MS39 - Q&A How Do I Motivate My Children

Continuing with the series of podcasts from Mohanji, here is the podcast on the topic of motivation and kids. A listener asks, "How do I motivate my children in an environment where gadgets dominate our lives? How do we orient them towards productive work and help them become responsible in society? " Mohanji shares his wisdom. Listen on!

Transcript

Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can. This question comes with the title, Motivation of Children. How to motivate my children to get over to masochist tendencies and put their minds to useful productive work like doing chores, Study time, Being responsible people within the society. The smartphones, The gadgets distract them completely and even taking them away doesn't do much to help. So what can I do to help them so that they do not waste their time and their lives? Or is it that they are predestined to behave in such a manner? We should not consider anything as destiny and procrastinate over it. I believe that if we have the right attitude we can change anything to something positive. How do you bring up your children to powerful personalities? We have spoken about this earlier but I would give you another dimension. The world has the highest of possibilities of a human existence and the lowest of possibilities of a human existence. The highest is existence in compassion, Kindness, Selflessness, Unconditional love, The highest of human qualities. The lowest is just being sense oriented, Chasing pleasures, Comparing, Criticizing, Judging, Revenging these kind of things. We have these big huge variety. Now where do we position ourselves? This is very important and that's exactly where the children will position looking at us. If we are always insecure, If we are complaining, If we are criticizing, Judging, If we are positioning ourselves as completely confused in the society, Children will do the same because they are looking at us as role models at least in the initial days. What do we need to do? We need to bring them stories of powerful personalities who survived all sorts of turbulations, All sorts of tests and express themselves in the most successful way as trendsetters, Game changers. This is in everybody. You've got to believe in yourself to do that. First and foremost bring the awareness of a child in such a way that they believe in themselves. First and foremost is self-respect, Belief, Faith in themselves, Towards themselves for which we have to respect ourselves. We have to respect other people. We have to respect people. We have to respect ourselves. We have to cultivate respect in everything we do. We have to accept ourselves, Self-acceptance, Respect ourselves, Self-respect. We should not ever position ourselves in a position of insecurity or low self-esteem or things like that. When we have a situation where we are a bit low, We should be able to address it positively. We can go high or we can go low because that's how human life works. But we should address it positively. Yes, I have a situation where I'm feeling a bit low. That's fine. That's okay. And then child will learn that everything is okay. If we accept it, It doesn't hurt too much. If you resist it, It hurts. This is how it is. And then failures. We do not allow a child to fail because we think failures means end of life. Absolutely not. Failures lead to success. When you accept failures gracefully, We have found success. Success is an acceptance and non-resistance. This we can lead by example. We should lead by example. Another aspect is that we should not push a child to be perfect. Perfection is a relative thing and it's a constant thing. Perfection means you got to keep improving. What was perfect yesterday may not be perfect today. We have seen systems, People, Situations, Materials, Constantly getting upgraded. So a new thing totally eclipses a thing of the past because it gets upgraded. We must understand that perfection is a relative thing. We should not push the child to be really, Really perfect. And some of the back-punchers have become very successful because they did not appear pressure. Just for the sake of perfection, If we put the child into pressure, They collapse completely eventually. Many people who are probably successful in life in terms of money are not successful in life in terms of contentment. Many people have many diseases because of this mad rush for something materialistic and thinking that is what is success. It's very, Very important that we must understand that a child is a unique creation, Like we are a unique creation. We are all unique. We must leave a child free to be themselves with gentle guidance and great stories of people who could have had anything, They could have had anything in life but wanted nothing. That means they were contented inside and they performed very well and they transformed the society with their existence. Bring them stories of that kind so that the mind as the child grows will orient to activities which are good to create legends. Don't try to say the society is not good or the things are not good, Sign of times and stuff like that. Society is as it is. It will keep changing. There will be differences each day. Let's not worry about that. Let's see what we can do in this society, In this time, In this situation. We must accept ourselves then the child will accept themselves. Do discuss this with your friends. Contemplate on it and increase your awareness step by step. Wish you great success in life. Lots of love. This is Mohanji for you.