Discipline Child Quotes

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love – for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

When a child hits a child, we call it aggression. When a child hits an adult, we call it hostility. When an adult hits an adult, we call it assault. When an adult hits a child, we call it discipline.

Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development , compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment.

Too often we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioural consequences.

At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter - - - for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.... Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

Parents teach children discipline for two different, indeed diametrically opposed, reasons: to render the child submissive to them and to make him independent of them. Only a self-disciplined person can be obedient; and only such a person can be autonomous.

Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child.He needs guidance.If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. A parent must also not be afraid to hang himself. If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.

Do you have agendas for your children that are more important than the children themselves? Lost in the shuffle of uniforms, practices, games, recitals, and performances can be the creative and joyful soul of your child. Watch and listen carefully. Do they have time to daydream? From their dreams will emerge the practices and activities that will make self-discipline as natural as breathing.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

You'll lose." "What makes you so sure?" "You have no discipline. All you do is tear down shit down. My father is a bastard, but at least he builds things. You turn cities into smoking ruins and blunder about like some hyper child, smashing anything you see. And then you sit here and wonder, 'Why did all of my children turn out to be violet idiots? It's a mystery of nature,'.

Discipline is helping a child solve a problem. Punishment is making a child suffer for having a problem. To raise problem solvers, focus on solutions, not retribution.

Training moments occur when both parents and children do their jobs. The parent's job is to make the rule. The child's job is to break the rule. The parent then corrects and disciplines. The child breaks the rule again, and the parent manages the consequences and empathy that then turn the rule into reality and internal structure for the child.

Want to help stop the bullying epidemic? Don’t act like a bully. Don’t hit, threaten, ignore, isolate, intimidate, ridicule, or manipulate your child. Children really do learn what they live…

Betrayal is too kind a word to describe a situation in which a father says he loves his daughter but claims he must teach her about the horrors of the world in order to make her a stronger person; a situation in which he watches or participates in rituals that make her feel like she is going to die. She experiences pain that is so intense that she cannot think; her head spins so fast she can't remember who she is or how she got there. All she knows is pain. All she feels is desperation. She tries to cry out for help, but soon learns that no one will listen. No matter how loud she cries, she can't stop or change what is happening. No matter what she does, the pain will not stop. Her father orders her to be tortured and tells her it is for her own good. He tells her that she needs the discipline, or that she has asked for it by her misbehavior. Betrayal is too simple a word to describe the overwhelming pain, the overwhelming loneliness and isolation this child experiences. As if the abuse during the rituals were not enough, this child experiences similar abuse at home on a daily basis. When she tries to talk about her pain, she is told that she must be crazy. "Nothing bad has happened to you;' her family tells her Each day she begins to feel more and more like she doesn't know what is real. She stops trusting her own feelings because no one else acknowledges them or hears her agony. Soon the pain becomes too great. She learns not to feel at all. This strong, lonely, desperate child learns to give up the senses that make all people feel alive. She begins to feel dead. She wishes she were dead. For her there is no way out. She soon learns there is no hope. As she grows older she gets stronger. She learns to do what she is told with the utmost compliance. She forgets everything she has ever wanted. The pain still lurks, but it's easier to pretend it's not there than to acknowledge the horrors she has buried in the deepest parts of her mind. Her relationships are overwhelmed by the power of her emotions. She reaches out for help, but never seems to find what she is looking for The pain gets worse. The loneliness sets in. When the feelings return, she is overcome with panic, pain, and desperation. She is convinced she is going to die. Yet, when she looks around her she sees nothing that should make her feel so bad. Deep inside she knows something is very, very wrong, but she doesn't remember anything. She thinks, "Maybe I am crazy.

For a child or an adult, it’s extremely powerful to hear someone say, “I get you. I understand. I see why you feel this way.” This kind of empathy disarms us.

Tolstoy meant that, in order to be happy, a marriage must succeed in many different respects: sexual attraction, agreement about money, child discipline, religion, in-laws, and other vital issues.

Say yes to the feelings, even as you say no to the behavior.

I know I have a pretty good sense for music, but she was better than me. I used to think it was such a waste! I thought, ‘If only she had started out with a good teacher and gotten the proper training, she’d be so much further along!’ But I was wrong about that. She was not the kind of child who could stand proper training. There just happen to be people like that. They’re blessed with this marvelous talent, but they can’t make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I’ve seen my share of people like that. At first you think they’re amazing. Like, they can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you’re overwhelmed. you think, ‘I could never do that in a million years.’ But that’s as far as they go. They can’t take it any further. And why not? Because they won’t put in the effort. Because they haven’t had the discipline pounded into them. They’ve been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they’ve been able to play things well without any effort and they’ve had people telling them how great they are from the time they’re little, so hard work looks stupid to them. They’ll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher figures they’ve put enough into it and lets them go to the next thing. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a certain element required or character building. It’s a tragedy.

Always remember, child... that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one onf the things that discipline - training - is about.

am blessed. I am prosperous. I am successful.” “I am victorious. I am talented. I am creative.” “I am wise. I am healthy. I am in shape.” “I am energetic. I am happy. I am positive.” “I am passionate. I am strong. I am confident.” “I am secure. I am beautiful. I am attractive.” “I am valuable. I am free. I am redeemed.” “I am forgiven. I am anointed. I am accepted.” “I am approved. I am prepared. I am qualified.” “I am motivated. I am focused. I am disciplined.” “I am determined. I am patient. I am kind.” “I am generous. I am excellent. I am equipped.” “I am empowered. I am well able.” “I am a child of the Most High God.

By making eye-contact, getting down to your child's level, offering a touch, or using a tone of your voice that conveys a desire to genuinely connect, you disarm yourself. You make it possible to reach your child more deeply and truly move forward together.

If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents don’t have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They don’t have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the stuff parents do with flashcards and special drills and tutorials to hone their kids into perfect achievement machines don’t have any effect at all. Instead, parents just have to be good enough. They have to provide their kids with stable and predictable rhythms. They need to be able to fall in tune with their kids’ needs, combining warmth and discipline. They need to establish the secure emotional bonds that kids can fall back upon in the face of stress. They need to be there to provide living examples of how to cope with the problems of the world so that their children can develop unconscious models in their heads.

Hitting is never the best way to teach a child. Even in the case of real danger - as when a child runs out into the road - you can grab him, sit him down, look him in the eyes, and tell him why he must never do that again. The panic in your voice will communicate your message much more effectively than any spanking. You can be dramatic without being abusive.

