Raising a Child and Providing Hope for the Future
|
Working With a Child’s Willingness
How then, without using force, do you get a child to do things? If you take an individual and make him play a musical instrument (as parents and schools do), his ability to play that instrument will not improve. We would first have to consult with him as to what his ambitions are. He would eventually at least have to agree with the fact that it is a good thing to play an instrument. Take, for example, a “bad boy.” He cannot be put in school and has to be sent to a military school. They are going to force him in order to change him. Occasionally this bad boy is sent to a school which simply thinks the best way to handle such cases is to find something in which he is interested and to allow him to do it. Such a school once existed in California and consecutively produced geniuses. The roster of World War II’s scientists practically marched from that particular school. They figured that it must have been the example set by the professor, his purity in not smoking cigars or something like that. What actually happened was this: They took a boy with whom nobody got any results and said, “Isn’t there anything you would like to do?” The boy said “No,” and they answered, “Well, fuss around in the lab or grounds or something and someday you may make up your mind.” The boy thought this over and decided that he wanted to be a chemist. Nobody ever sent him to a class and told him to crack a book, and nobody ever complained very much when he blew up something in the laboratory, and the next thing you knew the boy was an excellent chemist. Nobody interrupted his desire to be a chemist. It existed then, and from that point on he was not himself interrupting his willingness to be a chemist. Educationally, this is a very interesting point.
|
|
back
continue
How to Live with Children
A Child’s Right to Contribute
|
|
© 2000-2004 Church of Scientology International. All Rights Reserved. |