Nurturing Children's Development in a World That Lacks Attention | Eckhart Tolle

Ego is something that needs to be overcome. Schools should encourage children not to excessively identify with concepts.

Question is, on kids, I have a teenager at home, and like many, most teenagers, they tend to get unconscious. So I think what I've seen is when they are small, I mean, they are the most present, right? They are in the present and doing everything with joy. As they grow up, middle school, high school, some stage, we give them a cell phone. They have computers to work on homeworks and everything. And obviously they're trying to identify themselves and they become unconscious. So the question is, and it is a good spiritual practice, even for me, sometimes I can be conscious when they are unconscious, and sometimes you are drawn into the unconsciousness. So the question is, what can we do to bring in that presence into their lives? Or if there is anything that you are doing or Ekhart teachings is doing with the schools in middle schools or high schools, where we can have course or something where, you know, as a group, they can get some kind of presence teachings.

Yes, thank you. That's very important. Thank you. There's also. The question could also refer to parents, how to approach. Teenage years typically are difficult for. So the human ego has to. At that point, the human ego has to develop and grow. Unfortunately, the way it is for most humans on the planet so far is the human ego should be a limited time period when it grows in a human being. Let's say up to the age of 20, 25, at the most 30, let's say mid-20s. Then you cannot prevent the arising of ego in a child and an adolescent. Nor should you want to prevent it. It's not possible. They need to develop a sense of separate identity that is part of the evolution. The tragedy is, unfortunately, if people get stuck with that ego for the rest of their lives, they never go beyond it. So for a parent, to begin with parent, it's to observe the growth of the ego in the child, which already starts with. May start at the age of two or three when the child begins to. Well, the child learns his or her name. And then the child learns that it is possible to possess something. It learns the concept of mine fairly early. And so it possesses a toy and it learns the concept of my toy. That's the beginning of ego and then also the beginning of the suffering that comes with ego identification. Because if the toy is lost or disappears or somebody takes it, enormous suffering arises. Oh, oh, my toy. Mine. This is the early suffering of egoic consciousness. The next step would be for the child to assert that it is better in some ways than another. I can jump higher than you can. Can you dump this high? No, you can't. Look at me. I can do it. And parents say, you're great, you're doing it. And that's fine if you don't overdo the praise. Give praise when praise is deserved, but don't just praise anything, because there comes an inflation of praise. And that can create a narcissistic personality, which is an overblown ego. Married parents these days do that. They say, everything you do is so great, you're the greatest, you're wonderful, it feels good for the child. But when you print money, continue to print money, it loses its value. It's called inflation. I know that. But many politicians these days don't seem to know it. And they probably have degree in economics, but that's on the side. So you are there to gently guide them. You observe the growth of their ego. It has to gently guide them. And school ideally should prepare children for adulthood and should also prepare them perhaps for the transcendence of ego. Perhaps they can even just when I said 25 years old, just number came to me. Could already be at 21. Ego is something that needs to be overcome, but something that is necessary for certain stage of human development. So schools should encourage children not to excessively identify with concepts. And there are a few alternative schools, I believe that already to some extent do that. There are perhaps, I don't know, Montessori schools or Rudolf Steiner schools and so on. They to some extent they encourage children not to be excessively drawn into conceptualization at an early age. That is very dangerous. Also to be given the devices at a very early age has a very detrimental effect on their development. I know it's an easy thing to do for parents to keep them quiet, but it is not good for the growth of their consciousness. Children need to remain in touch for as long as possible with nature. Some way they need to be taken out into nature, even if it's just a park, but preferably out of the city periodically, where they are encouraged to interact with nature. Leave all the devices behind. Every school should do that. Take them out in groups where they spend time connecting with nature without their devices. These are all important things also to teach, even abstract subjects like mathematics and so on at too early an age is also detrimental for their development. So there are many things that I know. I have met quite a few teachers over the years who are already bringing that into their classrooms. But so far mostly on an individual basis. It's rare that it has become for it to become already part of the official curriculum. That's still relatively rare, although there are some schools now also. I don't know what schools they are, whether they may be private schools. They teach mindfulness, so called. I don't often use that term, but basically mindful is to be present in what you do. I don't use that term because it implies that your mind is full. So I'd rather not use that. But they teach mindfulness. So for a parent to encourage the child not to get lost in conceptualization, to encourage the child to continue to interact with nature. If you can't have an animal in the house, that is nature too, a cat or dog. Encourage the child to look after the animal, to relate to the animal. Animal presence can be very important in a home, especially for children. So it requires teachers to finally establish the teaching of presence as part of the curriculum. And that implies also it signifies. Help children to become aware of their emotions. That one of the most vital things. And if it's not taught at school, the parents have to do it, or the parents should do it anyway. Help the children to become aware of their emotions. Because the emotions can wreak havoc with a child's life. And sometimes they get amplified in the teenage years, when many adolescents become very hostile and they're consumed by negative emotions, by self hatred, by hatred of others, by hatred of everything. Very destructive emotions. So the most vital thing that a child already at an age of four or five needs to begin to be taught to observe his or her emotional field, rather than being always taken over by it. Sam.