So often, children are punished for being human. Children are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes, yet we adults have them all the time! We think if we don't nip it in the bud, it will escalate and we will lose control. Let go of that unfounded fear and give your child permission to be human. We all have days like that. None of us are perfect, and we must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves. All of the punishments you could throw at them will not stamp out their humanity, for to err is human, and we all do it sometimes.

It is helpful to remember that the most strong-willed children tend to be the ones who identify the most strongly with their parents. So instead of viewing their seemingly constant challenges as defiance or attempts to thwart authority, work to parent from a place of understanding that your strong-willed child is actually on a discovery mission and is doing endless 'research' on you by testing and retesting and digging and chiseling to discover all of your quirks and foibles and ups and downs and strengths and weaknesses.

From the time he was young, he dressed the way you told him to dress; he acted the way you told him to act; he said the things you told him to say. He's been listening to somebody else tell him what to do... He hasn't changed. He is still listening to somebody else tell him what to do. The problem is, it isn't you any,ore; it's his peers.

Selfishly, perhaps, Catti-brie had determined that the assassin was her own business. He had unnerved her, had stripped away years of training and discipline and reduced her to the quivering semblance of a frightened child. But she was a young woman now, no more a girl. She had to personally respond to that emotional humiliation, or the scars from it would haunt her to her grave, forever paralyzing her along her path to discover her true potential in life.

Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like a child, your will must bring it back, like a mother. [. . .] The will-parent must discipline the mind-child, avoiding both the opposite extremes commonly made in disciplining either children or thoughts: tyranny or permissiveness.

The wrath of God is never an evil wrath. God gets angry because he loves people like a mother would love her child if someone were to harm it. There is something wrong if the mother never gets angry; it is safe to say that that is the unloving mother.

The greatest want of the world is the want of men—men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. But such a character is not the result of accident; it is not due to special favors or endowments of Providence. A noble character is the result of self-discipline, of the subjection of the lower to the higher nature—the surrender of self for the service of love to God and man. The youth need to be impressed with the truth that their endowments are not their own. Strength, time, intellect, are but lent treasures. They belong to God, and it should be the resolve of every youth to put them to the highest use. He is a branch, from which God expects fruit; a steward, whose capital must yield increase; a light, to illuminate the world's darkness. Every youth, every child, has a work to do for the honor of God and the uplifting of humanity.

Society tried to teach me that children are by nature selfish, out-of-control, and demanding, that their goal is power and that they are always trying to see how much they can get away with, that you can't let children manipulate you or become too dependant, and that disobedience equals disrespect. As a mother, I have come to believe strongly that my child's primary goals are having his needs met, feeling connected to others, and feeling self-worth. His misbehavior is an attempt to get a need met or to feel significance and connection, done in an appropriate way.... my job as a parent is to help my child identify and meet those needs in appropriate ways." - Lisa S.

The flowers that I left in the ground, that I did not gather for you, today I bring them all back, to let them grow forever, not in poems or marble, but where they fell and rotted. And the ships in their great stalls, huge and transitory as heroes, ships I could not captain, today I bring them back to let them sail forever, not in model or ballad, but where they were wrecked and scuttled. And the child on whose shoulders I stand, whose longing I purged with public, kingly discipline, today I bring him back to languish forever, not in confession or biography, but where he flourished, growing sly and hairy. It is not malice that draws me away, draws me to renunciation, betrayal: it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee, Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon- I have become the expert of the catalogue. My body once so familiar with glory, My body has become a museum: this part remembered because of someone's mouth, this because of a hand, this of wetness, this of heat. Who owns anything he has not made? With your beauty I am as uninvolved as with horses' manes and waterfalls. This is my last catalogue. I breathe the breathless I love you, I love you - and let you move forever.

All behavior is linked to attitudes of the heart. Therefore, discipline must address attitudes of the heart.

A Christian understanding of the world sees a child's character not as genetically determined but as shaped to a significant degree by parental discipleship and discipline.

You keep your guard too low, I am afraid. You are full of passion, but passion without discipline is no more than a child’s tantrum.

Because children are essentially good, when we see a child hit, it ought to evoke in us an empathic response such as, “What pain they must be in to feel the need to hit.

Curiosity is the cornerstone of effective discipline.

You cannot stop loving your child because you know that he has committed a wrong action. But you certainly stop loving yourself for loving him. ~ Rudransh Kashyap

Effective discipline means that we’re not only stopping a bad behavior or promoting a good one, but also teaching skills and nurturing the connections in our children’s brains that will help them make better decisions and handle themselves well in the future.

Connection means that we give our kids our attention, that we respect them enough to listen to them, that we value their contribution to problem solving, and that we communicate to them that we’re on their side—whether we like the way they’re acting or not.

As scientists put it, the brain is plastic, or moldable. Yes, the actual physical architecture of the brain changes based on what happens to us.

Your goal in disciplining your child is actually to help him develop self-discipline, meaning to assume responsibility for his actions, including making amends and avoiding a repeat, whether the authority figure is present or not.

What is generally known as discipline in traditional schools is not activity, but immobility and silence. It is not discipline, but something that festers inside a child, arousing his rebellious feelings.

The responses of traumatized children are often misinterpreted...Because new situations are inherently stressful, and because youth who have been through trauma often come from homes in which chaos and unpredictability appear "normal" to them, they may respond with fear to what is actually a calm and safe situation. Attempting to take control of what they believe is the inevitable return of chaos, they appear to " provoke" it in order to make things feel more comfortable and predictable. Thus, the "honeymoon" period in foster care will end as the child behaves defiantly and destructively in order to prompt familiar screaming and harsh discipline. Like everyone else, they feel more comfortable with what is "familiar". As one family therapist famously put it, we tend to prefer the "certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty".

My child isn’t my easel to paint on Nor my diamond to polish My child isn’t my trophy to share with the world Nor my badge of honor My child isn’t an idea, an expectation, or a fantasy Nor my reflection or legacy My child isn’t my puppet or a project Nor my striving or desire My child is here to fumble, stumble, try, and cry Learn and mess up Fail and try again Listen to the beat of a drum faint to our adult ears And dance to a song that revels in freedom My task is to step aside Stay in infinite possibility Heal my own wounds Fill my own bucket And let my child fly —Shefali Tsabary, PhD

-Desiderata- Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

If you want to leave the park and your child isn’t ready to go, give her a hug and say, “You’re really upset right now. I know you want to stay, but it’s time to leave.” Then hold your child and let her experience her feelings before you move on to the next activity. If you were instead to pamper your child by letting her stay at the park longer, she doesn’t have the opportunity to learn from experience that she can survive disappointment.

