people, the five merits of benevolence all sound so familiar. Most people are respectful to their boss, forgiving to their spouse, trustworthy to their friends, diligent in their work, and generous to the needy. But the five merits of benevolence may have been neglected in relationship to their children. Often people do not realize the power of these five merits in the arena of parenting. They do not realize that their children’s behavior, both good and bad, is directly related to their own actions. In other words, children are, in fact, reacting to their parents’ actions every day.
Examine Yourself before You Blame Others
Benevolent persons make demands on themselves; petty persons make demands on others. (Analects 15.21)
It is almost impossible for even the best parents to go through parenthood without encountering some kind of problem in their parenting. When trouble occurs, it is important to review and examine one’s own behavior first before blaming others. It is common to hear parents blaming children’s problems on the media or the values of popular culture, on their peer groups, schools, and often, on the children themselves. Benevolence asks for self-examination.
The reward for self-examination is threefold. First of all, we will be able to see our own mistakes that might have been overlooked. Secondly, we will be able to learn from those mistakes and avoid making them again. Thirdly, by being able to admit our own mistakes, we will be able to be more patient, because only those who admit their own mistakes will truly understand how difficult it is to correct them and change.
For example, if your child has lied to you, do not immediately blame him or her for their dishonesty. Instead, reflect on what you could have done to prevent the misbehavior. Benevolent parents will question themselves as well as their children in their search for answers. Did we appear to be too stubborn and uncompromising to our child? Are we really too stubborn and uncompromising? If the answer is yes, we can learn our mistake and further investigate the root of the problem.
Children, especially young children, do not lie for fun. They lie because they are afraid to tell the truth. Some parents think that fear will contribute to their children’s obedience, but fear often trains them to achieve their goals by lying or doing things behind your back. This is too big a price to pay. Be firm with what is not acceptable, but try to be reasonable and teach your children to achieve their goals by communicating with you and not by lying to you.
Admitting our own mistakes is difficult for our egos, but it is only by graciously admitting our own flaws to ourselves that we get to understand why our children cannot be flawless. For example, only if we admit to ourselves that we are procrastinating at work can we truly understand why it is so difficult for our children to stop procrastinating when it comes to doing their schoolwork.
Mistakes May Be Blessings in Disguise
When benevolent persons make mistakes, they do not hesitate to reform. (Analects 1.8)
Benevolence first opens us up to self-examination, as we discussed above. However, once we have reviewed and examined our own behavior, we must be ready to acknowledge our own mistakes, if any, and reform. Let’s take a common example. Imagine that your three-year-old son has just burned his hand on the stove in the kitchen. You might have told him a hundred times that the kitchen is definitely a no-entry zone for him, but he is only a curious and careless child. A benevolent person will admit their own carelessness and instead of just shouting at the child for his disobedience, will start thinking about installing a safety gate to prevent the child from going into the kitchen when someone is cooking. Looking for ways to remedy the problem ourselves, and admitting any mistakes we may have made, are the first steps towards finding out what needs to be done to avoid repeating the same mistake again. Think of it this way, if you do not admit your own carelessness when your child burns his hand and install a safety gate, the next time he might end up with a pot of boiling hot water on his face.
Always Act with Sincere Intentions
Benevolence involves being the first to willingly take on a difficult task and the last to think about reward or recognition.
(Analects 6.22)
Parenting is no easy task, and it seems to be getting harder and harder in today’s world. Benevolence helps us accept the challenge willingly for the sake of our children and not the sake of reward or recognition for ourselves. You will have more patience and kindness when your intention is sincere. When you focus on the well-being of your child, and not on reward or recognition for yourself, you will find it easier to differentiate the right responses from the wrong ones.
In parenting, having the right goal is in fact the best guideline to help you make the right parenting decisions. When our goal is clear and full of good intention for the well-being of our child, our energy will focus on doing just that. On the other hand, when our goal is self-serving rewards or recognition, our actions will also follow accordingly. For example, if your goal is to experience power and to feel the thrill of being able to control others, then don’t give your children any opportunity or support to learn to make their own decisions. But don’t be surprised if your children end up resentful, spiteful, and unable to function independently in the world. Or if you want to be affirmed by being recognized as “the Most Easygoing Dad in the Neighborhood” by your daughter and her friends, then by all means indulge her every whim but don’t be surprised if, from an excess of freedom and a lack of healthy boundaries, she grows up to be manipulative, selfish, spoiled, and even harms herself by not having a healthy sense of safe and moral parameters.
Benevolence requires that one work hard for the right result. It is so much easier to buy your three-year-old the candy bar he wants in the supermarket then to have to learn how to deal with his screams and unreasonable demands in front of all the people around you. It is not easy to let your preteen daughter go to her first summer camp hundreds of miles away from home when it feels so much “safer” to have her attend summer school in your own neighborhood. It always seems harder to put the wellness of others before our own, but if we parent with benevolence, we will receive a different kind of reward and recognition from our children, which may prove to be far more deeply fulfilling than we ever could have imagined.
Practice Self-Control
Benevolence is to restrain oneself from what you want to say and do, so that one can retain propriety. (Analects 12.1)
Benevolence helps parents to engage in self-control and maintain the standard of socially acceptable conduct or speech. This is much easier when we are dealing with our friends. When it comes to our own children we tend to take more liberties with propriety. Imagine yourself shouting and yelling at your friends when they do something wrong. If you did that, it might be a while before you hear from them again. Imagine shouting and yelling at your child for something not acceptable to you. Your child may fear and obey you, but do you know what will he be thinking? Does he really understand the lesson or is he just being obedient?
When we practice self-control—when we allow ourselves a moment to pause and see the situation carefully—we will think twice about what we want to say or do. When we are upset or angry, we often say and do things we wish, in retrospect, that we hadn’t. Do not underestimate the effect of abusing words; they could hurt a child as badly as your fist. In fact, bruises and wounds heal in time, but pain caused by abusing words from parents might last a lifetime. The virtue of benevolence teaches us to control our impulsiveness, to not say and do things that are inappropriate. Many parenting experts suggest a time-out—a cool down period—for both parents and children when tempers
