You have to give some level of liberty.
Smoking is not the end of the world.
Drinking is also not the end of the world.
Not that you are giving them freedom to do all these kind of things. You don’t like it,
but you have to, at times, let children learn certain mistakes on their own.
When you see that he or she is smoking,
find some hilarious stories or movies
depicting the negative effects of such bad habits
Share such movies. There is tons of information on such things
tons of information on drugs, tons of information on safe sex.
Provide them. Drinking again,
the knowledge is tremendous. We need to sit down and
remove this guilt of doing or not doing certain things with their others
Especially this peer pressure kills them.
You have to give confidence "You are greater [than this],
You have the ability
to say no to certain things use your wisdom. Guide your friends.
They can be foolish but you are wiser
If you do it, go ahead and do it and see the impact of it on your physical system mental system.
If you like to continue, go ahead” And give them the freedom,
”I will pay you. I’ll buy you a carton box of cigarettes.
But see for yourself as to how it helps you in your studies and in your physical well being, your health”
Show them all the the negative things that can happen because of all these things.
I remember,
I used to get a newsletter,
a printed copy,
‘how to raise children’,
in the early years, in the 80s, when
my boys were born one after the other.
The number one suggestion was: Never say 'do this' directly.
It is a beautiful suggestion, beautiful advice. In Sahaj Marg also
Babuji Maharaj, he never directly told an abhyasi, “Do this”.
He would say,
“arrey bhai, Sanjay bhai, [Brother Sanjay,]
aisa hota tho acha hota.” [if it happened this way,it would have been nice.]
The other person who is listening, to whom the advice is given, they’ll pick it up.
To a child, don't force him and say, “You must sleep now.”
No. Say something like, “Let’s make a rule. It is nine o’clock.
When this hand comes to this level,
you must sleep because the clock says so.” A child can understand all that.
Afterwards, they argue differently. That’s a different matter. But it is a matter of training
You are not teaching them the art of rebelling from an early age. Let them blame the clock.
As a parent, I have to be wiser than them.
I have to be better than them all the time in my thoughts, in my actions, in every possible way.
They may make hundreds of mistakes
But we make one mistake, they observe it and say, ‘Oh, you did this. You see?.’
And with this one mistake, they will say, “I can do as many”.
They will justify their hundred mistakes based on our one mistake.
So we have to be very careful, very, very careful.
Not to hide and do it, but be what we are, be honest to ourselves and say,
“Yes, my boy or my daughter, I am sorry I made this mistake.
At least accept it and then say, “Look, I will not do it again.”
I think raising children, especially teenagers, requires so much of care and,
I would say, some level of friendliness. One has to become a friend to the teenage children.