Always remember, child,’ her first teacher had impressed on her, ‘that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline—training—is about.

For some parents, as with Jason’s father, the least popular feature of their children is defiance. Yet it is one of the most important for safety. If defiance is always met with discipline and never with discussion, that can handicap a child. The moment the two-year-old defiantly asserts his will for the first time may be cause for celebration, not castigation, for he is building the courage to resist. If your teenage daughter never tests her defiance on you, she may well be unable to use it on a predator.

Engage, don’t enrage.

The difference between punishment and discipline is a powerful child.

Little eyes watch what we do far more than little ears hear what we say. It is how we live, not how we demand they live, that has the most impact on who our children will become.

word “discipline” often evokes strong emotional reactions, particularly because it is often used synonymously with “punishment.” However, the original meaning of discipline is “to teach.

In addition to his instinct for discerning patterns across disciplines, Leonardo honed two other traits that aided his scientific pursuits: an omnivorous curiosity, which bordered on the fanatical, and an acute power of observation, which was eerily intense. Like much with Leonardo, these were interconnected. Any person who puts “Describe the tongue of the woodpecker” on his to-do list is overendowed with the combination of curiosity and acuity. His curiosity, like that of Einstein, often was about phenomena that most people over the age of ten no longer puzzle about: Why is the sky blue? How are clouds formed? Why can our eyes see only in a straight line? What is yawning? Einstein said he marveled about questions others found mundane because he was slow in learning to talk as a child. For Leonardo, this talent may have been connected to growing up with a love of nature while not being overly schooled in received wisdom.

The cloud weeps, and then the garden sprouts. The baby cries, and the mother's milk flows. The nurse of creation has said, Let them cry a lot. This rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh. Cry easily like a little child. Let body needs dwindle and soul decisions increase. Diminish what you give your physical self. Your spiritual eye will begin to open. When the body empties and stays empty, God fills it with musk and mother-of-pearl. That way a man gives his dung and gets purity. Listen to the prophets, not to some adolescent boy. The foundation and the walls of spiritual life are made of self-denials and disciplines. Stay with friends who support you in these. Talk with them about sacred texts, and how you're doing, and how they're doing, and keep your practices together.

Many parents have asked me: What is the point of my child explaining their work if they can get the answer right? My answer is always the same: Explaining your work is what, in mathematics, we call reasoning, and reasoning is central to the discipline of mathematics.

Children killing children. That's a terrible thing." "What do you think has gone wrong?" "It's not just the children. It's the grown-ups too. Some people are growing children, not raising children, and there's a big difference." "What do you mean?" "Well, people grow hogs. You give them a place to live, give them all the food they need to keep growing, and make sure that they don't get sick on you. With children you got to raise them. Of course, you feed and clothe them. But a parent has to take the time to teach them right and wrong. A parent has to discipline them. And a parent got to be there to listen to them, help them with their problems. I think most people do their best, but there are some parents these days that are growing children, not raising children. "It's a sad thing. These children have everything they need to grow up, but they are missing something inside. They must hurt awful bad and no one has shown them the way to live. Buying them their food or even fancy clothes or a car ain't going to help if a child is hurting inside. We all need the same things.

There’s no question in my mind but that the disciplinary approach societies the world over have followed from time immemorial is a significant reason our world is such an unsafe and largely insane planet.

Why are some countries able, despite their very real and serious problems, to press ahead along the road to reconciliation, recovery, and redevelopment while others cannot? These are critical questions for Africa, and their answers are complex and not always clear. Leadership is crucial, of course. Kagame was a strong leader–decisive, focused, disciplined, and honest–and he remains so today. I believe that sometimes people's characters are molded by their environment. Angola, like Liberia, like Sierra Leone, is resource-rich, a natural blessing that sometimes has the sad effect of diminishing the human drive for self-sufficiency, the ability and determination to maximize that which one has. Kagame had nothing. He grew up in a refugee camp, equipped with only his own strength of will and determination to create a better life for himself and his countrymen.

Many parents these days, however, are learning that discipline will be much more respectful—and, yes, effective—if they initiate a collaborative, reciprocal, bidirectional dialogue, rather than delivering a monologue.

Too often we forget that “discipline” really means “to teach”—not “to punish.” A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioral consequences. When we teach mindsight, we take moments of conflict and transform them into opportunities for learning, skill building, and brain development.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Your role is not to make your child happy every moment of the day regardless of the personal cost, but to raise her to be a thoughtful, kind, productive citizen of the world. Some people would beg to differ, but it’s not a choice to discipline or not. Your child needs discipline, just like she needs food and water.

Some parents cannot distinguish between punishment and discipline. Anyone can punish a child and many parents do it out of frustration. Discipline requires time, patience, and love and may include some punishment. To punish children without discipline usually involves a parent who is frustrated and has turned to anger.

I suddenly discovered that cooking was a rich and layered and endlessly fascinating subject. The best way to describe it is to say that I fell in love with French food- the tastes, the processes, the history, the endless variations, the rigorous discipline, the creativity, the wonderful people, the equipment, the rituals.

Society reaps what it sows in the way it nurtures its children, because stress sculpts the brain to exhibit several antisocial behaviors. Stress can set off a ripple of hormonal changes that permanently wire a child's brain to cope with a malevolent world. Through this chain of events, violence and abuse pass from generation to generation as well as from one society to the next. Many world leaders who have been disciplined through anger and cruelty go in to treat their own people abominably, or to bully other nations. As long as we continue to discipline children like this, we will continue to have terrible wars on both the family and the world stage. One very powerful study illustrates the point. Researchers tracked down Germans who, in World War II, risked their own lives by hiding a Jewish person in their house. When interviewed, the researchers found one common feature of all these people. They had all been socialized in ways that respected their personal dignity.

