CHILD SCIENTOLOGY

AN AID TO FAMILY AND
MARRIAGE GUIDANCE

By

DENVER FRATER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BASIC GOODNESS	
SOCIABILITY AND THE CHILD’S POTENTIAL	
TALKING TO CHILDREN	
FREEDOM, CONTROL, and PUNISHMENT	
NAUGHTINESS	
THE REACTIVE MIND	
SOME SIMPLE PROCESSES	
DO UNTO LITTLE CHILDREN . . .	

BASIC GOODNESS

This little book shows how to apply some very basic wisdom’s and practices of the science of Scientology to the upbringing of children. The word “Scientology’’ is made up of the Latin word SCIO—knowing in the fullest sense of the word, and the Greek word LOGOS—study. Scientology is therefore a study of knowledge and is often called “the science of knowing how to know.”

The purpose of this book is to show how to preserve, nurture and promote the basic goodness of the future generation. The accent is on the upbringing of children simply because this is probably the best way to achieve the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people in the shortest possible time. When, through enlightened upbringing, children develop into better adults, the whole world will be so much better within one generation.

You will see it expressed in some psychology books that a child is virtually an unruly animal that must be trained to be sociable. You will see it expressed by some religions that men (and therefore children) are basically evil and must be cleansed of their sins in order to be good. These opinions are based upon the observation that a man or a child can sometimes appear to act in an uncivilized fashion. The things that bring about these apparencies in men, women and children, are products of the inborn con tents of their minds to which they react at times for the purpose of survival.

A child is not his mind. He HAS a mind. He is himself, and the HE that is himself is basically good. Like everyone else he has problems with his mind and he needs help to control it. Mark this well; your child is basically good. All men and women are basically good. Indeed, although you may not have fully realized it, the main reason why you are reading this book is that you are basically good. This is why you are searching and checking to make sure that you are as well advised and as fully equipped as possible to do your very best for your child. Whether or not the basic goodness of the child himself or the manifestations of his mind prevail is almost entirely within the control of those closest to him. The inherent, basic goodness of all people is one of the truest, most important, and most workable basic principles of Scientology. Remember this, and for the moment assume it to be true. Act as though you already know it is true, and sooner or later you will experience the proof as the basic goodness begins to shine through in your child. When you experience this you will know that it is true that Man is, and always has been, basically good.

All I am trying to do is to give you some very simple information about the handling of children which will make life happier for both you and your children. Understand too, that I am not trying to tell you how to deal with problem children although the same basic principles will apply even to them. I will be talking about average children of the sort that usually seem to get by and turn out to be fairly reasonable adults in spite of poor handling and poor understanding in many cases. With better handling in their early years children can develop into much better adults and both their lives as children and your life as a parent will have been much happier and more satisfying.

Now, at the outset don’t imagine that I am going to give you an invariable and infallible set of rules or “do’s” and “don’ts” that will guarantee some sort of mechanically precise result. Children are not machines. I am going to give you only basic principles which you can easily recognize to be true and workable. IF you apply them, HOW you apply them, WHEN you apply them, and how well you understand how and when they should be applied is up to you. All I ask in the name of your children and children everywhere is that you give it a go, do whatever you agree with and whatever you can to the best of your ability. If you have some failures, well, so what? If you have even a minimum number of successes you will still probably have more success than has ever before been possible for many parents.

SOCIABILITY AND THE CHILD’S POTENTIAL

Have you ever considered that all of history’s greatest troublemakers, the most cruel and destructive of men and barbarically decadent of women, all came into this world as lovable, cuddly little bundles of humanity looking very much like your baby? This is true you know, and somehow a lot of those sweet little bundles of innocence grew up to be veritable human devils. And along with the devils there grew up a few saints. At birth they all looked and seemed alike. Was their badness or goodness inborn or hereditary, or did they develop in different directions because of the different ways in which they were treated in early life?

