This is a YouTube video titled "How to Teach Presence to Children in the Digital Age | Q&A Eckhart Tolle" containing a recorded Q&A session from August 6, 2021, featuring Eckhart Tolle responding to a parent's questions about raising children with spiritual awareness and presence. The discussion focuses on how to nurture children's being beyond just their actions, managing family energy, and addressing challenges like tantrums and attention in a modern, busy household environment.
My question is about my kids. I'm grateful that when I read.
A.
New Earth that it resonated with me. I've been looking for a spiritual path and it just made sense to me. It resonated with me and it took, I read the Power of Now years ago and I kind of read it and got it up here and put it on a shelf and kind of moved on. But this time it seems to have taken a little bit more. So I'm working at it. And I have four year old twins and an eight year old. So my question is how to teach them, to expose them to this. Because my wife and I have different views. She considers herself to be Catholic and I don't have an association with a standard religion, so to speak. The this seems to resonate with me. So I'm just trying to get a sense for how to interact with them and to share this with them.
Yes. So the twins are how old? Four.
Four. Yeah.
And the older one is.
He's eight.
Eight. That's a boy.
The oldest is a boy and the twins are boy, girl.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the most important thing is, and many even good parents don't know that first of all, the energy field at home, the energy that you and your wife generate at home, which is a reflection of both your states of consciousness is one of the most important factors. So what is the general energy field that on a daily basis you and your wife manifest generate in this home environment? I do know that nowadays many home environments have a very nervous energy field because everybody is so busy getting things done. The parents are busy getting things done. The children are encouraged to continuously do this and do that or sometimes encouraged to stop doing this or stop doing that. And then they have this additional layer of electronic devices, the pads, iPads and whatever other devices, Samsung and so on. The parents use them, the phones children begin to use them. But mainly the constant field almost stressful environment to visit some of these families. There's always something next thing to do that seems to the underlying in the underlying energy field. What's the next thing that we need to do? And have you done that yet? Come on, let's have you brushed your teeth? Okay, then do it. Many good meaning, well meaning parents interact with their children predominantly 90% or more, even 100% on the level of doing either do this or stop doing that.
I'm pretty good at being a human. Doing less good at being a human being.
Yes. So the being of the child is never fully acknowledged in order to acknowledge the being of the child, you have to spend moments when you give the child your fullest attention, not your fullest attention because you're talking about something that needs to be done, but your fullest attention, for example, by just listening to the child when he has something to say to you or tell a story, or giving your fullest attention occasionally by just observing them or him or her observing as they go about their life in the house. It just needs to be a few minutes where your attention rests upon them, even if they are sometimes not directly interacting with you. Because by observing them at play, for example, without telling them to do this or that, or don't do this or that, but simply allow your attention to rest on them and watch them if possible, in that state of relatively as much as possible thoughtless awareness where you're just the aware presence for the children. And then occasionally when you come in, when they come close to you to look into their eyes, doesn't have to be long, they don't even have to. You don't, don't say, let's look into each other's eyes, it doesn't work. You look into their eyes when you talk to them, when they talk to you. And, and in that moment of looking, you connect with their being. So that part of your interaction with the child is not based on doing, but on a flow of being towards the child. So that you connect on the level of being. That means you acknowledge the deeper reality of that child. You truly acknowledge their being. I would suggest that in modern families, in most modern families, children very often get in states of anxiety or great restlessness, later becoming in teenage years, becoming states of antagonism and anger. And I would suggest that often the child doesn't know why there is this anger and restlessness. It often goes back to the parent's inability, although they've done everything for the child on the doing level. But the children feel unseen by the parent. They feel unseen in their being, they are not acknowledged in their being. And if they are unseen, that vital dimension of their being feels starved. It is not encouraged by the child. And the deepest connection with the child is missing. The parent doesn't know that. They think, I'm really good, I'm doing all I can.
It makes sense because with the four year olds in particular, I get what you're saying, I get with all of them, but in particular with them, they're not getting that. I can see they're, they're angry about not getting the attention that they want. They throw really big tantrums.
Yes.
And my my 4 year old son actually gets physically angry.
Yes. So yes, yes, yes. Now you don't give them the attention when they demand it through throwing a tantrum. That's not the moment to give them. Although when the tantrum does happen, it's good if you can be spacious and allow it to be while it happens instead of reacting so that they don't pull you into a similar state of consciousness when you get angry because they are in a tantrum. So if you can then take that as a signal to be really alert and present and observe. And so that is not the moment though to connect, because the child at that moment isn't this the pain body is there covering up the essence of their being. So the moment they demand attention is not the best moment to give them attention. Because the demand for attention can also be an egoic thing. So it's not necessarily that they want. The ego doesn't want attention on the deepest level. It doesn't know what the deepest level level is. The ego wants a different kind of attention. It wants you to strengthen the ego in the child. And so it often is also a desire of the ego to control the environment because there's no other ways. So very young children cry very loud. It's an attempt of the developing ego to exert some control over the environment. And there it's good not to give them what they demand there, but give them attention in other moments. And the real attention is let your awareness rest upon them. Look at them, see them, they want to be seen. That's their being acknowledged, their being. So that again, I have to repeat it because it's so important. Don't always interact only through doing or don't do this, don't do that, which tends to be the case with families and with your wife the same. Make sure that there is some spaciousness in your relationship. No matter how busy the household is, make sure there is some spaciousness in the relationship between you so that there's some spaciousness emanating from both of you, some peace, even though you may be busy, but there's some peace emanation into the energy field in your home that comes from you. And that's. Children respond very much to the energy field that they grow up in that affects them very deeply. And the interaction between you and your wife is what generates that energy field. And then give them attention doesn't have to be long periods of time, but often at night, before bedtime and during the day. Watch them, listen to them occasionally fully, and don't interfere with some kind of advice necessarily. Just listen. Just look. Acknowledge their beautiful being, which is there, and that's the greatest thing you can do for the child.