The other mind entity is what we call the impartial observer. This mind of present-moment awareness stands outside the preprogrammed physiological determinants and is alive to the present. It works through the brain but is not limited to the brain. It may be dormant in many of us, but it is never completely absent. It transcends the automatic functioning of past-conditioned brain circuits. ‘In the end,...I conclude that there is no good evidence… that the brain alone can carry out the work that the mind does.” Knowing oneself comes from attending with compassionate curiosity to what is happening within. Methods for gaining self-knowledge and self-mastery through conscious awareness strengthen the mind’s capacity to act as its own impartial observer. Among the simplest and most skilful of the meditative techniques taught in many spiritual traditions is the disciplined practice of what Buddhists call ‘bare attention’. Nietzsche called Buddha ‘that profound physiologist’ and his teachings less a religion than a ‘kind of hygiene’...’ Many of our automatic brain processes have to do with either wanting something or not wanting something else – very much the way a small child’s mental life functions. We are forever desiring or longing, or judging and rejecting. Mental hygiene consists of noticing the ebb and flow of all those automatic grasping or rejecting impulses without being hooked by then. Bare attention is directed not only toward what’s happening on the outside, but also to what’s taking place on the inside. ‘Be at least interested in your reactions as in the person or situation that triggers them.’... In a mindful state one can choose to be aware of the ebb and flow of emotions and thought patterns instead of brooding on their content. Not ‘he did this to me therefore I’m suffering’ but ‘I notice that feelings of resentment and a desire for vengeance keep flooding my mind.’... ‘Bare Attention is the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us at the successive moments of perception,’... ‘It is called ‘Bare’ because it attends just to the bare facts of a perception as presented either through the five physical senses of through the mind without reacting to them.

For the purposes of science, information had to mean something special. Three centuries earlier, the new discipline of physics could not proceed until Isaac Newton appropriated words that were ancient and vague—force, mass, motion, and even time—and gave them new meanings. Newton made these terms into quantities, suitable for use in mathematical formulas. Until then, motion (for example) had been just as soft and inclusive a term as information. For Aristotelians, motion covered a far-flung family of phenomena: a peach ripening, a stone falling, a child growing, a body decaying. That was too rich. Most varieties of motion had to be tossed out before Newton’s laws could apply and the Scientific Revolution could succeed. In the nineteenth century, energy began to undergo a similar transformation: natural philosophers adapted a word meaning vigor or intensity. They mathematicized it, giving energy its fundamental place in the physicists’ view of nature. It was the same with information. A rite of purification became necessary. And then, when it was made simple, distilled, counted in bits, information was found to be everywhere.

Of course," agreed Basil, "if you read it carelessly, and act on it rashly, with the blind faith of a fanatic; it might very well lead to trouble. But nature is full of devices for eliminating anything that cannot master its environment. The words 'to worship me' are all-important. The only excuse for using a drug of any sort, whether it's quinine or Epsom-salt, is to assist nature to overcome some obstacle to her proper functions. The danger of the so-called habit-forming drugs is that they fool you into trying to dodge the toil essential to spiritual and intellectual development. But they are not simply man-traps. There is nothing in nature which cannot be used for our benefit, and it is up to us to use it wisely. Now, in the work you have been doing in the last week, heroin might have helped you to concentrate your mind, and cocaine to overcome the effects of fatigue. And the reason you did not use them was that a burnt child dreads fire. We had the same trouble with teaching Hermes and Dionysus to swim. They found themselves in danger of being drowned and thought the best way was to avoid going near the water. But that didn't help them to use their natural faculties to the best advantage, so I made them confront the sea again and again, until they decided that the best way to avoid drowning was to learn how to deal with oceans in every detail. It sounds pretty obvious when you put it like that, yet while every one agrees with me about the swimming, I am howled down on all sides when I apply the same principles to the use of drugs.

Respond to your children with love in their worst moments their broken moments their angry moments their selfish moments their lonely moments their frustrated moments their inconvenient moments because it is in their most unlovable human moments that they most need to feel loved.

We get trapped in power struggles. When our kids feel backed into a corner, they instinctually fight back or totally shut down. So avoid the trap. Consider giving your child an out: “Would you like to get a drink first, and then we’ll pick up the toys?” Or negotiate: “Let’s see if we can figure out a way for both of us to get what we need.” (Obviously, there are some non-negotiables, but negotiation isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of respect for your child and her desires.) You can even ask your child for help: “Do you have any suggestions?” You might be shocked to find out how much your child is willing to bend in order to bring about a peaceful resolution to the standoff.

We now know that the way to help a child develop optimally is to help create connections in her brain—her whole brain—that develop skills that lead to better relationships, better mental health, and more meaningful lives. You could call it brain sculpting, or brain nourishing, or brain building. Whatever phrase you prefer, the point is crucial, and thrilling: as a result of the words we use and the actions we take, children’s brains will actually change, and be built, as they undergo new experiences.

Having neurons wire together can be a good thing. A positive experience with a math teacher can lead to neural connections that link math with pleasure, accomplishment, and feeling good about yourself as a student. But the opposite is equally true. Negative experiences with a harsh instructor or a timed test and the anxiety that accompanies it can form connections in the brain that create a serious obstacle to the enjoyment not only of math and numbers, but exams and even school in general.

I'm buried beneath an avalanche of papers, I don't understand the language of the country, and what do I do about a kid who calls me "Hi, teach!"? Syl INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION FROM: Room 508 TO: Room 304 Nothing. Maybe he calls you Hi, teach! because he likes you. Why not answer Hi, pupe? The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in waste-basket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.

The parents' failure to serve as models of disciplined self-restraint or to restrain the child does not mean that the child grows up without a superego. On the contrary, it encourages the development of a harsh and punitive superego based largely on archaic images of the parents, fused with grandiose self-images. Under these conditions, the superego consists of parental introjects instead of identifications. It holds up to the ego an exalted standard of fame and success and condemns it with savage ferocity when it falls short of that standard. Hence the oscillations of self-esteem so often associated with pathological narcissism.

Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents—will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction? Much as with physical exercise, you can even get a kind of perverse pleasure out of this pain, knowing the benefits it will bring you. In any event, you must meet any boredom head-on and not try to avoid or repress it. Throughout your life you will encounter tedious situations, and you must cultivate the ability to handle them with discipline.

Progress is hardly ever dramatic; in fact, it is usually very slow. As every parent and teacher knows, education is never a matter of ten-step plans or quick formulas, but of faithful commitment to the mundane challenges of daily life: getting up from the sofa to spend time with our children, loving them and disciplining them, becoming involved in their lives at school and, most important, making sure they have a wholesome family life to return to at home. Maybe that is why Jesus teaches us to ask for strength little by little, on a daily basis - "Give us this day our daily bread" - and why he stresses the significance of even the smallest, humblest beginnings: "Wherever two of you agree about anything you ask for, it shall be done for you... For where two or three come together in my name, I shall be with them" (Mt. 18:19-20).

