Question: How does one deal with a child’s suicidal tendencies?

Answer: Suicidal tendencies in children are treated only with a good collective. Without a collective there will be more and more isolation of the child, and he will go inward since this is all psychological: Life seems unnecessary, everything collapses, and there is just hopelessness around him.

From this to a state of happiness, all that is needed is just one small twist. But who will do it? That is the problem. I am sure that it is only the collective that is able to do this. It’s very important to develop some kind of hobbies for the child. When I was a child, my parents constantly gave me all kinds of extra-curricular activities.

First, they bought me a good camera with a zoom lens and gave me money for film developers and fixers. I was very interested in this. Before that, they presented me with a bike, and with friends, I would often take cycling trips outside of the city. Afterward, there was table tennis and then athletics where I won first place. They constantly engaged me into various activities. Also, I was never alone, but was at least with one or two other friends.

I think it is necessary to do this. A child should not sit at home. Besides being at school, he needs another circle of friends. If something fails at school, then the child will succeed in another place. Let’s suppose at a dance class or at volley ball.

The best thing is some kind of group sport. When you go into competition, “one on one,” like running different distances, this isn’t so good. Tennis and other group sports are much more effective. It’s essential to involve the child in something.

You can even agree with other families to come together to organize activities for children in a circle of ten to fifteen children and hire instructors that will help with it. For a reasonable fee, you can organize a very good activity.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/11/13

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Question: How can we realize that the youth are ready to perceive serious issues and that we can move on from role play to actual debates?

Answer: Essentially, every game has to be followed by discussion or the discussions themselves should be held in the form of a game.

It is impossible to do it any other way since we constantly play games. When I try to find my image, I see that I actually don’t have it. I am actually thrown from one extreme state to another. So where is the nicest image that I can take on and be dressed in? I have to find that in discussions.

A person doesn’t really exist by himself. We are a product of our society and are born shapeless and formatted under the influence of our parents, kindergarten, school, the media, etc. The environment has turned us into whatever it wanted to, like dough.

Now we want to clarify all that: what has it done with me, which attributes and desires I have, is there something that is actually mine in me? This is actually the state I have to reach, in which I will see that there is nothing in me that is mine.

Later, we have to show children that the best attribute is kindness and that it can open up everything for them. If we use it correctly, it is a very powerful weapon. It makes us strong and gives us a feeling of confidence, and is helpful to man and to society. But this is revealed gradually in the discussions.

Then comes the stage of the clarification of what this attribute means: kindness, good mutual relations, and a good connection.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13

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Question: If a child is angry and irritable what flaw in the parents does it indicate? What does the child lack that they should give him? Does he lack their attention?

Answer: Parents should not search for the source of a teenager’s anger. A child has his own inner inquiries but still doesn’t understand what they are exactly yet. He cannot clarify them by himself, yet and he feels bad about not finding a solution for them.

At this age it is natural since his whole life is still ahead of him, the world is confusing and he feels the pressure of his peers and of the environment. On the other hand, he goes through different inner changes. Here there is a need for the right formula of communicating with the teenager.

It is a good idea to make an effort to relieve the pressure of complicated states that children find themselves in by an outing or through sports. If possible, they should be taken away from the city for a couple of months, but the best thing is to engage them in sports, since it is energy, it is development, it is communication.

Question: I remember when I was a teenager. When conflict arose between my parents, I always felt worried about whether they would make up. What should parents do in such cases? Do they have to work together to resolve the rift in the relationship or should they immediately come out with it and try to overcome the crisis together with the children?

Answer: Parents should not try to conceal that some differences exist. They should try to explain everything to the child and solve their problems, but still, they don’t have to tell the kids everything.

After all, there are many problems between adults and a child does not need to know about all of them. He cannot perceive and digest all the conflicts adults have and all the more so if the conflicts are between his parents. We have to protect the child’s psyche. Parents will always have conflicts that it is better for kids not to know about.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/11/13

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Question: Often, people who live together for a long time actually don’t know each other. In the Integral method there is an exercise called “acquaintanceship,” when spouses begin to get to know each other again: The woman says how she sees her husband, and he says how he sees himself, and so on. When they compare this, they understand that they don’t know each other. Can such an exercise be used with a teenager?

Answer: This is a very practical and beneficial exercise, but it should be used gradually because it is very difficult for a person to exit himself and begin to perceive the world through another, especially the opposite of him. It is even more difficult for a child to engage in this process, because he always sees the parents communicating with each other on a purely domestic basis. Therefore, it is best not to join him in integral interactions when the parents discuss some common problems.

I know this on my own. My parents were doctors: my mother a gynecologist and my father a dentist. They often talked about professional issues. My mother engaged in research in her field and told my father about it, and I overheard.

