Parenting advice

From Symmetry of Soul

This is a general collecting area for the co-hosts of Symmetry of Soul as they compile parenting advice from hither and yon. It is not all based directly on The Urantia Book, but it all strives to be truthful.

Wise restrictions must be imposed on unwise young humans

  • Maintaining order in a home, in a classroom, or among hormonal teenagers requires imposing restrictions on those unwise young humans.
    • Structure, boundaries, routines, and guidance.
    • "From a child's point of view, [rules] must all seen terribly unfair and restrictive...When our children are young, they don't understand what might be dangerous. Our rules are to keep them from harm, real or imagined. That's part of the continuity of our human species. When our children grow up, they will make rules for their children to protect them, as we protected them." —Picard, Season 5, Imaginary Friend
    • This is time-tested parenting knowledge in danger of being forgotten or lost by Western civilization in the name of unbridled personal liberty, and the fallacy that spirit is somehow innately divine (it is not)
    • Kids have always wanted to rebel.
      • "Those kids with their rock and roll music" is a sentiment you can find in texts from ancient Greece.
      • This is not inherently a problem, the battle of the generations.
      • The problem now is spirit energy is in play in a way that makes the Lucifer rebellion one of the things children are drawn toward. "You can do whatever you want, you're already divine."
      • Genuine rebellion has a physics to it, and it is a dangerous physics. Real harm can befall you.
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode
  • Article exploring discipline that is not rash punishment.
    • NEVER while the parent’s temper is elevated or lost.
    • Spanking? Only for willful disobedience.
  • Ideas:
    • both parents must be present, as a check on temper issues.
    • discern the motive. Is it just “meh because I don’t wanna” childish petulance? Or might it be something higher? “But that isn’t fair! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Cultivate mind well

  • We have little innate ability to distinguish "horizonal" versus "vertical" motions of mine.
    • Notice how easily strong feelings (horizontal) are equated with spirit (a vertical aspiration). Thoughts versus feelings
    • Source: March 3, 2015 episode
    • Help a child learn to manage their emotions, so it isn't all "feelings, nothing more than feelings."


Don't preach materialism or monism to children


  • What are the stakes? Let's run through them.
  • If we're just matter (just bodies) and there is no mind, a child will not see how mind can dominate matter.
    • They will be inclined to be tosses about by their flesh (notably the sex urge during puberty).
    • They will be disinclined to adhere to any of the mores, since following a more implies a phenomenon of mind.
    • They will develop few to no tools within themselves to "restrain and control" [82:3.3] the urges of the body.
  • This is not just a remote ivory tower debate.
  • A child who is never taught they have mind separate from body will have a caustic, self-destructive, debased worldview.
    • They will have a sad to record... life at best, an unbearably miserable one at worst.
  • Any serious student of The Urantia Book surely sees the foundational importance of mind. Why would they allow their children to be told by the mainstream that they do not have a mind (or the equivalent, "your mind is just the functioning of your brain.")
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode

See if their generation can dare...

  • to wholly reject ceremonies of spirit propitiation [87:5.8]

Prof. Michael Sugrue

  • (Jan 2022) Recommendations on a reading plan for a young child to get them started learning the great books of literature and philosophy?
    • Not the right question to ask; unask the question.
      • Read Mill's Autobiography for why education needs balance, which combines childish joy and childish learning.
    • Comedy and jokes can be cognitive, in the early years education is mostly about emotions and their expression, like sympathy and anger and frustration and security.
    • When teaching my daughters to write
      • we copied lines from the book of Proverbs
      • we talked about ants and why God likes them
      • we went outside and looked at them together, confirming the godly diligence of bugs.
    • When they got older
      • the maxim I used was "Clever girls get chocolate", which boosts learning painlessly.
      • At supper when they were of school age, my first question at the table every evening was What did you learn today?, and no answer means no dessert.
      • After that, I might secretly transfer some of the small raw carrots on my plate to my ears and nostrils, which resulted in much laughter and occasional disorder at mealtime.
    • I always told my daughters, when I played the fool, I wasn't just playing.
    • Don't require any reading, rather,
      • tell your child about Aesop's Tortoise and Hare.
      • Explain the Parable of the Good Samaritan, ask your child to consider if it is a good thing to be kind and to help people.
    • Apart from that, relax.

Joyce Meyer

  • Give your kids a chance to grow up and let God work in their life. Don’t be hyper critical and break their spirit. (Feb 2024)

Seven stages of childhood

See also: Child development

[123:2.5] There were few homes in the gentile world of those days that could give a child a better intellectual, moral, and religious training than the Jewish homes of Galilee.