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” By that sentence, Tolstoy meant that, in order to be happy, a marriage must succeed in many different respects: sexual attraction, agreement about money, child discipline, religion, in-laws, and other vital issues. Failure in any one of those essential respects can doom a marriage even if it has all the other ingredients needed for happiness.

It’s always hardest to remember to acknowledge a child in the heat of a difficult moment, but if a child can hear anything during a temper tantrum, it reassures him to hear our recognition of his point-of-view. “You wanted an ice cream cone and I said ‘no’. It’s upsetting not to get what you want.” When a toddler feels understood, he senses the empathy behind our limits and corrections. He still resists, cries, and complains, but at the end of the day, he knows we are with him, always in his corner. These first years will define our relationship for many years to come.

The corporate world is also a manifestation of people’s disconnection from their heart, where people believe manipulation is the path to getting what they want and therefore the way to succeed. People often use the excuse that “everyone does it.” When a child learns at home that not everyone does it, things can start to change. The corporate world even celebrates the cutthroat approach of stepping over others, knifing them in the back, and scrambling to the top of the ladder at the expense of colleagues—behavior that reflects an inability to connect with and care for others.

The previous governess had used various monsters and bogeymen as a form of discipline. There was always something waiting to eat or carry off bad boys and girls for crimes like stuttering or defiantly and aggravatingly persisting in writing with their left hand. There was always a Scissor Man waiting for a little girl who sucked her thumb, always a bogeyman in the cellar. Of such bricks is the innocence of childhood constructed. Susan’s attempts at getting them to disbelieve in the things only caused the problems to get worse. Twyla had started to wet the bed. This may have been a crude form of defense against the terrible clawed creature that she was certain lived under it. Susan had found out about this one the first night, when the child had woken up crying because of a bogeyman in the closet. She’d sighed and gone to have a look. She’d been so angry that she’d pulled it out, hit it over the head with the nursery poker, dislocated its shoulder as a means of emphasis and kicked it out of the back door. The children refused to disbelieve in the monsters because, frankly, they knew damn well the things were there. But she’d found that they could, very firmly, also believe in the poker. Now she sat down on a bench and read a book. She made a point of taking the children, every day, somewhere where they could meet others of the same age. If they got the hang of the playground, she thought, adult life would hold no fears. Besides, it was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying. There were lessons later on. These were going a lot better now she’d got rid of the reading books about bouncy balls and dogs called Spot. She’d got Gawain on to the military campaigns of General Tacticus, which were suitably bloodthirsty but, more importantly, considered too difficult for a child. As a result his vocabulary was doubling every week and he could already use words like “disemboweled” in everyday conversation. After all, what was the point of teaching children to be children? They were naturally good at it.

Always remember, child,’ her first teacher had impressed on her, ‘that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline—training—is about. So train your mind to dwell on sweet perfumes, the touch of this silk, tender raindrops against the shoji, the curve of this flower arrangement, the tranquillity of dawn. Then, at length, you won’t have to make such a great effort and you will be of value to yourself, a value to our profession—and bring honor to our world, the Willow World.…

Mandalorians are surprisingly unconcerned with biological lineage. Their definition of offspring or parent is more by relationship than birth: adoption is extremely common, and it’s not unusual for soldiers to take war orphans as their sons or daughters if they impress them with their aggression and tenacity. They also seem tolerant of marital infidelity during long separations, as long as any child resulting from it is raised by them. Mandalorians define themselves by culture and behavior alone. It is an affinity with key expressions of this culture—loyalty, strong self-identity, emphasis on physical endurance and discipline—that causes some ethnic groups such as those of Concord Dawn in particular to gravitate toward Mandalorian communities, thereby reinforcing a common set of genes derived from a wide range of populations. The instinct to be a protective parent is especially dominant. They have accidentally bred a family-oriented warrior population, and continue to reinforce it by absorbing like-minded individuals and groups.

Every strength has a corresponding challenge and every challenge has a corresponding strength. The inattentive child may be a deep thinker. The uncooperative child may be a good leader. The emotionally-charged child may be gifted with exceptional empathy. The rule-defying child may be an out-of-the-box innovator. When faced with challenging behaviors, look for the corresponding strength, and focus on nurturing that gift while providing gentle guidance and coping techniques for the challenging areas. That is the essence of working with, instead of against, our children.

On a certain level, homeschooling is all about socialization. Whatever the teaching methods used in school or homeschool, it is ultimately the social environment itself that distinguishes homeschooling from conventional school. This social environment includes the nature and quantity of peer interaction; parental proximity; solitude; relationships with adults, siblings, older children, younger children, and the larger community; the ways in which the children are disciplined and by whom; and even the student-teacher ratio and the overall environment where the children spend their time.

She also asked him his views on marrige and monogamy given the imminent arrival of his second child with Suzanne. "I think marrying is for very very high minded people" he said. "It is a discipline of extreme severity. To really turn your back on all the other possibilities and all the other experiences of love,of passion,of ecstasy,and to determine to find it within one embrace is a high and righteous notion. Marriage today is the monastery,the monastery today is freedom. " he told Marion he had arrived "at a more realistic vision" of himself. There was no "high purpose" in his activities. "I'm just going" he said "so I don't have to stay still

Of course, we justify our fear by telling ourselves we “love our children so much.” I don’t believe that to love someone means we need to fear for them. On the contrary, it’s out of our fear for our own security and wellbeing that we fear for our children. We’re afraid that unless the other behaves according to our movie, we will in some way be deprived of fulfillment or a sense of peace. This sense of lack, rooted in the empty feeling left by our crushed authentic self, gets confused with love. Unless we are able to discern the difference between love and our need for our children to assuage our feeling of lack, our connection with them will be muddied.

