MIND DISCIPLINE!--Maria
Maria No.50
5/86
--Teaching Children to Concentrate!
1. WE SHOULD SPEND EXTRA TIME WITH TECHI NOW BECAUSE SHE REALLY NEEDS TO LEARN ALL OVER AGAIN HOW TO APPLY HERSELF, to really concentrate. I've been seeing through many incidences throughout the day that she certainly needs this concentrated, personal training.
2. I SAW THAT SHE WASN'T WHOLEHEARTEDLY GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS, SO I TALKED TO HER ABOUT CONCENTRATING, how important it is to give her Word time her full concentration & get as much out of it as possible.
3. APPARENTLY IT'S A TERRIBLE BATTLE FOR HER TO CONCENTRATE IF SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE READING SOMETHING THAT SHE'S REALLY NOT INTERESTED IN. Unless she's interested in it, she can't get anything out of it. So I sent her back to read the Daily Might again & said, "This time really concentrate & pray & we'll talk about it again, & then I'll give you a little test." And upon hearing this she again got tearful & didn't seem very inspired about the idea at all.
4. MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST START OVER WITH HER AGAIN & TEACH HER TO DO THINGS RIGHT, TO REALLY APPLY HERSELF. Otherwise, she's just gonna float off into her own dreamland & develop that bad habit in her life & think she just doesn't have to do the job right. She prefers to do it half-way & she prefers to do as little as she has to & she just kind of wanders off into space doing her own thing. It's good if she can be interested in the things she reads & studies, & we try to make things as interesting as possible, but we can't always & it's not possible to always be exceptionally interested in every single thing we read, but nevertheless we still need to read it. But the problem with her is that she just won't read it unless she wants to!
5. I CAN SEE WHY THE YEAR BEFORE YOU GO TO SCHOOL YOUR MOTHER REALLY TRIES TO TEACH YOU TO DO THINGS ON YOUR OWN, BECAUSE BY THE TIME YOU GET TO SCHOOL, YOU'VE GOT TO BE A GOOD FOLLOWER & be on time & pull your own weight, or you're really left behind! System school is really effective at teaching children those things. School forces you, because you're in a controlled situation.--Either you obey the rules & follow & study & learn, or you get a demerit, or punishment, or you get a bad grade!
6. YOU LEARN IN SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU'RE FORCED TO CONTROL YOUR MIND. Although there are so many awful disadvantages, there are also some real advantages to System school.--It teaches you to control your mind & to apply yourself & to concentrate on your work, even if you don't like it! You may have homework to do in all these different subjects that you're not even interested in, but you've just got to sit down, concentrate, do your best & get the job done, or else you fail & there are no two ways about it! It's up to you! It'd probably help our Family children to know how System children are taught & disciplined in school & to see what's required of them. Maybe it'd envision our children to try harder for the Lord's school & His work if they knew what System children do for the System!
7. I THINK YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO DO TECHI'S WORK RIGHT ALONG WITH HER, TEACH HER TO FORM GOOD HABITS, EXPLAIN TO HER WHY IT'S NECESSARY & TALK TO HER ABOUT DAYDREAMING. It's really bad & really hard when you just can't concentrate. Pisces have, you know, very good memories, so if they don't like what's going on in the present, it's very easy for them just to float back into the past & daydream & get completely distracted! The better memory you have, the more it can be a distraction.
8. MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE SOME POW-WOWS WITH THE CHILDREN ABOUT DAYDREAMING & LEARNING TO KEEP THEIR MINDS DISCIPLINED. Explain to the children why they should discipline their minds, how very important it is, so they won't let their minds "do their own thing." To do your own thing is never good for the Lord, or for His work, or for anyone! We're supposed to be an army, a team, working together with one goal & one mind & one spirit. We've got to work together unitedly & wholeheartedly & with our whole minds, therefore, our minds need to be disciplined. Not only our bodies & our spirits, but our minds need to be trained too! We have to be taught to work together the right way. Tell the children that if they let their minds go wandering off like Snowflake wandered off (See "Life with Grandpa" TK Volume I), they're going to get in trouble! Look at the loss of time & the great concern he caused to others & how he stopped the whole work & affected the whole flock by doing his own thing & wandering off & not heeding his mother's correction & discipline. Snowflake had to learn the hard way!
9. SO IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT CHILDREN LEARN DISCIPLINE, NOT ONLY IN THEIR PHYSICAL CONDUCT BUT IN THEIR MENTAL ACTIVITY. We've all got to be concentrating, pulling together, striving to be united, not going off & doing what we want to do, & getting our own way, just like we don't allow the children to nap all day or play all day long. We wouldn't leave them just wandering around all by themselves doing nothing all day. But that's what they're often doing mentally all day. That's what daydreaming is, letting your mind "wander" & not getting down to work.