Actually it is a mixture of both of these things. All average children are born with inherent potentials towards bad and good, right and wrong, intelligence and stupidity, and sickness and health. These things are products of a part of the mind called the REACTIVE MIND on the one hand, and the BASIC PERSONALITY on the other hand, and these often work in opposition. Which potentials develop and to what degree is almost entirely due to the way children are brought up.

The essential factors that affect the upbringing of children and, in fact, the only factors are:

1. 	The inborn potentials. (Reactive mind versus basic personality.)

2. 	Parental guidance.

3. 	Other guidance.

4. 	Physical factors. (These include environmental, economic, genetic and hereditary factors.)

The basic personality, although it is by far the most important of all the factors present, need not be considered because it is basically good, will give no trouble, and so need not be dealt with. Deal with the other factors and it will prevail and its prevalence will be the reward for our intelligent and competent handling of the other factors.

The factors are listed in order of importance. The inborn potentials, and these do not include genetic or hereditary factors in the average child, are very important and tremendously powerful if not effectively handled, but if those that are doing the handling are properly informed and capable of acting on their information, the inborn potentials of the reactive mind are now, thanks to Scientology, the most easily controlled.

The character of the gangster, John Dillinger, for instance, with almost any different upbringing, could have tumid out completely differently. Then again, it may have required the genius of the one super parent in a million to have produced a law-abiding citizen from the baby Dillinger. His inborn potential for crane may have been so powerful that only a super parent and super teachers, and such in an ideal environment, could have handled him, but this is very doubtful. It is more probable that even you or I could have developed into a Dillinger had we had his parents and other mentors and had we been subjected to the same environmental factors.

You will have noticed two children of the same family, treated in exactly the same way, who yet develop completely different characters, and no doubt this has puzzled you. The most troublesome and undesirable differences are those that are the result of reactive mind content which dictates only irrational behavior. When the reactive mind is dealt with effectively the desirable traits of the basically good individual will appear. Now there is certainly nothing wrong with people having different ideas, aims, attributes, personalities and characters. It would be a dull world indeed if all people were exactly the same, but when the differences contain factors that make one a social being and another an antisocial being, a lot of trouble ensues. The important thing is that children should not develop into anti-social adults and the main object of the information in this book is to help parents develop sociable children who will grow up into sociable adults. Whether they become laborers or bank managers, actresses or scullery maids, theists or atheist’s, is of secondary importance. The aim is to produce sociable people, so that we might have sociable laborers, sociable law-abiding bank managers and sociable actresses. This is much better than having unsociable, criminal or insane ones. Now remember, that is all r am setting out to do, to show you

some simple ways of treating children that help them to grow up as sociable people. You might overlook the importance of this. It is more important that a person be sociable and law abiding than that he be tremendously efficient, intelligent or successful. II he can be these things AND sociable too, then of course that is the most desirable result of all. If he is tremendously efficient, intelligent and successful, but, anti-social, well. I leave it to you to consider what a terror such a child would be to live with, and, as an adult, what havoc he might wreak during his lifetime.

Now, let us get on with the business of how we go about raising children to be sociable, agreeable, sane, happy, healthy, peace-loving, law-abiding citizens. 

TALKING TO CHILDREN

Firstly, greet your newborn baby into the world with a properly spoken and intended welcome. Tell the baby who you are, where he is, and that he is going to live with you and how pleased you are to see him. Don’t just act this out. Say it and mean it. Welcome your baby in the same way as you might welcome an adult you are really pleased to meet. There is nothing strange about this when you really think about it. Here is a thought for instance. Can you remember any time when your innermost feelings were not the same as those of an adult? A teenager most certainly feels adult. He considers he is important. He feels that his opinions and desires are important. A child of ten feels no less important. A child of four feels adult. It is commonly said of the two-year-old child that he talks and acts as though he knows everything. In other words, he feels adult too. If you can look at this phenomenon quite dispassionately you will realize that even a six-week-old baby may very well feel adult. You may even be able to concede that as a baby you probably had adult feelings, and you can be sure that in the same way, so has your child.

