Parenting for Everyone: Section 1.3. About Happiness & Duty

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How to bring up children? Every minute and with all your heart, wish them happiness now and in the future. And never get angry at them, never disconnect from them, never leave them defenseless against the fate.

One of the most important aims of parenting is to awaken and cultivate in a child a burning, unquenchable, unstoppable desire for happiness.

The art of parenting is to bring up a modest, unpretentious, generous, non-jealous person, who at the same time pursues higher goals, big life. Striving for happiness is his happiness. He is alive. How can this be achieved? Not by saying no to their desires or by giving in to them, but by cultivating their spirit.

Unhappy parents cannot bring up happy children. It is impossible. Freedom is taught by freedom, responsibility by responsibility, love and conscience by love and conscience, and happiness by happiness.

To live together in peace, people need to have a similar concept of happiness.

In final analysis, it's all about finding one's purpose in life and serving that purpose honestly.

Do what ought to be done, and what will be will be.

Happiness implies doing one's duty by serving one's purpose in life. But if we want to teach duty to our children, let us be careful with the word duty. We shouldn't use the word "duty", "you must" for reproach or to force a child into something.

All the misery in the world comes from wrong upbringing, whereby duty is considered a burden, a necessary evil, associated not with joy and happiness, but with hardship. We are not taught to do any job with pleasure, to accept any duty for truth. An ill-bred person is unhappy even from a slightest inconvenience.

In a good family, no one is reminded of their duty, no one watches whether and how the other does one's duty, but everyone joyfully performs their duties, gradually infecting the children with the joy of any work.

If we manage to marry duty and joy in child's mind, nothing more is needed for good upbringing.

One woman, a scientist, said: When a person's spiritual aspirations are fulfilled, than he feels happy.

Childhood is not a preparation for the future life, it is life!

Do not hurt small children, it is a risk to their health.