QA232 QUESTION: I’d like to ask a question for the children’s camp counselors who could not be here tonight. We feel that it’s important that the children’s energy be allowed to flow. And in the camp program, we find it difficult to decipher when to follow and when to lead – specifically, when the children resist any activity. And we’d like your comments on that. [Prolonged laughter]

ANSWER: There is a great amount of energy in children. If you follow through the resistance, intuitively, and speak to them and feel them and listen to them and respond to them, you will understand what they are saying with their resistance. Then the energetic outpouring will come in another way.

Here the process that I explained in the lecture on education [Lecture #231 New Age Education] can be used very well. You can, in the first place, establish real communication and exchange, and not be immediately discouraged if you find the resistance. As I said, follow the resistance. Realize that it cannot immediately go the way you have planned. You may have to adapt to a different one.

You may have to grope concerning when to use discipline and when you go with. You may have to truly explain the necessity of discipline to the children. You may have to teach them the meaning of self-discipline and that will eliminate superimposed discipline from outside. The answers will come as you grope, and it will be a very challenging project.

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