Let us therefore begin by assuming or believing firstly, that a baby, even minutes old, has human feelings, and that they are similar to those of an adult. Let us assume that he understands, at least to some degree, what you say to him, or, that by your manner of speech, and how you look at him and handle him, he forms his first opinions about you and his relationship with you and the world, and that these very first impressions may very well set the pattern for the rest of his life.

Now, I know you may find it difficult to accept or believe that a newborn baby has human feelings and emotions and thoughts, or that he can understand you. Well, if you cannot accept this, can you accept that it is better to conduct yourself in his presence as though it is true? Why not? What have you got to lose? You see, the pattern of a life does have a beginning somewhere. Now, exactly where, and at what precise second of which hour, of which month, of which year of the child’s life this pattern begins, there seems to be no way of knowing for sure, so, the best way to cover this is to establish the highest standard of parent-to-child relationship at the very beginning, and maintain this standard from then onwards.

Keep on treating your child as a sentient human being. Don’t be too careless about spending time telling him things, meanings of words, why he should or shouldn’t do this or that, who this person is, who that person is, and where they fit into the scheme of things. When he asks, “Why?”, tell him the reason. Don’t oversimplify it thinking he won’t understand, but on the other hand, don’t make it purposely complicated to make sure he won’t understand, and thus defeated, cease his questioning. You are not in competition with your child. You and he are part of a team, the family. You are the captain. Where you lead, he will follow, as long as he has confidence in you. If you try to fool him with silly reasons, or prevent him from playing his part in the team by refusing to explain, or by giving him false information, he will cease to have confidence in you and begin to be your opponent instead of your team-mate.

Talk to your child sensibly. Once again you may find it hard to believe that this is necessary. True enough, the child may not understand something the first, second, third, or twentieth time you tell him, but then again he just might, because it is certain that one time he will understand, and seeing that you do not know which time this is going to be, you had better take the sure course of always giving him reliable information and talking sensibly, as though he was going to immediately understand and act on what you say. Don’t underestimate the importance of this. It is very important. Do this, and for sure you will experience the proof of the value of this treatment. You will be pleasantly surprised at the number of quite complicated things your child really understands.

Now, you may get the idea that I am telling you not to talk “baby talk”, to call a duck, a duck, and not a ducky, and that sort of thing; but no, I am not worried about this at all, and baby talk does not concern us one little bit. Use baby talk if you like. If you don’t, your child probably will in any case. I too, used to have the idea that baby talk was something invented by adults to communicate with children, but actually it is often the other way around. Children invent baby talk to communicate with adults, and they use baby talk words to practice speaking at a time when control of their mouths and tongues is quite difficult for them to master. Of course, like everything else, I suppose it can be overdone, but even this is not very important.

When talking to a child, do not talk down to it. Share your opinions on simple matters with it. Ask for its opinion. Give the child the idea that you like discussing things with it, that its opinion is valuable, and that its decisions are important. Do this right from the beginning and you will get plenty of opportunities to give the child useful information when he needs it. You will be in good two-way communication with him and you will find out too what he considers he needs to know.

Having just mentioned TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION, I must draw your attention to a most important part of it. This is, ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Always acknowledge your child in conversations and in other ways. When a child does something, carries out one of your orders or something like that, acknowledge him. For example, you tell Johnny to wash his hands and he goes and does this. You now say, “Thank you for washing your hands Johnny.” For example, you tell Johnny to go to bed and he heads for his bedroom. You say, “Thank you for going to bed Johnny.” We often hear a child being told that he has been a naughty boy today, particularly when he is about to go to bed. This can be all right so long as we realize that there is another side to this, and, when Johnny has been good, to say to him just before he goes to bed, “Thank you for being a good boy today Johnny.” This is acknowledgment. Consider how you feel when you don ’t get acknowledgment for things you do. Consider how you feel when people apparently ignore you when you speak to them. Remember how you have felt about someone who didn’t answer a letter. Consider how you feel about someone who readily condemns you for every little fault they find, but rarely, if ever, comments on your virtues and accomplishments.

