CHAPTER 30

HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN NEW THOUGHT

“IN teaching New Thought ideas in Sunday Schools, should the New Thoughter follow the Christian Scientists and Mrs. Eddy in refusing to accept the evidence of common sense as given to us through our mortal mind five senses? Are we to consider our senses as sources of eternal error, or are we to consider our mortal mind five senses of seeing, hearing, touch, taste and smell as a mental means of involution, or the mental means of getting New Thought suggestions into the Sunday Schools? We could never get any New Thoughts into the children's minds at all if it is wrong to use their five senses. If we do not get our spiritual new thoughts into ourselves through our senses, how do we get them in?”—Mrs. W. A. Pendell, Barry, Wash.

Goodness! Don't confound children with such big words, obscure ideas, and hair-splitting schisms.

Tell them of the wise spirit that speaks within them, the spirit that is God and child, too. Tell them that as they follow that spirit health, happiness, and success are with them; that as they disobey it unhappiness results.

Tell them that unseen spirit is eternal truth and love, and is never wrong; while the advice of other people, the influences of outside things — things they can see, taste, smell, feel, or hear, may be wrong; and if they follow wrong influences the results are always painful sooner or later.

Tell them the reason outside influences may be wrong is this: That the truth spirit, or God, tells one child to do one thing and another child another entirely different thing, just according to the nature of the child and what will suit the child best in the long run. God tells each child how to act today that it may grow strong, wise, loving, and ready to do the great things the child wants to do when it grows up.

As Tom wants to be one thing when he grows up, and Dick wants to be another, and Mary still another, the all-wise God-spirit may tell each child a different thing now. If Tom, Dick, and Mary each follows what God says in his heart or hers, they will all be happy inside, even though they can't have everything they can see, smell, taste, hear, or feel.

But if Tom says, "Aw, come on — let's do it anyhow — I think it's all right even if Dick and Mary think it's wrong!" — if Tom says that and Dick and Mary listen to him and do what their own heart's voice says is wrong for them, then Dick and Mary will surely be sorry, even though Tom never is. What is right for Tom at a certain time may be wrong for Dick and Mary at the same time; though the same thing may be right for them at another time. A thing is "wrong" for anybody when it will bring unhappiness to him. Tom, Dick, and Mary sometimes think a thing will bring happiness to them, and after they have done it they find it brings unhappiness. So Tom, Dick, and Mary are apt to be mistaken when they choose according to the influences outside themselves.

And the inner voice is the ONLY guide that can keep them out of mischief and its unhappy consequences, and keep them going on the line of learning and action that will enable them to grow up into the splendid things they want to do when they are big.

If they keep listening to that little good feeling inside, acting upon its impulses, they will do always the things they'll be glad of afterward.

Tell the children that they are good from center to circumference, from top to toe; that happiness and growing up come from making good use of their good powers; that the spirit within each child makes that child "feel good" when he or she is doing well, and "feel bad" when he or she chooses wrong; and that if Dick just remembers to see whether he feels good inside when Tom tries to get him to do something, he can always decide rightly whether he'd better do it or not. Tell him this is what Jesus meant when he said, "Judge not according to outward appearance" (according to what Tom, Dick, or Mary, or what he himself thinks), "but judge righteous judgment" (according to that deep-down little feel-good inside of him).

Tell him, "the things that are seen are temporal" (temporary, changing, good for you at one time and bad another), "while the things that are not seen" (like the little feel-good inside him, that is really God's still small voice) "are eternal" — always the same good, wise guide that shows the way to all good and joy and to the splendid grown-up-ness he so eagerly desires.

Tell the child God lives in and speaks in every human being, little or big, bad or good, just as he lives in and speaks in him; and that all the badness in the world comes from not knowing about and paying attention to this feel-good voice within.

Tell him the God within him, that makes him feel good when he is doing right, is the Spirit of All- Love and All-Wisdom; that the fruits of this spirit are thoughts and deeds of love, joy, peace, patience, learning, and kindness; that thoughts and doings of hate, unhappiness, violence, anger, jealousy, and all manner of badness are the results of not knowing about and paying attention to the voice of that good spirit within; or the results of forgetting about it after you do learn.

Tell the child that nobody means to be bad; people just don't know, or they forget, to listen to the good spirit within.

Tell him that life is a great kindergarten school where we are all, little and big, good and bad, learning to listen to that love-voice within, and that by and by when more of us know about it we shall all work happily together to make the world a beautiful and happy home for all people of every nation. Tell him that years ago only a few people knew about this good spirit within, though Jesus taught it two thousand years ago and others taught it thousands of years before that. It was taught, but people wouldn't listen! They were too busy fighting each other. But now we have schools, Sunday schools, papers and magazines and books, and everybody is hearing about the God-spirit that is within every one of us trying to make us all a big, happy, helpful family.

