Karma Kids: Answering Everyday Parenting Questions with Buddhist Wisdom - Softcover

Holden, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1569754195 ISBN 13: 9781569754191

Publisher: Ulysses Press, 2004

Synopsis

Based on traditional Buddhist wisdom but written with a modern American reader in mind, this guide to incorporating Buddhism into everyday life outlines fun activities that help parents inculcate the principles of generosity, compassion, patience, and mindfulness into their child's everyday life. Original.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Enthusiasm and
Homework Do Mix
You probably hear it the moment the kids come home: "Why do we have to do homework? Can’t we play first?" If your kids are like mine, they’ll roll out every trick in the book in an attempt to avoid doing their assignments. I’ve heard: "I’ll do it while my sister is at her violin lesson," "It’s not due until next week," or my favorite, "It’s really easy. I can do it in a couple of minutes. I’ll get to it later."
I wish my daughters would enjoy doing their homework and look on it as a positive experience. But no matter how much I try to impress on them the importance of homework to their overall learning, my words don’t seem to have an effect unless they are backed up by routine. My own daily Buddhist practice has helped me to create a homework ritual you might want to try.
Things to Do
Creating a Homework Ritual
Ritual is an important part of Buddhist practice. Think about your daily meditation or the prayers you do every day. You can do them anywhere, but they have greater impact if you do them at the same time and in the same place, using the same ritual objects. Objects such as a meditation cushion, prayer book, and special cloth to place under the prayer book give your prayers more meaning. Doing your prayers at the same time every day helps you remember to do them all.
Sometimes, I get so consumed by work and the kids that the only way to fit in my daily practice is to know that it will be done at exactly the same time and place―at the end of the day, just before I go to bed. Sometimes I begin my practice while soaking in the tub, then finish in my room in front of my altar. Two mornings a week, I pick up my children from their mother’s house. I have established a routine of doing some morning prayers in the car on my way there.
In a similar way, all the talking and yelling in the world won’t get your kids to do their homework willingly unless you unless you establish a homework ritual. Come up with an official time that your children recognize as "homework time," and a place where they can do their homework if they so choose. Doing so can turn homework into a sort of spiritual practice for children (though I wouldn’t call it that; they might "freeze up" and not do their homework if you invest it with too much importance). Here are some suggestions:
F Have your kids do homework at the same time every day. For me, this is immediately after they return from school. After dinner also works well.
F Have a signal that announces the start of homework time. You can ring a bell (bang the side of a "singing bowl" if you have one) or do what I do: Utter the words "Homework time!" while you are putting your coat and bags away.
F Cover the table with a special cloth that is used only for homework.
F Provide workspaces where kids can do their work. They’ll probably sit wherever they want, but you can arrange a variety of tables, chairs, and nooks so they have options from which to choose.
Bedtime Stories
Did the Buddha have to do homework?
The Buddha, when he was still Prince Siddhartha, had everything any kid could ever want. But he did go to school and, yes, he had to do his homework. In fact, he is said to have learned sixty-four different languages and to have been really good at math and science.
After a few days of studying with the wisest ministers in the kingdom, the teachers went to the King and reported, "Your Majesty, the Prince does not need us anymore. After only a few lessons, he has learned everything we have to teach him. In fact, he has taught us a few things that we ourselves never knew before!"1
The Buddha wanted to do more than what was expected of him, so he made up his own program of study. The entire universe was his set of textbooks and the experience of life was his school.
Discussion Starters
"This is so boring. Why do I have to do homework,
anyway?"
Tell your kids the following: The Dalai Lama and many other Buddhist teachers for hundreds and hundreds of years before him had to go to really tough schools. They were tested constantly by debating points with other students. They had to memorize long prayers that didn’t make much sense at first. But later on, the meaning became clear to them.
So don’t rush through your assignments so you can veg out in front of the TV. Find something that grabs you and think about it. For instance, maybe you learned in science class that it takes worker bees ten million trips between the hive and the flowers to gather enough nectar to make one pound of honey. Think really hard about that one point for a minute. Ask yourself: How does it make me feel? What do I want to do badly enough to make ten million trys to succeed?
Take that single minute of thinking and carry it with you throughout the day as a memory of something cool that you learned in school. The next day, try to find two such minutes. The next day, try to find three.
If you have a bad day and nothing seems to go right, don’t give up. Try again the next day to find one positive moment and start building up those tiny, positive moments once again. No matter what the subject, you can keep yourself from being bored. It all depends on making the cool stuff you learn part of who you are.
Things to Do
Building Motivation
If your kids are having a hard time doing homework, or they complain that they’re bored in class, tell them the following:
The fact is, nobody can do what they like all the time. Sometimes you just have to do things. A task can be an unpleasant ordeal, something you just have to "get through," or it can be meaningful, positive experience. The difference is in your motivation―your reason for doing what you do.
Buddhists believe that the best reason for doing things is because they help other people. Tell yourself that, just for today, your motivation for going to school will be to learn how to be a nicer and wiser person so that you can help others.
Instead of comparing yourself to the kid sitting next to you, think about how lucky you are to be a human who can learn and think. What lion in the jungle or aardvark in the zoo could possibly hope to learn such cool stuff? You might forget the capitals of half the states as soon as the test is over, but the habit of using your brain will stay with you forever.
If your motivation for doing your assignments is to keep from being yelled at or to get a good grade, you’ll have a tough time staying interested in your schoolwork. Instead, try some play-acting in your mind to build good motivation:
F Pretend that your homework assignment is a great gift that has been handed to you by royalty.
F Tell yourself that doing this assignment will help others through a terrible crisis.
F Remind yourself that you, and you alone, are fortunate enough to be able to do this thing that will make the world a better place.
F Pretend that each problem that you do, each sentence that you write, and each fact that you memorize is a single brick. Keep thinking that when you have enough bricks, you can build a great monument to knowledge that will keep bad things from happening in the kingdom.
F When you are done with your homework, take a second to picture in your mind that this single assignment has added to your own knowledge and the world’s knowledge.
F Envision kids sitting at their desks after school all around the world adding their bricks to the monument to knowledge.
F Each day as more and more homework assignments are done, see the monument growing higher and higher like a great castle. Armies of ignorance try to attack, but the monument stands firm.
Tip Help Your Kids to Dedicate

Edition details

• Publisher: Ulysses Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1569754195
• ISBN 13: 9781569754191
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192