To Parent? … Or To Sai Parent? What’s the Difference?
- Sai Lakshmi Subramanian
- May 8, 2016
- 4 min read
This article was written by the Sai Parenting curriculum writers. It was published in the first SSE Magazine released on Eswaramma Day (May 2016).
Parenting is a major segment in the journey of life. Typically, it begins at the birth of the child, though many young parents begin their study of parenting systems during the months leading up to the birth in an attempt to be better prepared to be good parents. Traditional parenting systems involve parents inculcating into the child the wisdom, knowledge, and traditions with which they, the parents, were raised. There are behavior modifications plans or structured scheduling ideas to minimize negative behaviors and increase desired positive behaviors. Generally, the flow of knowledge in this perspective is from parent to child; it’s unidirectional. The focus of parenting, therefore, is to pass on the beliefs, culture, traditions, academic aspirations and goals, and to raise a member of society that is productive and successful.
Sai Parenting, on the other hand, is bidirectional. The flow of knowledge is from parent to child and also from child to parent. In Sai Parenting, the child is viewed as innocent and close to divinity since they have not been tainted by worldly affairs. The child can therefore teach us, the parent, how to come back to divinity as we teach them how to navigate the world. The key element in Sai Parenting is Divinity. With this perspective, behaviors are evaluated under the light of moral and ethical principles stemming from Divinity, and children and parents are encouraged to evaluate their behavior based upon those principles. The focus of Sai Parenting is to not only raise a child with a moral and ethical compass that will enable the child to navigate the world, and through service and knowledge attainment reach divinity, but to provide a pathway for parents to work out their own spiritual sadhana to attain divinity.
The Sai Parenting Class of Sathya Sai Center of South Houston was created to help parents integrate Sai values and teachings into their daily parenting. The curriculum was written with the idea of integrating the various aspects of a person’s life in a harmonious way so that the children benefit from the spiritual elevation of the parent and is designed to be cyclical so as to evaluate all three areas multiple times as the child progresses through the 12 years of SSE. Using the book Sathya Sai Parenting by Rita Bruce as a guide, the curriculum is divided into 3 areas: Self, Family and Community.
Each area has been further divided into topics that have been broken down by weeks. In the first year, the curriculum starts with focusing on oneself and transforming one’s own attitudes, actions and discipline as a parent. In the second year, the curriculum focuses on the child’s behaviors and discipline. Finally, in the third year, the class will delve into service done as a family in the community. After the third year, the curriculum cycles back to Self so parents can evaluate their growth over the last 3 years. The intent of the class is that parents will implement the ideas put forth in class and thereby improve not only their own spiritual understanding but that of their child(ren).
The implementation of each week’s lesson is key and central to the class. Time is provided at the beginning of each class to reflect and share the results of implementation of the previous week. After the sharing session, the lesson for the week is presented. The lesson is not presented by any one “teacher” but by participants of the class in a rotational basis. The lessons for each class are evaluated by parents in light of their own family situation. The class does not profess to provide any kind of “magic” solution to any family situation. Family dynamics are affected by a tremendous number of factors, such as the number of years they have been living in the US, the proximity of extended family members (grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.), liberal vs. conservative parenting styles, temperament of the children and the parents, etc. In light of this, the class puts forth Swami’s message and parents then have to brainstorm how to integrate and implement the message for the week into their daily parenting. Thus the “homework” for the week becomes personal and meaningful as well as differentiated for each family situation.
Parenting is an ongoing adventure because, honestly, there’s never a break and no two days are ever the same. For that reason, the class meets weekly during the SSE time frame and runs on the SSE calendar so parents too can learn how to be better parents while children learn how to be a better human being. We would like to invite any and all parents of SSE aged children or new young parents of future SSE children to join our class so that we can grow and learn from each other, become better parents and together reach Divinity. Sai Ram.
For more information about the class itself, please visit:
Ajaya Sonde, Anita Raghavan, Sai Lakshmi Subramanian, & Bhavna Mathur
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