Question: Don’t try to buy off your child with new sneakers, tablets, or toys. Then how do you “buy” a child?

Answer: By showing him that you are his friend, that you are supposedly on his level. And just imagine how much you have to remake yourself for that, how much you need to change.

Question: Yes, it is me who has to change. And what do you mean by the word “friend”?

Answer: You understand him, you are ready to help him, support him. The main thing is to understand him.

Question: Don’t overdo it with developmental courses, clubs, extracurricular activities. Let the child live through their childhood organically.

What is an organically lived childhood?

Answer: In general, yes. A child should do what he wants.

Question: To that extent?

Answer: In the end, he gets his desires and opinions from his friends anyway. So it is not really his own. But still, encourage him.

Comment: But you said you were surrounded by composers, by music. And little by little…

My Response: It did not really give me anything special.

Question: But it gave you an ear for music. You definitely have an ear. Do you still think a child should be given freedom of choice?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Keep your word. Say it once, do it the second time. Would it be better not to promise the child anything at all so as not to deceive them?

Answer: No, but if you want to demonstrate upbringing, then you must both promise and follow through.

Question: Let him make mistakes. Finnish researchers say: “What a wonderful mistake!” That is, I could even say for a mistake: “Well done. You made a mistake.” Can such an approach be used?

Answer: Not “well done.” But find the mistake, correct it. Here you have a mistake. And it is not an accusation, you are not blaming him.

Question: “Do not be afraid to overlove your child”—people say that. What does it mean to “overlove”?

Answer: Not to show excessive love, especially where it might get in the way.

Question: Can love get in the way?

Answer: Of course. Everything must be measured and in balance.
[346846]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/1/25

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Question: People used to meet and start families. There was happiness in having a child. Let me ask you a strange question. What was the parental happiness in having a child?

Answer: To see their future in the child.

Question: Is that how it should be?

Answer: Yes, of course. Children should be born and they should continue their family line.

Question: Today it seems to have disappeared. Suddenly, for many couples, a child has become a burden. Why?

Answer: Our egoism has divided us, disconnected us, placed everyone in their own corner, and that is it.

Question: But why does egoism need that?

Answer: That is how it works. Our egoism benefits when we are focused only on ourselves and care only about it.

Comment: And concerning our egoism, which is the closest and dearest to us, we say that it is a burden to us.

My Response: It is not the closest and dearest. We say that it is a burden to us because it prevents us from taking care of our true “child,” the one inside ourselves!

Question: So this “I,” my ego, is the closest and dearest?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: Look where we have gotten! I wonder what will come next.

My Response: It will get worse. We will reach a state in which everyone hides in their own corner and does not want to talk to anyone. That is it! I will only order, say, pizza and cola, or something else.

Question: And what will happen then? We are constantly leading humanity to some kind of dead end.

Answer: It is a dead end. Humanity must see its own dead end. But when it becomes clear that it really is a dead end, then an epiphany will come from this dead end—that we cannot continue like this.

Question: Do you think that there can be no awakening before that?

Answer: No, I think we must reach that recognition. In other words, there should be no wars or riots or violent outbursts, but there should be a clear awareness of hopelessness and deadlock. Then we will begin to think: “What should we do?” And then we will remember: “Wait, I once heard something from Kabbalists.”

Question: Yes, there is a book on my shelf, a clip saved, and so on. So they will look and begin moving toward correction?

Answer: I am sure of it.

Question: Do we need to keep dripping it in, putting it on shelves and into computers?

Answer: Absolutely! We have no other choice.

Question: Even if we keep coming to the same results?

Answer: It does not matter. If you have a small child who is growing and developing, you still have to tell him what to do and how to behave properly. You cannot just let it go.
[346011]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/3/25

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Question: I do not understand what it means to yield without canceling my own desire. What is the difference between a concession in which I cancel myself and one in which I do not cancel myself?

Answer: A concession in which I cancel myself is when someone stands over me with a stick and after a few blows I have no choice but to give up my desire and do what the stick-wielder demands.

But the concession we speak of in integral education is something I do of my own freewill. I want to yield because I understand what I gain by doing so.

