WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Desires of children

24 November 1954

Sweet Mother, how can we help a child to come out of this habit of always asking?

There are many ways. But first of all you must know whether you will not just stop him from freely expressing what he thinks and feels. Because this is what people usually do. They scold, even sometimes punish him; and so the child forms the habit of concealing his desires. But he is not cured of them. And you see, if he is always told, "No, you won't have that", then, simply, this state of mind gets settled in him: "Ah, when you are small, people don't give you anything! You must wait till you are big. When I am big I shall have all that I want." That's how it is. But this does not cure them. It is very difficult to bring up a child. There is a way which consists in giving him all he wants; and naturally, the next minute he will want something else, because that's the law, the law of desire: never to be satisfied. And so, if he is intelligent, one can tell him, "But you see, you insisted so much on having this and now you no longer care for it. You want something else." Yet if he was very clever he would answer, "Well, the best way of curing me is to give me what I ask for."

Some people cherish this idea all their life. When they are told that they should overcome their desires, they say, "The easiest way is to satisfy them." This kind of logic seems impeccable. But the fact is that it is not the object desired that has to be changed, it is the impulse of desire, the movement of desire. And for this a great deal of knowledge is needed, and this is difficult for a very young child.

It is difficult. Indeed, they don't have the capacity for reasoning; one can't explain things to them, because they don't understand the reasons. So you see, when it is like that the parents usually tell the child, "Keep quiet, you are a nuisance!" [old p. 413]In this way they get out of the difficulty. But this is no solution. It [new p. 413]is very difficult. It asks for a sustained effort and an unshakable patience. Some people are like that all their life; they are like babies throughout their existence and it is impossible to make them see reason. As soon as one tells them that they are not reasonable and that one can't all the time be giving them things to satisfy their desires, they simply think, "These people are unpleasant. This person is not nice." That's all.

In fact, perhaps one should begin by shifting the movement to things which it is better to have from the true point of view, and which it is more difficult to obtain. If one could turn this impulsion of desire towards a... For example, when a child is full of desires, if one could give him a desire of a higher kind--instead of its being a desire for purely material objects, you understand, an altogether transitory satisfaction--if one could awaken in him the desire to know, the desire to learn, the desire to become a remarkable person... in this way, begin with that. As these things are difficult to do, so, gradually, he will develop his will for these things. Or even, from the material point of view, the desire to do something difficult, as for example, construct a toy which is difficult to make--or give him a game of patience which requires a great deal of perseverance.

If one can orient them--it requires much discernment, much patience, but it can be done--and if one can orient them towards something like this, to succeed in very difficult games or to work out something which requires much care and attention, and can push them in some line like this so that it exercises a persevering will in them, then this can have results: turn their attention away from certain things and towards others. This needs constant care and it seems to be a way that's most--I can't say the easiest, for it is certainly not easy--but the most effective way. To say "No" does not cure and to say "Yes" does not cure either; and sometimes it becomes extremely difficult also, naturally.

I knew people, for example, whose children wanted to eat [old p. 414]everything they saw. They were allowed to do it. So they fell [new p. 414]very ill. After that, they felt disgusted. But this is a little risky, isn't it? There are children who fidget with everything. Now, one day, you see, one child got hold of a box of matches. Then, instead of telling him, "Don't touch it", they let him do it: he burnt himself. He never touched them again.

But it is a little dangerous, because some children are altogether unconscious and very bold in their desires: for example, those who like to walk on the edge of a wall or the top of a roof or have the desire to plunge into water when they see it or to dive into a river... you see, this becomes sometimes very difficult... or those who have the mania for crossing the street: each time they see a car coming... they try to cross it. So if they are allowed to do so, the experience may one day be fatal.

Well, I knew people who did this. I don't know if they succeeded much in it. As I said, the child was burnt, but this was a nuisance because it left scars. And then too, one who played quite unthinkingly on the railing of a staircase and fell and half-broke his head... you see, this has its consequences. But to say "No" to them too doesn't cure them, quite the contrary. And to tell them, "Especially don't take this, this will harm you"--they don't believe it; they think it is just to get rid of their desire.

It is a very difficult problem. There was someone who had ideas like this, on freedom in education and who made theories to tell me that individual freedom should be respected to the extent of never making use of past experience for new people, and that we ought to leave them to make all their experiments themselves. This goes very far and they criticised me very much because I was trying to prevent accidents. So they told me, "You are absolutely wrong in preventing them." So I said, "But if someone dies?"--"Well, it means he had to die. You have no right to intervene in their destiny and the freedom of their development. They want to commit stupidities, let them do stupid things. When they realise that these are stupidities, they won't [old p. 415]do them." And there are cases in which one is sure never to do it again, because one has gone beyond the limit.[new p. 415]

It is a very difficult problem, if one wants to make a theory of it. But each case is absolutely different and asks for a different procedure. And in fact, if one truly wanted to give the best education to a child, well, one would have to spend all his time on it. One could not do anything else, because, even considering that one should not watch over him visibly, in order to do the right thing at the right time, one should always observe him, even without his knowing it. One would not be able to do anything else.

So, probably, one needs to find a middle term between the two, between the two extremes: that of watching over him all the time and that of leaving him absolutely free to do what he likes, without even warning him against the accidents which are likely to occur. An adjustment to make every minute! Difficult.