As a boy, I was interested in the sexual and gynecological problems. Later, I would ask my mother questions on these topics, and she explained everything carefully. Later, this gave me a lot.

In such a way a child is shaped under the influence of those conversations and discussions that take place between the parents. The thing is not only in that he integrates in the professions of the parents, but he also integrates in the technology of communication between them.

Question: How should the parents act if during the discussions on family problems they see that the child eavesdrops on them?

Answer: Let him eavesdrop. Afterward, you can call him and explain what you talked about. By this you teach him about proper mutual cooperation, and later he will build his family in an identical way. We know on ourselves how much the stereotypes that we got from our parents influence on us: by seeing how they communicated between them, discussed all sorts of life situations, argued, and agreed with each other. All this accumulates and becomes a part of us.

You can intentionally wait for the child to return from school and deliberately start a conversation about some topic, discussing it in a nice way without fighting, attempting to find a common solution. Suppose you are talking in the kitchen, and he walks around listening to your conversation. You can even ask his opinion, pulling him casually into the discussion. And then gradually he will begin to express his desire to participate in the family discussions.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/11/13

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Question: Part of the connection workshops that we have done were dedicated to clarification of the difference between the sexes. First the women talked about how they see the men and how they see themselves.

Then the men expressed how they see themselves and how they see the women. This picture was compared, and it was surprising to see how different we are.

After that both the men and the women seemingly gathered all of their characteristics into a few “baskets,” and began to think about how to fulfill these qualities of the other sex: What do they want and what could they give to each other? Is it worthwhile to use an exercise like this as a game in family circles with adolescents?

Answer: This is very difficult, because here it is necessary to gradually become detached from yourself, to begin to think with the head of another person, to live in his desires, to enter into him. It follows that the abilities are mine and the desires are his, as if I live with my body but with his desires, in that we complete them and he completes mine. Here we go out to another level of cooperation, to absolute bestowal.

This is integration with each other. This is really true love: not physical, not platonic, not sexual, but precisely true integration with each other. It is doubtful that this exercise is appropriate for the family because in it the gender differences are blurred and appear differently. If we arrange this game for a circle of adolescents, then this must only be in a very advanced group.

To begin with, I would insert a discussion among the adolescents in the form of a courthouse, where a person would look at himself from the side, discussing the others not from his point of view but from the side of the other, as an arbitrator. That is how they would learn to be flexible, to discuss not only themselves but also others. This is what you need to teach them.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/11/13

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In the News (from Salon): “School is a place where children are compelled to be, and where their freedom is greatly restricted — far more restricted than most adults would tolerate in their workplaces. In recent decades, we have been compelling our children to spend ever more time in this kind of setting, and there is strong evidence (summarized in my recent book) that this is causing serious psychological damage to many of them. Moreover, the more scientists have learned about how children naturally learn, the more we have come to realize that children learn most deeply and fully, and with greatest enthusiasm, in conditions that are almost opposite to those of school. …

“Most students — whether A students, C students, or failing ones — have lost their zest for learning by the time they reach middle school or high school. In a recent research study, Mihaly Czikszentmihalyl and Jeremy Hunter fitted more than 800 sixth- through 12th-graders, from 33 different schools across the country, with special wristwatches that provided a signal at random times of day. Whenever the signal appeared, they were to fill out a questionnaire indicating where they were, what they were doing, and how happy or unhappy they were at the moment. The lowest levels of happiness, by far, occurred when they were in school and the highest levels occurred when they were out of school playing or talking with friends. In school, they were often bored, anxious or both. Other researchers have shown that, with each successive grade, students develop increasingly negative attitudes toward the subjects taught, especially math and science. …

“When schools were taken over by the state and made compulsory, and directed toward secular ends, the basic structure and methods of schooling remained unchanged. Subsequent attempts at reform have failed because, though they have tinkered some with the structure, they haven’t altered the basic blueprint. The top-down, teach-and-test method, in which learning is motivated by a system of rewards and punishments rather than by curiosity or by any real, felt desire to know, is well designed for indoctrination and obedience training but not much else. …

“As a society, we tend to shrug off such findings. We’re not surprised that learning is unpleasant. We think of it as bad-tasting medicine, tough to swallow but good for children in the long run. Some people even think that the very unpleasantness of school is good for children, so they will learn to tolerate unpleasantness, because life after school is unpleasant. Perhaps this sad view of life derives from schooling. Of course, life has its ups and downs, in adulthood and in childhood. But there are plenty of opportunities to learn to tolerate unpleasantness without adding unpleasant schooling to the mix. Research has shown that people of all ages learn best when they are self-motivated, pursuing questions that are their own real questions, and goals that are their own real-life goals. In such conditions, learning is usually joyful.

