Educating with firmness and gentleness, the way of the third millennium

“Where do we get the absurd idea that in order to make children act better, we first have to make them feel worse?” (Jane Nelsen). In The Gospel according to Spiritism, In Chapter XIV, “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother”, we have a series of guidelines and reflections on the education of children, but I would like to highlight item 9 in particular: “O Spiritists! Understand today the great role of humanity; understand that when you produce a body, the soul that reincarnates in it comes from space to progress. Know your duties and put all your love into bringing that soul closer to God.”.

Taking a closer look at this passage reveals important points about raising our children. Firstly, we need to be clear that they are reincarnated Spirits, and as such have habits, tendencies and constructions from other incarnations. Educating children through the eyes of the Spirit puts us on another level of responsibility. Children are not just cute, funny beings who exist only to brighten our existence or to fulfill a wish or dream of ours. They are Spirits whom we have received with the duty of educating them for God. But how do we do that?

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Dr. Jane Nelsen's quote above makes us think: how do we want children to act better by making them feel worse? Let's look at an example: the child doesn't want to share his toy, so we immediately (for fear that he will become selfish) force him to share. And to make sure, we give them a nice lecture on selfishness. Is this child really learning not to be selfish? Or is he thinking about how to play hide-and-seek next time so he doesn't have to share the toy? They may also think that they really are selfish and come to believe that and see no other way of acting. Let's be honest, remember when we were children and how we felt.

By acting in this way, are we respecting the Spirit who is reincarnated in a child's body or just invalidating what it feels and thinks? In order to educate as a Spirit, we need to deconstruct many traditional conceptions of education. Observing Jesus as our greatest educator is a great exercise in this deconstruction. Jesus based his doctrine on the lesson of love, all the time in his apostolate he taught people through an attitude of firm e gentle. Whenever I read the books describing Jesus' passages, I marvel at the way the dialogues, Jesus' instructions, almost always begin: with a smile on his lips, he responds, with a serene and compassionate gaze, as we can see in this example where Levi tells Jesus that he disdained the help of people he considered incapable of working for the Good News:

“- It's only fair that we expect something from the fishermen of Capernaum; they are strong and courageous men, and the good work is theirs to do. But I don't see how we can accept the contribution of these unfortunate and defeated people who come to us.

Jesus gazed at the disciple with deep concern and spoke kindly, tapping him lightly on the shoulder:

- However, Levi, we need to love and accept the precious collaboration of the world's losers...” (Humberto de Campos, Good News).

Let's look at Christ's attitude, he was gentle e firm at the same time. At no point did Jesus have to make Levi feel bad in order to teach him what he needed. In the Spiritist tradition, we also have other examples of this attitude firm e gentle. For example, when we read the novel Resignation, we constantly have references to Alcíone's attitude, always firm e gentle. Other examples also touch us: Euripides Barsanulfo, an excellent educator who dedicated his energy to education of spirits, He also always gives us this attitude. I could go on for a long time describing educators, stories, passages in which the posture of the educator is an example of how we should act.

However, still spiritually immature, we observe these examples and don't put them into practice. I saw myself in this situation (of course, I still do). I was sure of what no was to educate, but I didn't know any other ways either. When I studied Positive Discipline, I found tools that helped me find this path of firmness and kindness. I also found so many points in common with Spiritist-Christian principles that I immersed myself in this universe. This only proves to me that we really are in a planetary transition, where new ideas are arriving all over the globe in all areas of knowledge aligned with a Planet of Regeneration. It is also through this movement that I realize the criterion used by Allan Kardec when he codified the Spiritist Doctrine: the universality of the teachings, bringing us what the truth.

Read also: The children's response

Dignity and respect

Positive Discipline was developed by Dr. Jane Nelsen based on the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs, both Viennese psychiatrists. The idea that every human being is equally deserving of dignity and respect is central to positive philosophy. Adler believed that children needed both order (structure and responsibility) and freedom in order to become responsible citizens and contributors to their communities.

Now, let's go back to the example of the toy that the child doesn't want to share. We've already seen that the ways we traditionally deal with this situation won't help this Spirit (the child) become less selfish. So what should we do? First we connect with the child, listening: son, you don't want to lend the toy? Can you tell me why? So what can we do to solve this problem? Once you've played with it, can you lend it to me? Look, there's no sermon. There's no embarrassment.

But what about selfishness? She will learn not to be selfish by observing the examples in her home, with the people she lives with. They will learn to look out for others when their parents teach them to collaborate in something useful (clearing the dishes from the table, putting their clothes away, making their bed). Another tool is to get the child to do good, so that they live with these situations on a daily basis and shape their tendencies and characteristics.

Another learning that Positive Discipline has brought me is that positive break. How often do we shout at children because we are in reactive mode? Jane Nelsen invites us to adopt the positive break in our daily lives, which is nothing more than taking a break, waiting for our tempers to calm down (especially our own) and then going back and thinking about the solution to the problem. By doing this, children will also learn to use this tool.

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Jesus' example

In Jesus' passage with the adulterous woman, we have an example of the use of positive break. I've always been struck by the part that describes Jesus crouching down and writing in the sand before giving the people an answer. Applying this to positive discipline, we can say that Jesus used the “positive pause”, which implies calming down (of course Jesus didn't need this, but the people involved in the situation did), coming to our senses and thinking about the best option, rather than just react.

Again, how do we do it? By putting it into practice, by becoming aware of the work we are doing: educating a child, educating a human being, in short, educating a Spirit. It's undeniable that today's children are different from those of the past, so the common ways of educating are no longer as effective as they once were. In order to be able to educate this new generation, we need to go down the path of self-knowledge, find out what makes us uncontrollable and learn how to regain our balance. When we shout, swear, ground and punish children, it's because we don't know how to control ourselves; we still don't know ourselves as the Spirits we are and what our tendencies and habits are.

Let's remember that Jesus didn't educate through punishments or rewards, he always established a legitimate connection with everyone who crossed his path. Affection, warmth and love are essential points in an education for the third millennium. You see, previously, with the Mosaic Laws, it was only possible to educate through reward or punishment. Jesus came to break this pattern and show us law of love. So, when educating, make sure that the message of love is clear.

Children are excellent observers and terrible interpreters. This means that much of what we do to educate our children in the name of love sounds different to them. “We often torment our children to do better. We want them to do better because we love them and think they'll be happier if they do what we think is good for them. They don't usually hear that we want them to do it for their own good. What they hear is: ‘Nothing I do is good enough’” (Jane Nelsen, Positive discipline).

Six ways to make sure the message of love is clear

Here are six ways to make sure that the message of love is clear:

• set aside special time to spend with your child;
• make sure you're at eye level when talking to the child (crouch down to their height);
• validate your child's feelings without rescuing or fixing them (“I can see you're very angry”);
• allow yourself a moment to calm your emotions and then focus on solutions;
• give lots of hugs.

Last but not least, don't want to be a perfect mother or father. Our children know us very well; when they chose to reincarnate with us, they were aware of our potential and our difficulties. Our imperfection and our efforts to improve will serve as firm and sure examples for our children. In this way, by learning together and transforming our homes, we will contribute to a more respectful and loving world... in short, a world of regeneration.

Fabiana Guariglia Bassi is a parent educator in Positive Discipline.