I understand that I have no other way to grow, expand, and stretch my boundaries if I do not cancel myself. Concession means that I cancel my own boundaries and allow foreign qualities, desires, and goals to enter inside me. And I accept them as if they were my own. Otherwise I will not grow, and I will not be able to connect with anyone. I will forever remain inside my inflated self, which in essence is a puffed-up zero locked from all sides.

Absorption, assimilation, and mutual inclusion are necessary conditions for development; they are a form of life. We have all seen movies in which two cells meet, merge into one, and then begin to multiply and expand into a new body. This is only possible because each cell yields and opens up to the other one in order to unite. Without this, there will be no life—this is the entire secret of it.

This needs to be explained and emphasized from the perspective of society. On the other hand, we are being pushed in this direction by the global crisis that demands that we begin to connect our dead, isolated cells and build a living body from them.

I open my boundaries and try to use my desire, my habits, and all my abilities to fulfill the desire of another person. My concession lies in the fact that I disregard myself in order to fulfill the desire of my neighbor. Through this, I acquire their feelings, their reason, and their thoughts.

It all begins with a conversation. Each person must imagine an internal map of their partner. What does each of us want from the other? What does he demand, and what would he like to see in the partner? We begin to practice such discussions.

But we do this not like an ordinary family trying to simply improve their relationship, but in order to acquire and build new senses within ourselves that are capable of perceiving the other. In this way I exit my egoism and begin to see what is happening around me.

If a person can correct himself like this within the family unit, then he will also succeed at work, in relationships with others, and ultimately reach balance with all of nature. In this way we tune ourselves to perceive external reality. I no longer live only within myself, but I begin to absorb information from the environment outside me. And outside me there are vast forces that I currently neither know nor feel.
[100952]
From KabTV’s “New Life 40—The Key to a Good Relationship Is Mutual Concession,” 7/25/12

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Comment: Professor Tatyana Chernigovskaya, a psycholinguist and neurobiologist from St. Petersburg University states: “The future is already here. It’s a different world—not the one we lived in just five years ago. Modern children should be taught how to train their memory, sustain attention, classify information, and to know where to find trustworthy sources, as well as how to behave in a state of constant stress and time pressure.”

Answer: It would seem she is right. But here is the problem. Such a world is neither needed by us nor by our children. Why should they live in constant tension and distrust of all information? Why prepare them for negativity and bring it closer ahead of time?

No! I want to prepare children for a bright future. I want to explain to them how to make the future bright instead of submitting to the “fate of the new age.” The future should be such that it is good for all of us.

This is possible, and Kabbalah shows how to achieve it through proper connection between people in spite of egoism. That is what I would teach children today.

Connection brings forth positive forces of nature, even ones we are unaware of. It will lead humanity to happiness.

Children, and not only children, need to be taught how to build the right kind of connection in which we reveal the kind force of nature, a kind humanity, a kind life, safety, joy, and light. This must be the goal of our education. This is what children should feel. This is the environment in which they should grow.

Otherwise, we will raise gloomy, withdrawn, emotionally repressed egoists, ready for battle and misfortune.

By envisioning a proper future, a kind future between us, we awaken positive qualities in children, positive forces. And then they will call this new world to life.

After all, we are the ones who build the world. It is the result of our relationships.
[225937]
From the KabTV Program “News with Michael Laitman”

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Question: A 43-year-old father of five, Justin Smith, created his own YouTube channel. He realized that since his children were constantly glued to their smartphones, he could no longer speak with them in any other way. On this channel, he talks about himself—where he works, and how he travels around the world. He believes that from now on, he will communicate with his children in this way because the gap will be so huge that one can no longer talk to children directly. One must be where they are. What do you think about that?

Answer: I think this is absolutely right. Children have already shifted their attention solely to screens. They do not see the world, they do not see landscapes. You take them out into nature, but they still keep looking at their smartphones.

They get on a plane—they are not interested in the plane. They board a ship—they are not interested in the ship either. They are always on their screens. If you show them a plane on the screen—it is interesting; a ship—it is also interesting; a landscape—it is interesting as well. But only on the screen!

