On raising children <BGSOUND src="//www.oocities.org/waho047/smallwld.mid"> Tsinoy in Manila's musings on the proper way of raising children.
JOHNNIE'S REQUEST
A first grade teacher was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asks, "Johnnie, what's your problem?"
   Johnnie says,   "I'm too smart for the first grade. My sister's in the third grade and   I'm smarter  than she is!   I think I should be in the third grade!"  

The teacher had had enough. As a result, she took  Johnnie to  the principal's office and explained Johnnie's request.  

While  Johnnie waited  in the outer office, the teacher explained the situation to the principal.   The  principal   told   Johnnie's teacher that he would give the boy a test and if Johnnie failed to answer any of the special questions, he was to go back to the first grade  and  behave.    The  teacher agreed.

Johnnie  was  brought  into the r oom. The principal told Johnnie his terms and Johnnie agreed.  

Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"   Johnnie: "9"  
Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"   Johnnie: "36"  Principal: "What is 9 x 9?"   Johnnie: "81"  
And so it went with every question that the principal thought that a third grader should know. Johnnie appeared to have a strong case.
Tsinoy says: I missed the last two questions also. . . .You missed them too? So what does that make of us? Haaaaaahahahahaha! Maybe the principal, you and me should all go back to grade school and find out what went wrong with the way we think.  

Seriously though, there are two things that we can learn from the story. One is about the quality of innocence that children have. The other is the children's desire to break away from the past.
And so it is with childhood and teen years. Conflict arises when growth is curtailed. It runs counter to the course of nature. Just as a seed will blossom into a full grown tree, so will it be with children.
It looks contradictory, but letting the child go is very much a sign of love. It is a vote of confidence on the child's ability to stand on his own feet. But it will only come with the conviction that the child is not the extension of yourself as a parent. Kahlil Gibran aptly puts it thus, "Your children are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you".  

Cheers. Tsinoy
Quotes on Children

Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of little children are pure.  Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss. 
~ Black Elk~   

A society in which adults are estranged from the world of children, and often from their own childhood, tends to hear children's speech only as a foreign language, or as a lie. Children have been treated. as congenital fibbers, fakers and fantasisers. 
~ Beatrix Campbell ~  

Don't throw away your friendship with your teenager over behavior that has no great moral significance. There will be plenty of real issues that require you to stand like a rock. Save your big guns for those crucial confrontations.  ~ Dr. James C. Dobson

It needs courage to let our children go, but we are trustees and stewards and have to hand them back to life--to God.
~ Alfred Torrie ~  

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings. 
~ Brian Tracy ~   


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The principal looked at the teacher and told her, "I think Johnnie can go to third grade."

The teacher, knowing Little Johnnie's tendency toward sexual wisecracks, said to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions before we make that decision."  

The principal and Johnnie both agreed, Johnnie with a sly look on his face.   The teacher began by asking, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"  

Johnnie: "Legs."  

Teacher: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"  

The principal's eyes open wide! Before he could stop Johnnie's expected answer, Johnnie said, "Pockets."  
The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "I think we should put Johnnie in the fifth grade. I missed the last two questions myself!" 
From Ms. Delete at voy.net
Yes, parents often put so much restrictions on their kids that it almost looks like they are back in the womb. They can grow and move around inside the womb. But only up to nine months. After that, the struggle to break loose begins. And it is accompanied by intense pain at childbirth. It will hurt, because nature requires the child to find a new space for its growing self.
And just like Johnnie in the story, a child will always look for ways to grow. Osho warns, "The more boundaries for growth are created, the more the freedom is killed; the child suffers - and hatred is born. But if you help the child to move away, he will never hate you."
Johnnie understood the last two questions well. His mind is pure. It is not tainted with malice. It does not indulge in innuendoes. It has no fixations. His answer came naturally. It is with this frame of mind that he is able to see things as they are. That is why he is able to appreciate the beauty of his surrounding, and enjoy the company of friends. He is unlike the grown-ups in the story of "The Little Prince" who are perpetually occupied with "matters of consequence". To the little prince, however, what they were doing were the most inconsequential things in their own lonely planets.
The second point brings to mind another story about a child after his first day in school. Upon coming home, his parents asked Peter, "what did you learn in school today?"   Peter replied, " for the first time, I learned that my name is Peter and not Don't!"