So we introduced a token system.9 The children were given ten tokens at the beginning of the week. These could each be traded in for either thirty minutes of screen time or fifty cents at the end of the week, adding up to $5 or five hours of screen time a week. If a child read a book for thirty minutes, he or she would earn an additional token, which could also be traded in for screen time or for money. The results were incredible: overnight, screen time went down 90 per cent, reading went up by the same amount, and the overall effort we had to put into policing the system went way, way down. In other words, non-essential activity dramatically decreased and essential activity dramatically increased. Once

In my travels on the surface, I once met a man who wore his religious beliefs like a badge of honor upon the sleeves of his tunic. "I am a Gondsman!" he proudly told me as we sat beside eachother at a tavern bar, I sipping my wind, and he, I fear, partaking a bit too much of his more potent drink. He went on to explain the premise of his religion, his very reason for being, that all things were based in science, in mechanics and in discovery. He even asked if he could take a piece of my flesh, that he might study it to determine why the skin of the drow elf is black. "What element is missing," he wondered, "that makes your race different from your surface kin?" I think that the Gondsman honestly believed his claim that if he could merely find the various elements that comprised the drow skin, he might affect a change in that pigmentation to make the dark elves more akin to their surface relatives. And, given his devotion, almost fanaticism, it seemed to me as if he felt he could affect a change in more than physical appearance. Because, in his view of the world, all things could be so explained and corrected. How could i even begin to enlighten him to the complexity? How could i show him the variations between drow and surface elf in the very view of the world resulting from eons of walking widely disparate roads? To a Gondsman fanatic, everything can be broken down, taken apart and put back together. Even a wizard's magic might be no more than a way of conveying universal energies - and that, too, might one day be replicated. My Gondsman companion promised me that he and his fellow inventor priests would one day replicate every spell in any wizard's repertoire, using natural elements in the proper combinations. But there was no mention of the discipline any wizard must attain as he perfects his craft. There was no mention of the fact that powerful wizardly magic is not given to anyone, but rather, is earned, day by day, year by year and decade by decade. It is a lifelong pursuit with gradual increase in power, as mystical as it is secular. So it is with the warrior. The Gondsman spoke of some weapon called an arquebus, a tubular missile thrower with many times the power of the strongest crossbow. Such a weapon strikes terror into the heart of the true warrior, and not because he fears that he will fall victim to it, or even that he fears it will one day replace him. Such weapons offend because the true warrior understands that while one is learning how to use a sword, one should also be learning why and when to use a sword. To grant the power of a weapon master to anyone at all, without effort, without training and proof that the lessons have taken hold, is to deny the responsibility that comes with such power. Of course, there are wizards and warriors who perfect their craft without learning the level of emotional discipline to accompany it, and certainly there are those who attain great prowess in either profession to the detriment of all the world - Artemis Entreri seems a perfect example - but these individuals are, thankfully, rare, and mostly because their emotional lacking will be revealed early in their careers, and it often brings about a fairly abrupt downfall. But if the Gondsman has his way, if his errant view of paradise should come to fruition, then all the years of training will mean little. Any fool could pick up an arquebus or some other powerful weapon and summarily destroy a skilled warrior. Or any child could utilize a Gondsman's magic machine and replicate a firebal, perhaps, and burn down half a city. When I pointed out some of my fears to the Gondsman, he seemed shocked - not at the devastating possibilities, but rather, at my, as he put it, arrogance. "The inventions of the priests of Gond will make all equal!" he declared. "We will lift up the lowly peasant

It is said that here we practise free discipline. That's wrong, quite wrong. It would be more correct to say that we are seeking, as best we can, to establish disciplined freedom, that state in which the child feels free to work, play and express himself without fear of those whose job it is to direct and stimulate his efforts into constructive channels. As things are we cannot expect of them high academic effort, but we can take steps to ensure that their limited abilities are exploited to the full." Here he smiled briefly, as if amused by some fleeting, private reflection. "We encourage them to speak up for themselves, no matter what the circumstances or the occasion; this may probably take the form of rudeness at first but gradually, through the influences of the various committees and the student council, we hope they will learn directness without rudeness, and humility without sycophancy. We try to show them a real relationship between themselves and their work, in preparation for the day when they leave school.

The final proof that this alien indoctrination which begins in nursery school is based on the splitting of the family is that those working class children who arrive (those few who do arrive) at university are so brainwashed that they are unable any longer to talk to their community. Working class children then are the first who instinctively rebel against schools and the education provided in schools. But their parents carry them to schools and confine them to schools because they are concerned that their children should “have an education”, that is, be equipped to escape the assembly line or the kitchen to which they, the parents, are confined. If a working class child shows particular aptitudes, the whole family immediately concentrates on this child, gives him the best conditions, often sacrificing the others, hoping and gambling that he will carry them all out of the working class. This in effect becomes the way capital moves through the aspirations of the parents to enlist their help in disciplining fresh labor power.

I move in slow motion to roll out of bed, arrange clothing under the covers, and silently remove the screen from my window. Smoothly and soundlessly, I slip out and lower myself to the ground, reaching high above my head to replace the screen. I crouch and skim across the lawn to the street, moving quickly from tree shadow to tree shadow until I reach his car, the passenger door already open and waiting. “Ready?” Steve asks as we synchronize the closing of the door with the starting of the engine. Within moments, we’re on our way to our favorite spot. “You’re awfully quiet tonight, baby.” He parks the car and we both peer out at the lights of the town displayed below us. “Your father get after you again?” It’s a peculiar way to word it, but even my father won’t use words like beat or hit to describe his actions. He’ll use a quote like, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Or declare that he is saving my soul. But my silence tonight isn’t about my father’s form of discipline, nor my mother’s sharp tongue. I take a long, slow breath before speaking the words that I’ve rehearsed for over a month. “I’m pregnant.” My voice comes out soft and raspy.

You must have traveled all night,” she heard herself say. “I had to come back early.” She felt his lips brush her tumbled hair. “I left some things unfinished. But I had a feeling you might need me. Tell me what’s happened, sweetheart.” Amelia opened her mouth to answer, but to her mortification, the only sound she could make was a sort of miserable croak. Her self-control shattered. She shook her head and choked on more sobs, and the more she tried to stop them, the worse they became. Cam gripped her firmly, deeply, into his embrace. The appalling storm of tears didn’t seem to bother him at all. He took one of Amelia’s hands and flattened it against his heart, until she could feel the strong, steady beat. In a world that was disintegrating around her, he was solid and real. “It’s all right,” she heard him murmur. “I’m here.” Alarmed by her own lack of self-discipline, Amelia made a wobbly attempt to stand on her own, but he only hugged her more closely. “No, don’t pull away. I’ve got you.” He cuddled her shaking form against his chest. Noticing Poppy’s awkward retreat, Cam sent her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, little sister.” “Amelia hardly ever cries,” Poppy said. “She’s fine.” Cam ran his hand along Amelia’s spine in soothing strokes. “She just needs…” As he paused, Poppy said, “A shoulder to lean on.” “Yes.” He drew Amelia to the stairs, and gestured for Poppy to sit beside them. Cradling Amelia on his lap, Cam found a handkerchief in his pocket and wiped her eyes and nose. When it became apparent that no sense could be made from her jumbled words, he hushed her gently and held her against his large, warm body while she sobbed and hid her face. Overwhelmed with relief, she let him rock her as if she were a child. As Amelia hiccupped and quieted in his arms, Cam asked a few questions of Poppy, who told him about Merripen’s condition and Leo’s disappearance, and even about the missing silverware. Finally getting control of herself, Amelia cleared her aching throat. She lifted her head from Cam’s shoulder and blinked. “Better?” he asked, holding the handkerchief up to her nose. Amelia nodded and blew obediently. “I’m sorry,” she said in a muffled voice. “I shouldn’t have turned into a watering pot. I’m finished now.” Cam seemed to look right inside her. His voice was very soft. “You don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to be finished, either.” She realized that no matter what she did or said, no matter how long she wanted to cry, he would accept it. And he would comfort her.

