Post Info TOPIC: Children Emotions – Part One
L Venkata Ranga

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Children Emotions – Part One
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Indian tradition recognizes nine rasas as representing our most important and basic emotions: love, joy, wonder, courage, calmness, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. These emotions are universal to mankind. Five are desirable, while four are unpleasant and usually undesirable.

Watch a small child carefully and you will be able to see displays of all nine of the basic emotions: 1) A baby smiles and gazes adoringly at his mother, showing the emotion of shringaar, charm or love. Overcome with love for the infant, she picks him up, cuddles him and showers him with kisses. This is what the baby wanted, a physical confirmation of mother’s presence and love. He knows exactly how to display his needs by way of facial expressions when he is barely three months old. 2) A loud noise startles and wakens the baby and he cries out in fear, bhayanak. This cry is distinct from all other cries. 3) Try spooning a cooked and mashed vegetable into an infant’s mouth. As he sniffs, tastes, spits out and makes a horrible face he is expressing bibhatsa, disgust, with the new taste, very different from that of milk, his staple diet so far. 4) A ladybug lands on his table, walks across, flutters her wings and takes off. The child is wide-eyed with adbhut, wonder or fascination, and has watched every move made by the ladybug. 5) A child has learned to climb a ladder and gets a better view. He is feeling very accomplished and veer, brave, a hero of his own world. 6) Laughing when tickled is a child’s expression of haasya, joyous humor and laughter. 7) In a hurry, the mother stubs her toe and cries out in pain. A child as young as two, will reach out, wipe mom’s tears and touch the injury in an expression of karuna, compassion, empathy or mercy. 8) Children fighting may display roudra, anger. 9) A well-fed and relaxed baby that is asleep does look angelic. He is shanta, tranquility or calmness, personified. Besides these, a child can display with equal ease and mastery a few more inherent emotions, such as greed, selflessness, obstinacy, curiosity, clinginess, generosity, dependency, violence, arrogance and rudeness.

I also recall Swami Chinmayananda talking to a group of young mothers after a Sunday Balavihar. He said, “For the first seven years, treat the child as if he is god; for the next seven years treat him as you would treat a servant; for the next seven years treat him as if he were a slave; and for the next seven years and beyond, treat him as if he were your friend.” He went on to explain why. “A child in his first seven years is in the realm of innocence. He lives in the here and now. He is ruled by his inborn instincts and impulses and is mainly governed by his bio-physiology. He has no awareness of the duality of the adult world. He has no malice. His love is pure. His hatred and anger are pure; so, too, are his fears, compassion and violence. In his purity and innocence he is god-like, akin to the elements of nature. At this stage, there is no need for bringing about changes in a child’s expressions of emotions by inducing fear, beating, berating, humiliating or forcing the child. Let him weather the storm. Let him live through his emotional upheaval and outburst. “In the next seven years, the child’s milk teeth are falling. He has been through a few childhood illnesses and is aware of pain. He is beginning to read and write. Now the child, just like a servant, is ready to obey authority. He is eager to learn what will please his parents, teachers and friends. He is beginning to figure out what brings him praise and goodwill. Treat this child with the utmost dignity. Into his receptive ears, pour all the good moral stories from cultures around the world. Don’t just read like a machine. Read and discuss the stories with your child. Encourage the child to think, imagine and question. Set a positive example and be a good role model for your child to emulate. Appeal to the child’s inherent sense of justice, fairness, love, compassion, kindness and reciprocity. No child has ever been born without these beautiful qualities,” said Swamiji, his bright and lively eyes blazing with conviction. “For the next seven years, treat him like a slave, in the sense that he should now learn that life has serious responsibilities and obligations. To do this you do not have to be-come a cruel slave driver. Teach him about money, social codes and ethics, about the value of work and education. Teach him to respect physical labor. Encourage him to accomplish challenging tasks that will give him strength and confidence in himself. Teach him about consequences, the ripple effect and repercussions. And once your child has reached twenty one years of age, stop treating him like a child. If you have treated him right from the first day, he will know to take charge and be a man. From now on he will be your friend for rest of your life, and you will be his friend.” It need not be told that life begets life, tolerance breeds tolerance, love generates love, hatred brings more hatred and violence leads to more violence. The natural display of rasas during childhood gives parents and children an opportunity to make a fresh and correct start. A child raised in an environment imbued with love, acceptance and tolerance learns to accept these values as natural and can find in himself a reserve of these very same qualities, from which he can give to others freely when needed.

