Comment: Many viewers, quite a number, are asking this question: “How do you talk to children about the war? How do we explain to them what’s going on?” How does one explain why they are bombing and why childhood has ended to those children who are hiding with their parents in bomb shelters and in the subway?” And other children whose childhood continues, those who do not hear sirens and explosions but see what is happening to their peers, ask why this is so.
And the main question is: How do you raise children at a time like this when wars, suffering, and tears are non-stop?
My Response: Children can understand because they also fight with each other. After all, egoism works from a very young age.
So there is nothing here that needs to be hidden from them. Indeed, if we don’t bring up children correctly, then, just like they play in childhood and want to take away from each other and become such bullies, so they continue in adulthood, and that is why we end up with war as a result. Grown men no longer have just shovels or sticks in their hands, now it is something serious. And that is when war begins.
So what should we do? While children are little like yourselves, remember, we tell children, we need to teach you, to bring you up to be able to talk to each other, to come to agree with each other, and to learn to compromise. Then you will not get to such terrible, big problems like these men who start these wars. That is what comes from the fact that in childhood they did not obey their mother.
Question: Do you think that a child will listen to that?
Answer: When he sees this very thing? He is extremely impressed.
Question: When he is under fire? Can he be told just like this?
Answer: Tell him exactly like this. Of course. This is true education. This is the basis of wartime education.
Question: So it’s not to dwell on “enemy,” “hatred,” or “against us”?
Answer: No, they will not understand it; they have no concept of it, no foundation. But when you explain in terms of childhood play and give and take, “when you wanted to take something, but he didn’t give it to you,” you can talk about everything.
Isn’t it how it really works? These games of oil and gas and all sorts of international relations, are they not the same children’s games?
Comment: It has turned into something dangerous.
My Response: Yes, because they didn’t stop it in time or couldn’t explain it in time. So this is how it turned out. Because in childhood they could not explain to understand that it is never necessary to resolve disputes by force. Can you convince the others? If yes, great. If not, compromise.
Question: Should the child understand that disputes are not resolved by force?
Answer: They can’t be resolved by force; otherwise, we will destroy each other. Can you imagine it in the modern world?
Question: How are disputes resolved? What should the child we are raising understand? How do you explain to a child how to resolve disputes?
Answer: Only by persuasion, when you do not force another person to peace, but when you explain to each other how you can come to peace together, with mutual concessions, and not with the approach of “I am right and you are wrong, and now you will understand it.”
Comment: Now you have said a very serious thing, that a child should be able to compromise.
My Response: Of course! This is the most important thing in education. Otherwise what is all the education for? To teach how to hit first? To hit stronger? Or better? It is for the sake of being able to stop and compromise.
Comment: This is the most difficult thing, for children especially.
My Response: Of course. Because they have exposed egoism, small, but revealed.
Question: So you propose to teach concessions, to teach a child so he can yield to others?
Answer: Everything needs to be explained. And then sit in a circle and conduct practical exercises.
Comment: If there is an argument, let’s sort it out? How can we not fight but make peace. This is such a long system…
My Response: Otherwise it will take even longer.
Question: Can this be explained to children who are under fire?
Answer: To everyone! It all depends on the words, vocabulary, and expressions you use. You are explaining this to the ego, which is the same in a small child as it is in a grown-up man, it is the same egoism.
Comment: The main problem here is to train teachers, prepare those who can teach what it means to come to peace, and what annulment means.
My Response: Yes, this is the most important.
[295328]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/3/22
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When we see the whole world before us in all its beauty, we do not see it as it is in the reality, but only as it is inside ourselves. This means that in the back of our brain, there is some kind of “photo camera” that portrays everything we see, but not what is outside of us (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”).
