CHAPTER 29

ANSWERING YOUR CHILD'S QUESTIONS

IF you ever satisfy the questions of a child you will have to develop your imagination. Fairies are thoughts, of course. There are fairies, plenty of them, good and not-good ones. Thoughts of love and kindness and helpfulness are bright fairies that make us happy; while cross and unwilling thoughts are dark and heavy and lie like lead in our hearts. Of course. And the probability is that some day we shall all be developed to such a fine state of clear- seeing that we can see the thought-fairies.

As to death, it is the emergence of the human "worm" from the chrysalis into the butterfly stage. Nobody can prove it, but we want it to be so, and anything desirable or thinkable is possible of achievement. Desire is the prophecy of its own fulfillment.

As to where we come from, that is another case of the worm and the butterfly. When we get ready we come out of the cocoon and spread our wings.

As to Sunday school, I believe it is a splendid thing to grow up in the church — provided one outgrows its limitations later. I wouldn't take Sunday school away from a child unless I could give it something similar and better in its place. Every story in the Bible has its spiritual application. If the Sunday school teacher is materialistic she will only set the child to wondering and he will come to you with his questions; which will give you the opportunity to make the spiritual application. All things in the Bible are true in the Spirit — in the thought realm, whether they were ever true in a material way or not. And whether they are true or not materially, is immaterial. The truth is that the Bible is full of stories which illustrate spiritual truths of character building. Find the spiritual truth and help your child to find it.

Edwin Markham lets his young son hear all sides of a question, including his father's view; then he asks his son what he thinks about it. And he keeps impressing it upon his son that it is what he thinks about it that counts for righteousness with him, not what anybody else thinks about it! And he helps the boy to carefully separate Authority from Truth. He reminds him that things are not so because some great man says so; that the greatest man that ever lived might make mistakes in thinking — mistakes which would be discovered by people in future ages. He tells him about Galileo and how he had to recant the truth he had discovered; and how the world now accepts that truth because it knows more than the people who lived in the time of Galileo. He explains to his son the evolution of the race.

He teaches him also the evolution of the individual, showing the child that he himself is learning to think, by thinking; that his reasons and judgments of today may change when he is a few years older; that by thinking he develops the power to think still better, and that by thinking he grows tall mentally so that he can see farther and more clearly, just as by eating and exercising his muscles he grows taller and stronger in body. He teaches the child to listen to the Voice of Good within himself and to follow that voice, in action and in thought. He teaches the boy to square his actions with that voice of good within himself.

When the child asks you a question that you cannot answer, reverse the question — ask the child to tell you what he thinks about it. And see that you treat his thoughts with respect, even though you may refute them.

HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN NEW THOUGHT >

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