That is, they have a completely different perception now, and we have to take that into account. What else can you do?

Comment: Suppose they have been cut off from landscapes. But in the process, they were also cut off from their father and mother.

My Response: No! Their father and mother are right in front of them on the screen. For the child, it is clear. But when they see a person in real life, it is unclear.

Even when sitting in a café or elsewhere, they do not talk to each other; they communicate only through their smartphones. So how can you avoid this? What can you do? There is no going back.

Our whole world is virtual. What is the difference whether I see my mom and dad on the screen that seems real to me (even though it does not actually exist, it forms some image within me), or I see them on my smartphone? It makes no difference from the perspective of Kabbalah. It is all just a matter of perception. We have slightly changed our sensations, and children have shifted to a more “clip-like” perception of the world. We just need to adapt to that. There is no other way.

And the sooner we adapt, the sooner we will gain contact with the children. And we will suddenly discover that when we place ourselves inside this smartphone, just talking heads of mom and dad, we can demonstrate anything to them, any kind of film! And they will understand it, that is the main thing. Otherwise, they will not understand us. You talk to a child, but he is staring into his gadget.

Question: Do you not think they have simply been deprived of their childhood?

Answer: They have not been deprived of anything! For them, this is childhood. And soon childhood will become even more virtual. What do you want, to go back to caves?

Comment: I would like to go back to the courtyards.

My Response: There is no need! That is your nostalgic memory, but for them, that does not exist. For them, nostalgia is only for the smartphone. Give them an ever more advanced smartphone each time, and that is it, they need nothing more.

Question: What will this eventually lead to?

Answer: To the realization that a person can perceive the entire world through a screen, and that the world itself does not exist. It does not exist! Waterfalls? You can find waterfalls on the screen. You find this, and you find that. Everything people tell me, everything I hear, I see it in front of me.

I do not even need to travel anywhere, by the way. Why would I? Everything is in front of me. The whole universe, the entire tiny Earth, everything is there. Great! I can call any friend and have a conversation with him. There is no need to run anywhere. At most, we can get together and even then, what for? So that everyone still looks at their own screen?

I am sure humanity will create tools to replace these little phones, and we will see a great deal in front of us—whether through special glasses, without glasses, or some other way. We will feel it within.

In fact, this is an approach toward the real world, not our mechanical one, which we also perceive only inside ourselves. We do not actually know what is in front of us because this image of reality is formed within us.

Various forces draw this picture of reality inside me. So why should I break away for the sake of this “reality”? Why do I need these walls, all this stuff? Why? After all, we can live in a completely different state.

Comment: But people love to travel around the world…

My Response: We will create it, make it, and travel that way!

Question: Will the sensation be the same?

Answer: Even better! Where can I travel at my age with a cane? But this way, I can swing from vines like a monkey, swim, dive into oceans—I will do everything! It will be me.

Question: Is that a good thing?

Answer: Why not? Even now we live in an illusory world. And we are heading into the real one, the one we will create ourselves.

In the end, humanity will reach a state where it needs only a smartphone and the bare minimum to satisfy its animal body. What is wrong with that?

Robots will work to provide us with what we need to fill ourselves. And I do not care what I will be filled with when I look into my smartphone, everything else is there.

History, geography, communication, travel, flights, novels, anything you want, it is all in there. Why would I need it all outside? Why build these big towers and all that?

Wonderful! I welcome this world. I do not feel bad for my grandchildren, I am happy for them! Because, in essence, they are building a much better world than the one they received from us.
[246326]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 11/1/24

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Comment: I know a lot of teachers. Almost all of them agree on one thing: today’s generation of children has a grudge against adults.

My Response: It is natural for children to complain about their elders. They believe that everything is owed to them, and that as children they deserve special attention and treatment. In fact, this is true, on one hand.

On the other hand, we do not educate children. School does not make a human out of a child. It makes them into physicists, mathematicians, mechanics, and so on.

This is a problem of all education and upbringing. We give children some kind of education, maybe, but we do not give them upbringing. They come out of school, every day after school and generally after graduation, and they are animals.