And if I was seen as temperamentally cool and collected, measured in how I used my words, Joe was all warmth, a man without inhibitions, happy to share whatever popped into his head. It was an endearing trait, for he genuinely enjoyed people. You could see it as he worked a room, his handsome face always cast in a dazzling smile (and just inches from whomever he was talking to), asking a person where they were from, telling them a story about how much he loved their hometown (“Best calzone I ever tasted”) or how they must know so-and-so (“An absolutely great guy, salt of the earth”), flattering their children (“Anyone ever tell you you’re gorgeous?”) or their mother (“You can’t be a day over forty!”), and then on to the next person, and the next, until he’d touched every soul in the room with a flurry of handshakes, hugs, kisses, backslaps, compliments, and one-liners. Joe’s enthusiasm had its downside. In a town filled with people who liked to hear themselves talk, he had no peer. If a speech was scheduled for fifteen minutes, Joe went for at least a half hour. If it was scheduled for a half hour, there was no telling how long he might talk. His soliloquies during committee hearings were legendary. His lack of a filter periodically got him in trouble, as when during the primaries, he had pronounced me “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” a phrase surely meant as a compliment, but interpreted by some as suggesting that such characteristics in a Black man were noteworthy. As I came to know Joe, though, I found his occasional gaffes to be trivial compared to his strengths. On domestic issues, he was smart, practical, and did his homework. His experience in foreign policy was broad and deep. During his relatively short-lived run in the primaries, he had impressed me with his skill and discipline as a debater and his comfort on a national stage. Most of all, Joe had heart. He’d overcome a bad stutter as a child (which probably explained his vigorous attachment to words) and two brain aneurysms in middle age.

There is yet another reason why peer-oriented kids are insatiable. In order to reach the turning point, a child must not only be fulfilled, but this fulfillment must sink in. It has to register somehow in the child's brain that the longing for closeness and connectedness is being met. This registration is not cognitive or even conscious, but deeply emotional. It is emotion that moves the child and shifts the energy from one developmental agenda to another, from attachment to individuation. The problem is that, for fulfillment to sink in, the child must be able to feel deeply and vulnerably — an experience most peer-oriented kids will be defended against. Peer-oriented children cannot permit themselves to feel their vulnerability. It may seem strange that feelings of fulfillment would require openness to feelings of vulnerability. There is no hurt or pain in fulfillment — quite the opposite. Yet there is an underlying emotional logic to this phenomenon. For the child to feel full he must first feel empty, to feel helped the child must first feel in need of help, to feel complete he must have felt incomplete. To experience the joy of reunion one must first experience the ache of loss, to be comforted one must first have felt hurt. Satiation may be a very pleasant experience, but the prerequisite is to be able to feel vulnerability. When a child loses the ability to feel her attachment voids, the child also loses the ability to feel nurtured and fulfilled. One of the first things I check for in my assessment of children is the existence of feelings of missing and loss. It is indicative of emotional health for children to be able to sense what is missing and to know what the emptiness is about. As soon as they are able to articulate, they should be able to say things like “I miss daddy,” “It hurt me that grandma didn't notice me,” “It didn't seem like you were interested in my story,” “I don't think so and so likes me.” Many children today are too defended, too emotionally closed, to experience such vulnerable emotions. Children are affected by what is missing whether they feel it or not, but only when they can feel and know what is missing can they be released from their pursuit of attachment. Parents of such children are not able to take them to the turning point or bring them to a place of rest. If a child becomes defended against vulnerability as a result of peer orientation, he is made insatiable in relation to the parents as well. That is the tragedy of peer orientation — it renders our love and affection so useless and unfulfilling. For children who are insatiable, nothing is ever enough. No matter what one does, how much one tries to make things work, how much attention and approval is given, the turning point is never reached. For parents this is extremely discouraging and exhausting. Nothing is as satisfying to a parent as the sense of being the source of fulfillment for a child. Millions of parents are cheated of such an experience because their children are either looking elsewhere for nurturance or are too defended against vulnerability to be capable of satiation. Insatiability keeps our children stuck in first gear developmentally, stuck in immaturity, unable to transcend basic instincts. They are thwarted from ever finding rest and remain ever dependent on someone or something outside themselves for satisfaction. Neither the discipline imposed by parents nor the love felt by them can cure this condition. The only hope is to bring children back into the attachment fold where they belong and then soften them up to where our love can actually penetrate and nurture.

Gabriel was stunned by Pandora's compassion for a man who had caused her such harm. He shook his head in wonder as he stared into her eyes, as dark as cloud-shadow on a field of blue gentian. "That doesn't excuse him," he said thickly. Gabriel would never forgive the bastard. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to strip the flesh from the bastard's corpse and hang up his skeleton to scare the crows. His fingers contained a subtle tremor as he reached out to trace the fine edges of her face, the sweet, high plane of her cheekbone. "What did the doctor say about your ear? What treatment did he give?" "It wasn't necessary to send for a doctor." A fresh flood of rage seared his veins as the words sunk in. "Your eardrum was ruptured. What in God's name do you mean a doctor wasn't necessary?" Although he had managed to keep from shouting, his tone was far from civilized. Pandora quivered uneasily and began to inch backward. He realized the last thing she needed from him was a display of temper. Battening down his rampaging emotions, he used one arm to bring her back against his side. "No, don't pull away. Tell me what happened." "The fever had passed," she said after a long hesitation, "and... well, you have to understand my family. If something unpleasant happened, they ignored it, and it was never spoken of again. Especially if it was something my father had done when he'd lost his temper. After a while, no one remembered what had really happened. Our family history was erased and rewritten a thousand times. But ignoring the problem with my ear didn't make it disappear. Whenever I couldn't hear something, or when I stumbled or fell, it made my mother very angry. She said I'd been clumsy because I was hasty or careless. She wouldn't admit there was anything wrong with my hearing. She refused even to discuss it." Pandora stopped, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. "I'm making her sound terrible, and she wasn't. There were times when she was affectionate and kind. No one's all one way or the other." She flicked a glance of dread in his direction. "Oh God, you're not going to pity me, are you?" "No." Gabriel was anguished for her sake, and outraged. It was all he could do to keep his voice calm. "Is that why you keep it a secret? You're afraid of being pitied?" "That, and... it's a shame I'd rather keep private." "Not your shame. Your father's." "It feels like mine. Had I not been eavesdropping, my father wouldn't have disciplined me." "You were a child," he said brusquely. "What he did wasn't bloody discipline, it was brutality." To his surprise, a touch of unrepentant amusement curved Pandora's lips, and she looked distinctly pleased with herself. "It didn't even stop my eavesdropping. I just learned to be more clever about it." She was so endearing, so indomitable, that Gabriel was wrenched with a feeling he'd never known before, as if all the extremes of joy and despair had been compressed into some new emotion that threatened to crack the walls of his heart.

