How can I share the dharma with my kids?

by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This is a very good question, and one that I have per­sonally been dealing with, as I have a young son. My answer will come more from my life experience than from any dharma text.

First, my wife and I do not buy game consoles or portable gaming devices. However, I used to have both an iPad and an iPhone. I had a good excuse for not lending them to my son because I needed them for my work. But when he’d see me on my iPhone, he’d ask if he could use the iPad and then often he would download game after game. Finally, I gave the iPad away.

The only time he can play with my iPhone is when I’m home, and I travel quite a bit. The last time I was about to go away, I was talking with him, wishing him well in school, and we were reciting a prayer together. Suddenly, in the middle of the prayer, he said, “Dad, are you going to leave your iPhone home?”

Buying games and gadgets and then expecting a child not to want to spend time on them isn’t very realistic. If you need control over how much your children use them, don’t have them around. My wife and I are even thinking of getting rid of our television. So not having too many gadgets around is one thing.

Second, it isn’t particularly advisable to tell children what to do; actually, it appears that children love to do the opposite of what you tell them. Sometimes I don’t even have to say it out loud — I just think about what my son should do, and he is already saying no or doing the contrary.

If giving your children advice isn’t effective, what can you as a parent do to guide them? Who you are, what you feel, and what actions you take are what really count. If you want your children to meditate, create the right environment, both inside yourself and at home. Practice every day and speak gently and kindly — these things matter. Children observe and get information through all their senses. Even the quality of silence in your home is important. Your state of being, your level of awareness, your emotions, stresses, and joy — all these affect your children. Whatever you are doing, your children see.

My son used to like a particular chant that is sung every day in the monastery in my tradition, and I used to play it on a CD when he was two years old. Then we didn’t play it for a while, and he forgot it. Now I put on a recording of a beautiful prayer every morning while I do prostrations, and sometimes I continue to play it in the house afterwards. The other day my son remarked, “I like this music! It makes me feel calm.”

Often my son doesn’t want to go to sleep when it’s his bedtime, and when bedtime comes, he suddenly changes his personality. He becomes the ideal child, the person we, his parents, want him to become — so affectionate, so loving! And then he asks me things I would normally want him to, such as to teach him tsa lung practice. When I tell him it’s too late and that it’s time to go to sleep, he’ll plead with me, saying, “Oh, Dad, please teach me the practice. I really want to learn it.” So I’ll agree to teach him for ten minutes and then he has to go to bed. In this way, he has learned all the names of the movements and how to do them. Obviously, my son would never show interest in the practice while in the middle of a computer game. So it’s helpful to take advantage of the right opportunity, such as when your child is open and asking to learn.

These are parenting tips — not wisdom tips, but experiential ones. How you want your children to be, be yourself. What you want them to do, do yourself. The compassionate qualities you want your children to both experience and express, feel them within yourself. Express them toward your children and in their presence. That is the way to communicate the essence of the dharma.