10. JUST TELL THE CHILDREN, "Wouldn't you think I was horribly negligent if I just let you children play all day long & do whatever you wanted to do? You'd probably be shocked & think, 'What happened to Auntie Sara? She's being terribly careless to just leave us to do our own thing & wander around doing nothing all day on our own!'"
11. WELL, IT'S JUST THE SAME WITH YOUR MIND.--If you just let your mind wander & play around all the time, daydreaming & just doing whatever you want to do, then you're not going to be doing your job & you won't be any good to anybody! Letting your mind wander would be the same as letting your body just wander around doing nothing! But it's much harder to discipline & control your mind than it is even to control the body. It's both hard to be disciplined by others & to discipline your own self, but it must be done!
12. (SARA: THIS WAS ONE OF THE MAJOR PROBLEMS WE EXPERIENCED IN OUR TEEN TRAINING, that almost every single one of them had a serious problem with spacing out, & daydreaming & just not listening to instruction & wasting a lot of precious time & effort. It's something we really had to fight against in class, as well as when they were on their own individually. They just have to learn how bad it is & to recognise it & to hate it before they'll even make an attempt to go on the attack against it. They might not think your reasons why they shouldn't do it are good enough, if they really enjoy doing it & entertaining those lazy thoughts & daydreams.)
13. YES, YOU'VE GOT TO EXPLAIN THE DANGERS & WHY THEY SHOULDN'T DO IT & WHAT HAPPENS TO CHILDREN WHO ARE NOT DISCIPLINED. Children who are not disciplined by their parents become real spoiled brats, & are no good to anybody! It's the same with children who do not discipline their own minds. Their teachers & parents have just got to train them, to sit those children down & work to undo that bad habit & teach them the right way so they won't have to grow up with it as a handicap!
14. YOU CAN NEVER BE PART OF AN ARMY IF YOU'RE JUST USED TO DOING YOUR OWN THING & GETTING YOUR OWN WAY. Now this is the Lord's army, & our Family children are soldiers in it just as much as we adults, & they have got to learn this at an early age! If we don't help them, they won't learn to discipline themselves or be able to concentrate on anything! They've got to be taught to concentrate, to discipline their minds, to discipline their habits, to redeem the time & work on-schedule with deadlines & be diligent! Many adults have had these same bad habits, but the difference is they see the bad fruits of it! They see how harmful & what a hindrance it's been to them all their lives as they've grown up, so they have an incentive & a desire to change. They really go on the attack & want the victory over it.
15. BUT SEE, IT'S DIFFERENT WITH CHILDREN, THEY DON'T SEE THAT IT'S SUCH A PROBLEM. Even if it is a habit, it's not so deeply ingrained in them quite yet, so they do, thank the Lord, still have a chance to change more easily. But they've got to see the dangers of it. They've got to be aware of the Devil's devices involved & really understand why they shouldn't do it. We've got to make a real push on it now. It's just as important to bring their every thought into captivity as it is to keep their bodies in subjection & to really go on the attack & help them get the victory & overcome this weak area.
16. IT'S BEEN HARD FOR THE ADULTS THUS FAR TO HELP THE CHILDREN IN THIS PROBLEM AREA OF DAYDREAMING because they can't just hand the adult "Daydreaming" Letter to the children & say, "Here, read this!" & then have prayer for them & expect them to have gotten the victory. The children need much more explanation & illustration so they'll know how bad, how dangerous, & what a hindrance to the Lord's work it is!
17. HAVING BEEN WITH THE CHILDREN MORE LATELY, I CAN SEE & UNDERSTAND THE DIFFICULTY YOU'VE BEEN EXPERIENCING WITH NAGGING. It certainly doesn't work just to nag the children & remind them over & over again, & pull 'em this way, push 'em that way, to get their attention. We've just got to spend time with them teaching them to listen & concentrate & obey!--Showing them with the Word how important it is, getting them to do it for Jesus!
18. WE'VE GOT TO GET SOME KIND OF REAL ANSWER, SOME REAL SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM & NOT ALLOW IT IN OUR CHILDREN! They've got to learn to get out of the bad habit of daydreaming & letting their minds wander, & you've got to teach them the good habit with the help of real prayer power. No matter how much you tell & reason & talk about it, they're not really going to change unless they're taught how to change their thought pattern, how to really bring each thought into captivity, how to go on the attack about it & to learn with real concentrated effort, how to study & apply themselves to everything they do!
19. BECAUSE OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT IN SUCH A CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT AS SYSTEM SCHOOL where other children learn this, they need to learn it now from our parents & teachers who should make the special effort in a Godly controlled environment to really help them to overcome it with instruction & the Word & prayer!