Appendix 1 Seven Points and Fifty-Nine Slogans for Generating Compassion and Resilience POINT ONE Resolve to Begin 1. Train in the preliminaries. POINT TWO Train in Empathy and Compassion: Absolute Compassion 2. See everything as a dream. 3. Examine the nature of awareness. 4. Don’t get stuck on peace. 5. Rest in the openness of mind. 6. In Postmeditation be a child of illusion. POINT TWO Train in Empathy and Compassion: Relative Compassion 7. Practice sending and receiving alternately on the breath. 8. Begin sending and receiving practice with yourself. 9. Turn things around (Three objects, three poisons, three virtues). 10. Always train with the slogans. POINT THREE Transform Bad Circumstances into the Path 11. Turn all mishaps into the path. 12. Drive all blames into one. 13. Be grateful to everyone. 14. See confusion as Buddha and practice emptiness. 15. Do good, avoid evil, appreciate your lunacy, pray for help. 16. Whatever you meet is the path. POINT FOUR Make Practice Your Whole Life 17. Cultivate a serious attitude (Practice the five strengths). 18. Practice for death as well as for life. POINT FIVE Assess and Extend 19. There’s only one point. 20. Trust your own eyes. 21. Maintain joy (and don’t lose your sense of humor). 22. Practice when you’re distracted. POINT SIX The Discipline of Relationship 23. Come back to basics. 24. Don’t be a phony. 25. Don’t talk about faults. 26. Don’t figure others out. 27. Work with your biggest problems first. 28. Abandon hope. 29. Don’t poison yourself. 30. Don’t be so predictable. 31. Don’t malign others. 32. Don’t wait in ambush. 33. Don’t make everything so painful. 34. Don’t unload on everyone. 35. Don’t go so fast. 36. Don’t be tricky. 37. Don’t make gods into demons. 38. Don’t rejoice at others’ pain. POINT SEVEN Living with Ease in a Crazy World 39. Keep a single intention. 40. Correct all wrongs with one intention. 41. Begin at the beginning, end at the end. 42. Be patient either way. 43. Observe, even if it costs you everything. 44. Train in three difficulties. 45. Take on the three causes. 46. Don’t lose track. 47. Keep the three inseparable. 48. Train wholeheartedly, openly, and constantly. 49. Stay close to your resentment. 50. Don’t be swayed by circumstances. 51. This time get it right! 52. Don’t misinterpret. 53. Don’t vacillate. 54. Be wholehearted. 55. Examine and analyze. 56. Don’t wallow. 57. Don’t be jealous. 58. Don’t be frivolous. 59. Don’t expect applause.

Ah, my friends, that innocent afternoon with Larry provoked me into thought in a way my own dicelife until then never had. Larry took to following the dice with such ease and joy compared to the soul-searching gloom that I often went through before following a decision, that I had to wonder what happened to every human in the two decades between seven and twenty-seven to turn a kitten into a cow. Why did children seem to be so often spontaneous, joy-filled and concentrated while adults seemed controlled, anxiety-filled and diffused? It was the Goddam sense of having a self: that sense of self which psychologists have been proclaiming we all must have. What if - at the time it seemed like an original thought - what if the development of a sense of self is normal and natural, but is neither inevitable nor desirable? What if it represents a psychological appendix: a useless, anachronistic pain in the side? - or, like the mastodon's huge tusks: a heavy, useless and ultimately self-destructive burden? What if the sense of being some-one represents an evolutionary error as disastrous to the further development of a more complex creature as was the shell for snails or turtles? He he he. What if? indeed: men must attempt to eliminate the error and develop in themselves and their children liberation from the sense of self. Man must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another, one set of values to another, one life to another. Men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways. Men have admired Prometheus and Mars too long; our God must become Proteus. I became tremendously excited with my thoughts: 'Men must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another' - why aren't they? At the age of three or four, children were willing to be either good guys or bad guys, the Americans or the Commies, the students or the fuzz. As the culture molds them, however, each child comes to insist on playing only one set of roles: he must always be a good guy, or, for equally compulsive reasons, a bad guy or rebel. The capacity to play and feel both sets of roles is lost. He has begun to know who he is supposed to be. The sense of permanent self: ah, how psychologists and parents lust to lock their kids into some definable cage. Consistency, patterns, something we can label - that's what we want in our boy. 'Oh, our Johnny always does a beautiful bower movement every morning after breakfast.' 'Billy just loves to read all the time...' 'Isn't Joan sweet? She always likes to let the other person win.' 'Sylvia's so pretty and so grown up; she just loves all the time to dress up.' It seemed to me that a thousand oversimplifications a year betrayed the truths in the child's heart: he knew at one point that he didn't always feel like shitting after breakfast but it gave his Ma a thrill. Billy ached to be out splashing in mud puddles with the other boys, but... Joan wanted to chew the penis off her brother every time he won, but ... And Sylvia daydreamed of a land in which she wouldn’t have to worry about how she looked . . . Patterns are prostitution to the patter of parents. Adults rule and they reward patterns. Patterns it is. And eventual misery. What if we were to bring up our children differently? Reward them for varying their habits, tastes, roles? Reward them for being inconsistent? What then? We could discipline them to be reliably various, to be conscientiously inconsistent, determinedly habit-free - even of 'good' habits.