Comment: You said a terrible thing: “They are animals.” Are we to blame for this?

My Response: Sure, if parents are busy at work all the time and children are at school and somewhere out there with each other doing who knows what, so what do you want to happen?

Comment: They are more in their smartphones.

My Response: And that is what they get from there until humanity comes to its senses and takes the whole matter into its own hands, under the strictest control that a person cannot see and hear everything that is given to him. He must be educated! An education that provides a very serious attitude to life. If this does not happen, then of course we can see where everything is heading.

Question: A generation has grown up that says terrible things to people. And we raised this generation?

Answer: Of course, it is just us.

Question: What would you say to children if you were a teacher?

Answer: Let us figure out our lives, our relationships, and how to make sure that… Well, okay, we are already old people, but the next generation is you. What should you be like to make life kind, good, confident, safe, and so on? What should we do? How can we raise such people? And we need to talk about it. We need to think about it, because our main task is to raise a person—not mathematics or physics, or anyone else.

Comment: It will not be easy to soften them up.

My Response: No, they should not be pitied. They should still realize a little bit that the world toward which everything is heading is an inhuman, cruel, mechanistic and very unpleasant world, unsuitable for existence.

Question: And will they understand this if you talk to them?

Answer: I think so.

Question: Can these children change?

Answer: Yes, but not with one conversation.

Question: So the change will happen through a series of conversations?

Answer: Even if takes a few years, what is the difference? But we have to push for it all the time.
[344430]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 5/21/25

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The way you react to a child is how the Creator responds to them.

Question: So through me, the Creator responds to the child? If I live with this awareness, is that called education?

Answer: Yes, in doing so, you open channels of connection between the child and the Creator.

Question: Through me, the Creator connects with the child? Am I supposed to open the Creator to the child?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: That is an incredible responsibility!

My Response: It is as if you are introducing them to each other.

Question: Beautiful! Tell me, should this awareness come to the parents even before the child is born?

Answer: In general, yes. We have spoken about this more than once.

Question: We have, but we have a million questions after that. For people, this is not just interesting, it is vital. But actually, we never said it quite the way you just did: “I open a channel for the child through myself.”

After such a warm and loving upbringing, how is the child supposed to go out into such a cold world?

Answer: If the child perceives the world correctly, then they will have no problem. They will feel the world is multi-layered, at least as themselves, their parents, their home, etc., and strangers. They will know how to relate all of it correctly.

Question: Does that mean the parents succeeded in bringing the Creator to the child?

Answer: Yes.
[345139]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 6/5/25

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Comment: The mysterious Japanese soul is very different from the European one. Their sages are very different from European ones and so is their wisdom. If possible, please comment on some sayings of Japanese sages.

“It is better to be the enemy of a good person than a friend of a bad one.”

My Response: That is true; it is more beneficial for you. You can learn a lot from a good person. But being a friend of a bad one is certainly the worst.

Comment: “Whoever strongly wants to rise upward invents a ladder.”

My Response: Yes. He will find a way to rise.

Comment: “Husband and wife should be like the hand and the eyes: when the hand hurts, the eyes cry, and when the eyes cry, the hands wipe the tears.”

My Response: Beautiful!

Question: “The sun does not know the righteous. The sun does not know the unrighteous. The sun shines not with the goal of warming anyone.” Is that so?

Answer: It all depends on how you look at it. It is all relative to a person—with a goal or without a goal.

Question: But if we speak of the warmth of the Creator emanating from Him, is there really no purpose?

Answer: It is all absolutely thought out and foreseen in advance. Based on the final goal, the final state, all the intermediate states come to us and move us toward that goal.

Comment: “Even if a sword is needed only once in a lifetime, you must carry it always.”

My Response: Yes, that is true. Precisely because you always carry it, you will be ready to use it that one time in life.

Comment: “Grief, like a torn garment, should be left at home.” But a person cannot help but show grief.

My Response: It is a cultural attitude toward the world, toward life, meaning nothing will shake me.