Make a definite effort to always acknowledge all communications and all favors and behavior. Don’t ever fail to acknowledge; it is quite as important as originating communication. One of the essentials to ensure that the basic goodness in your child’s character prevails, to ensure that he acts sociably, now and in the future, is to communicate with him and acknowledge his communications to you. It is as simple as that.

FREEDOM, CONTROL, and PUNISHMENT

Despite opinions that children are evil little animals that must be trained to be good and sociable, some have gone all the way in the opposite direction and advise that we should allow children complete freedom, let them do whatever they like, whenever they like, and never correct, control or punish them. There are even special private schools established to promote this idea. Various schools of thought such as this cover a rather broad field. In fact, it couldn’t be broader. When we look over all these various specialized methods we find that collectively, they virtually advise parents to do almost anything and everything to bring up their children so that somewhere along the line someone should have some success, and of course, some are successful. I think you will agree, however, that this is about as scientific as throwing a dart blindfold. Occasionally you may score a bulls-eye, if indeed you ever hit the target.

Previous studies having very little to offer that is identifiably stable, we must consider for ourselves the merits of freedom and control. Firstly, what is freedom? Freedom is not anything at all unless it is a freedom FROM something. If there isn’t anything to be free from, one cannot be free. This is just as elementary as saying that if one hasn’t a bicycle to get off, one cannot get off a bicycle. So, things to be free from are essential to freedom. Now, what do we desire to be free from? Well, how about restrictions, rules, regulations, controls, pain, illness and such? We could perhaps lump all such things together and call them barriers. So, in order to have freedom, we must have freedom from barriers, and of course, we must have barriers. This is not any obscure or abstract philosophical theory. It is a very simple, common-sense fact. It does not even need to be proved. It is a self-evident truth.

Now, why should we want to be free anyway? Well, we want to be free to be able to DO something, and we can lump together all the things we want to do under the heading of purposes. We now have three things to consider, FREEDOM, BARRIERS, and PURPOSES, and they are all essential and complementary to each other. Without any one of them the other two are not of any consequence. It follows that in all optimum life activity these three things must be present, not just one or two of them, but the whole three. Without laboring this explanation any further let me present the complete STABLE DATUM we can construct from these facts.

The stable datum is that, “Optimum livingness contains FREEDOM, BARRIERS, and PURPOSES. We err in life when we allow too much freedom, erect too many barriers, or fail to identify which are the freedoms and which are the barriers—or, fail to select a purpose.” (Refer to “Fundamentals of Thought” by L Ron Hubbard.)

Now, let us apply this to the upbringing of children. If you allow a child too much freedom, you spoil his life. If you restrict him too much, you spoil his life. If you don’t let him know definitely what he is allowed to do and what he is not allowed to do, you confuse him and spoil his life. If you do not allow and encourage him to make decisions and thus establish his purposes, you will spoil his life.

Flow much freedom is too much? Too much is too much. Who judges how much is too much? You and your child. How do you judge it? You JUDGE it—to the best of your ability. There is no hard and fast rule. Just make sure you allow enough freedom and erect enough barriers and help your child with the establishment of his purposes. How do you judge what is enough? You JUDGE it. “Enough” is a variable quantity from person to person. Too little for one can be too much for another. Ideally you judge just the exact amount but provided that you allow some freedoms, erect some barriers, and select some purposes, you won’t go far astray; but if you leave any of these out completely, or almost completely, look out; you are courting trouble I can assure you.

We have had a look at freedom. Now let us have a look at one of the most common barriers -  CONTROL. What is CONTROL? Well, when you control anything you can do three things, no more, no less. You can start it, you can stop it, and between these two actions there is a period when you are changing it in some way. So that’s control: START, CHANGE, STOP. If control is good, then each of the actions will take place as and when determined. If control is bad, then one or more of the actions will not take place as and when determined, and bad control would actually be a lack of control. A motor car does not run into a post because it is badly controlled. It runs into a post because it is not controlled. It is the same with your child. He does not suffer from bad control. He can only suffer from not being controlled. Therefore, it is all right for both the child and yourself, for him to be controlled, but remember, you apply only ENOUGH control. Too much is detrimental. You and he are the judges. Now you will begin to see why you and your child need to be in good communication. If you are not in good communication you are going to be unable to mutually decide how much freedom and how much control is enough to maintain an optimum attitude towards life, the pursuit of happiness and the accomplishment of life’s purposes.