Tell him that it is hard sometimes for grown people to quit their old habits of fighting each other and stealing from each other and doing other unkind things; but that the children are learning the good truth, too, and they are growing up in the good new habit of thinking and doing kind, wise, helpful things; and that by and by all the old people who are set in the old-fashioned habit of cantankerous little-self-ishness will pass out of the world and the world will be possessed and made over by their sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, who are growing up in the New Thought of love and brotherhood and helpfulness. In this way the new heavens and the new earth shall appear, the earth shall blossom as the rose, and the lion and lamb shall lie down together in friendliness, and the lion shall eat grass like the ox.

Tell him, oh, yes, you think it may take a few hundred years yet, but that it will come to pass literally as well as figuratively. For animals take their cues from human beings; and when the Rockefeller lions- and the child-labor and union-labor lambs learn to lie down in friendliness together — as they surely will or die off the earth — it won't take long for the real lions and lambs to catch the spirit of live-and-let-live, and do the same thing. As to the lion's stomach not being fit for the digestion of anything but lambs, that is a mere nothing that Dame Nature can readily adjust. If Mother Nature isn't equal to the task, we'll call in these wonderful surgeons who like to amputate our outgrown appendixes. They can, perhaps, put the lions to sleep and cut out their lamb-appendixes. Then they'll take to grass and innocent gambols on the green. If not — they'll die, that's all. For the spirit of love within us hath said it — slaughter must go. This earth shall be one great beautiful heavenly home, and there shall be kindness everywhere, and no eating up each other. Our children are growing up in this New Thought and they'll manage someway to bring it all to pass. Just wait and see. And while you are waiting, see how much you can do by just listening to the God-voice within you, and being kind and doing your work just as well as you can.

Be sure to tell the children many times that this one great God-spirit that speaks in every human heart, child or grown-up, civilized or savage, is just working to make everybody happy. That is all it ever speaks in your heart for, or in mine, to tell us what to think and do to find the happiness we want. Remind the child that he is often sorry he did a thing and wishes he hadn't; this is because he can't always tell by looking at a thing whether it will make him happy or not; but the great spirit that is over us all and speaks in us all always knows; so if we listen for the little inner feel-good and obey it, we find real happiness every time.

And tell the child that even his mistakes are good, because by their hurts he is reminded next time to listen for that little voice within that makes him good when he is thinking or acting right.

And tell him to never mind if he gets scolded sometimes when he felt he did right; for nobody in the world is yet wise enough to keep from being unjust sometimes, and parents or teachers are liable to mistakes just as small boys and girls are; and they don't mean to be unjust or unkind, any more than the small boys and girls do — they just forget the God in the small boy and speak sharply; as the boy forgets the God in the parent or teacher and neglects to obey.

Tell the child that the five senses are the five gateways through which we receive knowledge of things and people; while the inner spirit is the God that tells us whether that knowledge is true or false and what to do with it, whether to act upon it, or contrary to it.

The five senses may be deranged and bring false reports, but the spirit within is ever the same, yesterday, today, and forever. The five senses bring reports of changeable things, that today may be true and tomorrow untrue; while the spirit within is always THE TRUTH.

Tell him that, as the evidences of the five senses continually change and conflict, it sets up warring states in the mind that depends upon them. This causes disease and all manner of unhappiness. While the mind that is stayed on the eternal spirit within can let outward things come and go, advance, retreat, or fight as they please without being upset or worried by them. Such a mind is at peace with itself, happy in itself, no matter what happens outside itself; and such a mind fills the body with its own peace, happiness, and health, or wholeness. The mind that lives in the senses is continually changing as the senses change; while the mind that stays with the spirit at the center is on a solid rock from which it may watch the thoughts of the senses ever rolling in waves, perhaps raging in fury, but never disturbing the rocks where the spirit rests.

And from whence it may learn to rule the waves. The mind that is stayed on the God within can speak peace to the waves coming through the five senses, or it can ride the waves safely, as Jesus did before the sailors waked him to still the tempest. "God is my life" is literally true, and he whose thought dwells on God knows the wholeness of life; while he who rides up and down according to the testimony of his five senses leads a miserable seasick existence and wishes himself out of it.

Oh, maybe I'm getting into a trifle too deep water for children. If I am they'll let me know it by not being interested.

When teaching children let lack of their interest be the signal for you to change your tack and set sail for home waters — for the simple, every-day things everybody can understand and enjoy.

The most important thing to remember when teaching children is this:

Be honest. If you can answer a child's question do so, in the plainest words possible; if not, say so. Remember that "Dignity is a peculiar carriage invented to cover up the defects of the mind " — from grown-ups, not children. Children see through dignity and other shams, and despise the pretender. A touch of honest ignorance makes teacher and child akin, and for finding out things two honest folks akin are better than any orthodox pedagog.

HOW ONE FAMILY OF TEN IS TRAINED FOR THE EFFICIENT LIFE >

< ANSWERING YOUR CHILD'S QUESTIONS

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