Paramahansa Yogananda on training children
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Parents should train their children

In this modern age, everybody needs to be trained, because they have so much temptation placed before them. All parents should train their children to develop a taste for better habits. Consider more seriously the responsibility of guiding your children… The very fabric of your family life is being destroyed because of the lack of moral and spiritual education at home as well as in the schools. You must do your part to teach your children to resist evil.

- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
The Divine Romance, Pg 325
: Words of Paramahansa Yogananda on Parenting

Paramahansa Yogananda on "How to Live" education
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"How to Live" education

I know a young couple who were married just four weeks ago, and already they are unhappy and coming to me for advice. It isn't academic education alone that makes people happy. It is "how-to-live" education—how to develop a harmonious, moral life, stronger will power, and spiritual understanding—that will bring happiness.

- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
The Divine Romance, Pg 325
: Give "How to live" education

Sri Daya Mata on not forcing spiritual views on children
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Never force spiritual views on children

Never force your own spiritual views on your children. Don't say to your child, "Because I'm meditating, you're going to meditate." Children are like flowers; allow them to grow up and develop their own personalities. There is nothing wrong with that. Your part is to provide them with the right example and sense of direction that they learn to love God, to accept and carry responsibilities, to be unselfish, to be kind to others the aggregate of qualities and virtues that is the measure of a spiritual-minded human being.

- Sri Daya Mata
The Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing
: Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing

Brother Anadamoy says, SRF parents put too much pressure on their children
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SRF parents put too much pressure on children

SRF parents want outstanding spiritual training for their children. We are putting too much pressure on children. They begin to think, "I need to excel or else I won’t be loved."

- Brother Anandamoy
Spiritualizing Family Life (A devotee's notes)
: Don't force Spirituality on kids

Paramahansa Yogananda on cultivating right habits in children
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Reason with your children

Reason with your children. Remind them that by developing wrong habits they are wading into the cesspool of error. If they should go on in that way, it will be too late for them to come out of it. All the joy of life will be over for them.

- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
The Divine Romance, Pg 325
: Words of Paramahansa Yogananda on Parenting

Sri Daya Mata says that training of children begins in the home
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Training of children begins in the home

The proper training of children begins in the home. The schools have "gone to pot," so to speak. But the deteriorating environment there is not entirely the fault of the schools. We must lay the blame where it belongs — lack of right education in the home.

- Sri Daya Mata
The Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing
: Effective Parenting: Spiritual Approach

Paramahansa Yogananda on taking seriously the responsibility of guiding one's children
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Guide your children

Consider more seriously the responsibility of guiding your children. Many bad habits are imposed on them in the environment of the schools! Influenced by other children, they feel they have no choice, if someone doesn't join the crowd and smoke or drink, he is considered a sissy. Youngsters thus succumb to all kinds of wrong behaviour.

- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
The Divine Romance
: Words of Paramahansa Yogananda on Parenting

Sri Daya Mata on setting the right example before children
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Set an example

The best chance for success in raising children is if the parents themselves set the right standards by their own example. Children need to see that the results of those standards imposed on them are beneficial. When guidance is given by example, and with love and understanding, it will enhance the karmic good already present in the children from their past lives, and provide opportunity for further growth. To thus nurture inherent good tendencies and to plant seeds of new ones in young lives given into their care is the God-given duty of parents — a skilled profession, indeed!

- Sri Daya Mata
The Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing
: Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing

Sri Daya Mata on guiding children with firmness and love
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Never use violence on a child

Children need discipline. I do not mean beating them; please understand that. Violence should never be used on a child! You have to guide children with firmness, but there must also be love. My point of reference is to look back to our years with Master [Sri Paramahansa Yogananda]: We young devotees on the path were, in a sense, children. He guided us with reason, and with firmness when necessary, but also with great love. That is the ideal.

- Sri Daya Mata
The Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing
: Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing

Paramahansa Yogananda on teaching children to meditate
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Teach children to meditate

Ever strive to establish the divine consciousness in your children by teaching them to meditate, that they be not tempted to play with the fire of delusive counterfeit joys.

- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
Man’s Eternal Quest, Pg 161
: Meditating with Children – SRF/YSS magazine

Paramahansa Yogananda on disciplining children with love
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The dicipline of love

Modern boys smoke, drink, do everything under the sun calculated to destroy their happiness, but I can vouch that these boys [referring to some boys trained by Him] have shown exemplary character without being coached or poked or unduly disciplined. The only discipline that I believe in is the discipline of love. We have grown with the spirit of love, and that is the main theme of our work. It is not wise to force anything, because truth is indigenous, it must come from within.

- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
Self-realization magazine, Nov-Dec, 1949
: Effective Parenting: Spiritual Approach

Sri Daya Mata on effectively communicating with children
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Effective communication

Take time to talk with your children. Answer their questions and explain your guidance to them in language they can understand. You cannot just say, "Don't do it." You have to reason with the child in a way that will get him to listen. One learns by listening, even if one does not agree with everything that is said. Encourage the child in willingness to listen. Constructive words will remain etched in his consciousness. He may be grateful for them when one day he himself becomes a parent.

- Sri Daya Mata
The Skilled Profession of Child-Rearing
: Effective Parenting: Spiritual Approach

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