
Children be taught the philosophy of an ideal life-style!
Parents can also teach a child how much they should trust others while facing difficult times, how to face different situations in life. Parents should teach a child how to behave in different circumstances. Parents should put forth their views with all the seriousness and responsibility about the aim of life and its ideals and guide them towards these ideals. They should be able to tell them precisely about what is right and what is wrong, all the while taking care not to burden them with the parent’s opinions.
They should be given the freedom to take their own decisions. But the parents should ensure that their concepts about what is right and what is wrong are clearly understood by the children and this should be so strongly impressed on their mind that the child will not commit any misnomer. In short, parents should teach children about the philosophy of an ideal life style. All the sanskaras imparted by parents should be based righteousness, be it a minor habit or a major principle which guides the child through out his life. Now-a-days most of the parents themselves follow western culture, their philosophy of life advocates pleasure seeking. Hence they end up teaching their children these very principles.
How can parents influenced by the western culture, impart appropriate sanskaras on their children?
The outlook of parents towards future life of their children is limited to his grades in examination, competition for further grades, competition in his field of interest, money, the child’s career to meet these requirements. Due to the influence of the western culture and neglect of our own culture, we see that children disobey their parents. Parents try to keep them occupied by engaging them in different activities and in tuition classes. Most educated parents feel that their children should endowed with good sanskaras, but do not know how.
To impart good sanskaras on children, support of spiritual practice is a must!
How the children will be endowed with good sanskaras? There are two preconditions. The first being that parents themselves should be well behaved and secondly children should be taught devotion along with discipline.
When children perform spiritual practice, they are able to pick up good qualities easily. Name of God has the power to transform stubborn and unyielding children. Many have already experienced this. To begin with parents themselves must learn about devotion in details and then try to educate children about it. God’s Name had the potential to change ‘Valya koli (dacoit) into Valmilki (Holy man)’. Hence God’s Name has the immense potential to bring about changes in the children. Let all parents become aware of this and let them all bring up children with good sanskars, good values and bring in the Divine kingdom, let this be our prayer at His Holy feet.