Comment: “When there is love, smallpox scars are as beautiful as dimples on the cheeks.”

My Response: Yes, love smoothes out absolutely everything. “Love covers all transgressions.”

Comment: “No one stumbles while lying in bed.”

My Response: Best of all is to lie down.

Comment: “Yield the road to fools and madmen.”

My Response: Yes, that is true. Because others may understand you, but these ones will not.

Comment: “When parents work and children enjoy life, the grandchildren will beg for alms.”

My Response: That is true. Children must not be given anything for free. You have to push them with all your strength toward acquiring a profession and mastering life, so that while you still exist, they are already building themselves. That is what love for children means.
[241211]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/24/25

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We are a system of absolute interconnection. Parents, children, grandparents, and so on are all equal components of the one, unified system.

Question: How should I relate to children?

Answer: Children are not really “children,” they are actually adults who simply perceive the world in a more limited way. But to the extent that they do perceive it, they must engage with it intelligently. You should explain this to them, and treat them that way, and they will understand this.

Question: So I shouldn’t baby them, but treat children like adults?

Answer: Of course, the way you relate to children and your family is how you correct yourself and your soul.

Question: What about how I relate to my wife or a wife to her husband?

Answer: It is exactly the same as to yourself! The most important thing is to support each other in your mutual efforts, in understanding what is happening with you.

Question: What does it mean to make concessions to another so as not to crush them but to concede? What is it?

Answer: It means that I annul myself.

Question: Just like that? Can I just do it?

Answer: Yes, simply annul yourself.

Question: For what purpose? If I do it, there must be a reason, right?

Answer: So that you can be a correct element within the system of creation. It is about having a rational attitude toward everything.

Question: Because we are all inside one system, right? And we need to align with it?

Answer: Yes. The integral system of nature must be revealed to us, within us, around us, more and more in our perception. Within it, we will see the vast program called “the Creator.”

We are all within one system, one world, one sphere, one globe. Inside this sphere everyone is equal, interconnected, benevolent, and bound by mutual feelings of love, concession, and support.

No one thinks about themselves, everyone thinks only about others. This is the law of the interconnected integral system of the world. We will inevitably come to it! But the faster we do, the sooner we will understand what nature, or the Creator, whatever you call it, is demanding from us, and we will truly discover a beautiful future.
[343259]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/18/25

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Question: People tend to be impressed by examples. Let’s say a person doesn’t believe that he depends on society and thinks that he can solve everything on his own.

Let’s imagine this situation: a baby is born, placed in a round room where the light constantly on, there is food, but the baby has no other interaction with people or animals. What will happen to him?

Answer: He will not become human. He will just consume food naturally, like an animal, and grow up the same way.

Question: But will he have his own thoughts and fantasies?

Answer: Nothing will happen. Absolutely nothing. All this appears only under the influence of the environment. Whatever environment you place him in, this is what will come out.

Comment: But then he is, in fact, not a man or even an animal.

My Response: Right. Therefore nothing will work outside of the environment. That is, you will get an animal organism that will grow up in this form. If you show him his mother later, he will be scared of her because he will not understand what it is that suddenly appeared alive and even moving. After all, he does not know what it means to be alive and what it means to move.

He has no sense of time, no sense of the surrounding space. Feed him through a tube, and give him nothing else. And then what?

Comment: So he will grow, say, until the age of twenty.

My Response: What difference does it make up to what age? He will remain at the same level—only absorbing food, releasing waste, and nothing else.

Question: Will he have self-awareness? Will he feel like he is living?

Answer: Only at the level he exists at.

Comment: A man is built on desires; desire is lack, desire is deficiency.

My Response: He will have no desires, no inner urges, because there is no surrounding society with which he can realize himself.

Question: So he was born a zero and will die a zero?

Answer: Yes. Absolutely.

Comment: But nature does not treat humans like that.

My Response: Nature, of course, does not do this; but sometimes, if it does, there is a special purpose and reason for this.

Without an environment, no Reshimot will arise in a person, no internal data for implementation, because he will not be able to implement it. One determines the other.
[343060]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Scandalous Experiment” 8/6/10

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