“…the natural drives and abilities of young people to learn are fully sufficient to motivate their entire education. When they want or need help from others, they ask for it. We don’t have to force people to learn; all we need to do is provide them the freedom and opportunities to do so. Of course, not everyone is going to learn the same things, in the same way, or at the same time. But that’s a good thing. Our society thrives on diversity. Our culture needs people with many different kinds of skills, interests and personalities. Most of all, we need people who are pursuing life with passion and who take responsibility for themselves throughout life. These are the common denominators of people who have taken charge of their own education.”

My Comment: School still looks like an institution established for the production of human performers that were needed in times of Charlie Chaplin. It was necessary to change schooling a long time ago, but even those who advocate a new education system have no consensus. The problem is that no one understands the structure of the new world: integrated, unified, interconnected, to which people should be adapted to integrally enter the structure of the world. A person can be changed only through the method of integral education.
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Question: Suppose that some entrepreneurs, thanks to supporting each other, reach a conclusion about the necessity of mutual, integral cooperation and decide to change direction. What strategic changes can they make if they know this?

Answer: The problem is that entrepreneurs exist in an egoistic society as a cancerous tumor and are part of it. Therefore it is difficult to imagine that they would somehow begin to change that business culture in which they reside. This is possible only if the numbers are large and if they gradually become aware of the necessary changes that must take place in them and in the connection between them.

This reform is possible to realize in a country, a closed system, but only if this country can reach an integral form consciously by building the right connections between all strata of the population: between the upper, middle, and lower classes. But if we just explain to some small businessman how to reorganize his business according to the current trend of the changing world, then it is doubtful that it is possible.

This is because he is locked in a system of competition and corruption, where everyone preys on each other, a rigid system. In order to place his small business on a new path, to produce the most essential product and sell his products at a price that is sufficient only for his existence and nothing more, he would be like a small fish living among sharks that would devour him immediately. He would not survive such a hostile environment.
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From Kab TV’s “Through the Time” 9/16/13

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Question: How can entrepreneurs reach mutual conclusions in order to understand the new integral principles and change within the business community?

Answer: First of all, they must be trained in the method of integral education and upbringing. Then they will prefer good relationships between them to the present relationships at home, in the family, in the area where they live, in their city, and even in their nation.

They will be satisfied with an average salary, will devote much attention to all kinds of plans and social relations that provide education, healthcare, and so forth for free. In other words, their businesses must actively participate in social life.

At least they must be ready to separate from their material advantage, to work for the sake of the entire community, to get satisfaction from the fact that they are respected, valued, and loved by those who relate to them as to people who truly function correctly and maturely in this community.

The reputation of a businessman will not be determined by wealth but by active social standing. Integral education must bring him to a condition like this, where he will feel that he can stand out in society specifically because he foregoes material luxuries because they will be despised in the wider circles of society.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/16/13

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Question: Unfortunately a person involved with Integral Education doesn’t acquire a global vision immediately. On one hand, he has a group that cannot change him right away; on the other hand, there is the external world which dictates its rules. What should he do in a in this situation?

Answer: Our world doesn’t dictate any rules that contradict the integral method. A person safely engage in Integral Education. In our world there are many exercises that relax a person, train him, expand or narrow his horizons according to what each method is designed for.

We do not present and compare opposites; on the contrary, we say that our world is good and we do not have to wait until it will deteriorate. It is only necessary to include one more force in it and then it will become even more wonderful; we can manage it.

We have always advanced under the influence of one attraction that was egoistic. Egoism lashed us from behind like a whip and we developed. Now a further force is beginning to be discovered that is altruistic, and therefore we have lost control; we have lost our bearings in this world because according to our internal structure, we are not at all adapted to what is being discovered in the world.

We propose the method of awareness, the method for discovering that system of forces that manages us in order to find our bearings in our world again, to understand where we are going, where that system is, how we can enter it, and to secure our future.
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From Kab TV’s “An Integral World” 10/26/13

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Question: Will a group be homogeneous if it has attained some level of an integral state?

Answer: Yes, not just members of one group, but also all integral groups will look quite alike. After all, if by nature, our personal, mental, moral, and physical potential is different in all of us, we become included one into another when we study together in a group. We form one common organism, and all these properties become distributed among us. In this case, there can’t be any failures. No one corrupts the team because the common, dominant atmosphere points to the correct behavior. The most important thing here is not to stick oneself out in front, but rather to lower oneself next to the others. This is considered valor.
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From Kab TV’s “Integral World” 10/26/12

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