Per Jewish custom in Jesus' time, a child’s life was divided into seven stages. These are the stages as laid out in The Urantia Book, with notes beneath each drawn from from Edersheim (1876)[1], a notable human sourcework for The Urantia Book.

  1. The newborn child, the first to the eighth day.
    • In Hebrew, jeled or jalah (feminine)
  2. The suckling child.
    • In Hebrew, jonek, literally suggestive of the "suckers" of a plant.
    • In Hebrew, olel meaning partly weaned (suckling but also eating bread)
    • This ended by age 2 in Jesus' time, and was celebrated with a feast.
  3. The weaned child.
    • In Hebrew, gamul conveying a sense of "weaned" or "completed."
    • Around age 3, certain passages or scripture or certain prayers might be taught for rote memorization.
  4. The period of dependence on the mother, lasting up to the end of the fifth year.
    • In Hebrew, the taph
  5. The beginning independence of the child and, with sons, the father assuming responsibility for their education.
    • In Hebrew, the elem or almah (feminine), a denotation of becoming firm or strong.
    • When the average child would be expected to begin read scripture. The extraordinary child might start at age 5, but only the extraordinary child, because the average 5-year-old's mind would be "irreparably" strained.
  6. The adolescent youths and maidens.
    • In Hebrew, the naari, in a sense of "he who shake himself free."
  7. The young men and the young women.
    • In Hebrew, bachur, or "the ripened one."

Why do the heathen rage?

Study [155:1]. Are you sending your children into a school environment that is vastly different than the home environment? That's never easy, but don't be a helpless victim of this situation. Could there be a better place for a child to learn the meaning of "Why do the heathen rage?" "Because they known not the truth."

The balancing act here is to not allow you children to tip over into smug self-righteousness. A degree of aloofness from the unruly children? Yes. But no self-righteousness.

"If you desire to enter the kingdom, why do you not take it by spiritual assault even as the heathen take a city they lay siege to? You are hardly worthy of the kingdom when your service consists so largely in an attitude of regretting the past..., whining over the present, and vainly hoping for the future. Why do the heathen rage? Because they know not the truth. Why do you languish in futile yearning? Because you obey not the truth. Cease your useless yearning and go forth bravely doing that which concerns the establishment of the kingdom."

The purpose of education...

SEEK ANAGENESIS for them.

Foster the child to find their own God-given objective center. The center between the two eyes. Move them around in the plane until you find the way up.

Almost almost all children have a subjective center that is OFF center (biased to one eye or the other).

(via Chris H Jan 2022)

Their own religious experience??

  • Abandon them to nature at the secular world? NO!
  • Help carve the channel for their thoughts.
    • It will be mechanical, rote memorization at first.
    • "Always put God first."
    • "No matter how much material gravity seems to pull you down,r ememebr there is always a place inside of spirit gravity, where God is."
    • "Love is all you need? NO. That lvoe exists int he context of the divine law. You must meet God halfway (the famous painting)"
    • But eventually they will be grown into the truth of it.
  • Don't approach this factually, but truthfully:
    • "Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready-made adult experience upon him." [100:1.3]
    • That doesn't mean "Hands off, let nature take its course."!!
    • It doesn't say anything about forcing a ready-made CHILD experience upon him.
  • Help them understand the concept of the divine law.
    • Don't worry about all the details. Those will come in time.

Books

"Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise, you are making their destiny not brighter but darker." --C.S. Lewis

  • The Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas
  • Shane, by Jack Schaeffer
  • 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
  • The Man Who Would Be King, by Rudyard Kipling
  • Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
  • Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
  • The Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis
  • The Once and Future King<, by TH White
  • Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
  • <source: Ben Shapiro, dailywire.com>

Know thyself

  • focus on knowing yourself. Not merely asserting yourself
  • <Brad thinking of his Montessori education>
  • Watch out for sprirital animation in an immature mind.
  • "Assert thyself" is the battle cry of the Lucfer rebellion.