Continued…..Next Week

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Penn State

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Oh!Wonderful article. Looking forward to the next installment.


I have children in the first 2 parts and I can fully understand what Swamiji tried to tell parents. Sometimes it becomes difficult and that is when these kinds of sermons become important. That all parents face pretty much the same headaches, which after being surmounted we as parents wonder why we thought it was a mountain of a problem!



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natarajkr

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Indeed a very strong reading and a palatable food for brain to put any one into a thoughtful mood.

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GVK

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natarajkr wrote:


Indeed a very strong reading and a palatable food for brain to put any one into a thoughtful mood.


It might interest you, Mr Nataraj, and others who have flair for such writings, that I have persuaded Mr Venkata Ranga to link his blog to this site. 

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H.R.Bapu Satyanarayana

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        The article threw quite a light on children exhibiting 9 rasas. Then followed how the children should be brought up which made interesting reading. I had read a book according to which there are three stages when the children assimilate impressions: upto 11 months, upto three years and upto 11 years. According to the book almost 80%  or more of child's learning capacity and attitude are imprinted by 11 years and whatever it acquires beyond that is very little. Hence these stages are very important which define childs behaviour and  attitude. It casts a heavy responsibility on the parents in bringing up the child because what  he/she is going to be in future is already imprinted. I am an admirer of Mata Amrithnandamayi and according to what she says, the child should be brought up in loving atmosphere upto the age of 5, From 5-15 love with strict discipline and afterwrds they shoudl be treated with lots of love. Of course, despite this there are chances of children falling into bad company (peer pressure) and losing their way. But eventually the upbringing of love has a greater chance of bringing them back on track. The other problem I have observed is the trauma that mother goes through while inducing the child to eat. In earlier times the mother would either distract its attention  to a buttefly or a crow, making aspound or by telling stories or  bribing with some goodies. But nowadays the most convenient ploy is the TV  cartoons or Animal Kingdom. It is a heartbreaking task for the much harried mother specially if she is working. In USA I have seen children have no attractiion to Indian delicacies and plump for fast food. Ajji's loving thindis are consigned to the frige or more probably stored elsewhere and thrown awy when it goes bad. I know majority of the Indian mothers  have given up the fight and reconciled to the reality hoping sometime in the future children when they grow up take to it. It is normally a wasted hope. I would like to share my experience to induce my children take to eating everything without reservation. I used to leave my children  when they strated eating solid food by firmly planting them on  widely spread newspapers without any clothes  and give them food on a plate and ask them to eat. Strictly o watching. I let them make a mess of themselves eating. May be I was fortuante and both my  children ate  to their fill. That helped in later years and now they eat everything with out reservation and sumptuosly. I have shared this for what it is worth. Having said that I must say each child is an experiment and no universal rule can be applied. Yes, there are broad guidelines which help. Another abiding  feeling of childhood for my children now in their forties is the time we used to spend with them in parks, taking to circus or childrens's film and strictly no pocket money. Visit to hotel was rarest of rare times. These ahve paid rich dividends for me Of course these things nowadays look archaic with mobiles, motor cycles/car,TV, exposure to internet and fat pockaet money etc and no time for both working parents. My own feeling is despite all the modern facilities which we can not just ignore it is possible to bring up children with good value system. But then it is a tough world and there are no easy options.

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L Venkata Ranga

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Part two has been added in this link

http://lvenkataranga.blogspot.com/

regards

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GVK

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Part Two & Last of 'Child-Rearing' post, with more photos, appears on Venkata Ranga's Blog. (Click on this)

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Saraswathi Vattam

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Very good article and thought provoking.  Looking forward for the next instalment!



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Lakshmi

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Great article. Whenever I observe my two-and-half year old daughter, I am amazed at the range of emotions she can show, without masking any.

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