Consider the "Adverse Childhood Experience" data

  • Abuse: Emotional, Physical, Sexual
  • Neglect: Emotional, Physical
  • Household dysfunction in parents: Mental illness, Substance Abuse, Divorce, Incarceration, Mother treated violently
  • Source: [[1]]

From the Apostles

  • "Even parents may learn from Philip the better way of saying to their children not “Go do this and go do that,” but rather, 'Come with us while we show and share with you the better way.'" [139:5.8]

Parental habits to maybe try

  • A great dad line from Jesus to induce eye rolls in the kids: "My brethren, you are earthen vessels; it is best for you to go to your rest so as to be ready for the morrow’s work." [140:6.14]
  • “May your wisdom equal your zeal and your courage atone for your ignorance.” [140:7.7]
  • Handwrite encouraging thoughts and religious ideas on cards in their lunch boxes each day. Form mom and dad.

From the Lucifer Rebellion

  • No affectionate father is ever precipitate in visiting punishment upon an erring member of his family. Patience cannot function independently of time. [54:5.4]
  • Teach your children to be sophistry proof against all the cleverly crafted spiritual candy peddled by aggressive secularists.

On screens

  • The problem isn't television or any screen
  • The problem is a parenting philosophy that says children are innately divine and innately self-actualizing. They should be left alone with no discipline.
  • Nope. Actually, Lucifer said that!
  • Source: 2010-10-13 episode

Ordered home

  • A father orders the home
    • “...a tremendous responsibility rests upon all earthly fathers so to live and order their homes that the word father becomes worthily enshrined in the minds and hearts of all growing children.”
  • A mother's care provides the initial impressions of... the UNIVERSE! and on father for first ideas of the Heavenly Father.
  • Source: [177:2]

On the inevitabilities

  • A wise parent does not try to absolutely shield their children from the inevitabilities. This is what fuels growth in the evolutionary domain.
    • God is the author of both sides of each of the inevitabilities.
    • God is also the upholder of the tension held between the two endpoints.
    • And yes, this is the God of love. Let your children know the God of love. It's not sappy love; it's that tough love that's sometimes necessary for the long-term view (no one takes a longer view than the Universal Father!)
    • Source 2023-05-23 episode

What Hymns to to include in early home religious culture

Main article: Hymns

What Proverbs to teach in early home religious culture

  • Bible
    • Proverbs 6 (God loves the ants)
    • James 1 "Consider it nothing but joy"
  • TUB

How do the commandments apply in early home life?

Publications by other Urantia Book students

Jewish religious culture lessons

  • Deuteronomy 6:6 has God commanding us to talk about proper values with our children constantly.
    • Not just at major holidays
    • Not just as idle chit-chat
    • Not only when they get in trouble
    • The is foundation of the Shema Yisrael daily prayer in their life.

Media with good lessons

  • Star Trek
    • Tapestry
    • The Inner Light
    • Chain of Command
    • The Drumhead
    • The Thaw
    • (Ds9 Kira betrayed Odo’s trust and asks forgiveness)
  • Frasier
    • The Good Samaritan
    • Three Valentines
  • The Black Stallion
  • The Lion King
  • Finding Nemo
  • Shrek
  • The Neverending Story
  • It’s a Wonderful Life
  • Elf

Music

  • Classical and such
    • The Four Seasons
    • Mendelssohn: Octet, Two Piano Trios, Violin Concerto, Cello Sonata
    • Schubert: Cello Quintet, Two String Sextets, Death and the Maiden String Quartet, Du Bist Die Ruh, Erlkönig, Ave Maria
    • Beethoven: all symphonies, all string quartets
    • Haydn: string quartets, cello concertos
    • Massenet: Meditation from Thais
    • Arvo Pärt: Fratres, Spiegel Im Spiegel
    • Debussy: Cello Sonata, String Quartet
    • Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, Cello Sonata
    • Britten: Young Persons’s Guide to the Orchestra
    • Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals
    • Dvorak: Cello Concerto, Symphonies (8, 9)
    • Barber: Violin Concerto, String quartet (Adagio for strings)
    • JS Bach: Solo Violin repertoire, Ave Maria, Chaconne
    • Ravel: Pavane
    • Faure: Pavane, Sicilienne
    • Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Piano Trio
    • Brahms: Symphony No. 3
    • Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Souvenir de Florence, Symphonies (4 and 6), Swan Lake, Piano Concerto No. 1
    • Respighi: Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome
    • Holst: The Planets
    • Grieg: Peer Gynt
    • R Strauss: Tone Poems
    • Verdi: Requiem
    • Mozart: Requiem
    • Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
    • Sibelius: Finlandia, Violin Concerto
    • Orff: Carmina Burana
    • Franck: Violin Sonata
    • Sousa: Stars and Stripes
    • Rossini: Barber of Seville, William Tell
    • Bernstein: West Side Story

References

  1. ↑ Specifically chapter 7 here.
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