So, it is definitely in order for you to control your child, and the better you are in communication with him, the easier it will be for both you and him. He will at times have difficulty in controlling his own latent impulses and he needs your help in controlling these. So it is not, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”; it is rather, “Use the rod too much or too little and spoil the child.” Later we will see that the use of the rod at all is greatly overrated.

Here is something else about control. Good control must be consistent. If a certain control was applied yesterday, it must be continued to be applied today and tomorrow and as long as it is deemed necessary. If it is applied to one child, it must also be applied to the other. Control must be agreed to between parents. What mother commands, father will back up, and vice versa. If father and mother cannot agree about a certain control measure the child can play one off against the other, and this is a common source of poor family relations.

The elements of control -  START, CHANGE. and STOP, form what is called a CYCLE OF ACTION. A child’s days are filled with cycles of anion, and provided they are complete cycles, he feels fine, but if he has too many uncompleted cycles of action, he begins to feel confused, frustrated and angry. So, it is useful to be aware of this and, wherever possible, without upsetting his self-determined decisions and actions, it is helpful to order the child’s activities so that his cycles of action are completed. Consider how you feel when some authority over you doesn’t seem to be able to make up his mind about what he wants you to do and issues conflicting orders. Consider how you feel when someone asks you to do something and, before you have finished, he asks you to do something else, and when you have just got started on that, he asks you to do something else. Consider how you feel when involved with a lot of uncompleted tasks. Isn’t it true that you feel frustrated and angry, or, that everything seems hopeless? Your child has similar feelings, and it is only a matter of uncompleted cycles of action.

Another thing that has been a confused issue is the use of force. Should force be used to control a child? Should a child be punished? Once again we find various advisers covering the entire field, with some advocating punishment and others opposed to it. What is the truth of the matter? The truth is that only as much force as is necessary should be used. The amount of force necessary can extend from a mere raising of the voice, to physical handling with the carrying out of an order, to punishment, and the punishment can extend from removal of freedoms (such as, “Go to your room”) to a slap with the open hand, to a thrashing with a whip.

The important thing to know about the use of force in effecting control is to use just enough force to get obedience. How much is just enough? Here we go again Just enough is just enough. Not too much, not too little. Once again, you are the judge of how much is enough. The judgment is not nearly as difficult as you may at first imagine. You may find that one of your children is almost heartbroken and will immediately obey if you merely speak sharply to it whilst another regularly requires and even expects a slap.

In practice I have found very little need for corporal punishment and do not consider it valuable as a control measure. What IS valuable is to always get your order obeyed. Never let the child beat you if it is willfully disobeying. Example: Baby aged fifteen months is standing up in his high chair. You realize that he could easily fall. You say, “Sit down”. You know he understands this but he does not obey. You walk over to him and, using just enough force, physically sit him down and then THANK HIM FOR SITTING DOWN. Do not omit this acknowledgment for the order being carried out. You thank him just as though he had done it himself. This is a good example of the gradient use of force. If he resisted sitting down, a little more force might be needed. A little more force still might be, doing this again and again until the child is absolutely sure that he is not going to get away with it. Now don’t get the idea that he will resent this sort of control. He may appear to at first but you will notice that there is never any lingering resentment. Treated in this way he actually decides to become controllable and he respects you for being definite and consistent. He knows you mean what you say, and there is never any doubt about it. When he is acknowledged for carrying out the order he actually feels rewarded for something he has done.

If you feel you must use corporal punishment, use your hand Never use a strap or cane or any similar instrument. You are big and strong enough without having to arm yourself with weapons. If you promise to punish a child the next time he knowingly does something or other, then. if he does do it, you DO punish him as promised. You do not excuse him or again say that the next time you will punish him. You carry out your promise. If you don’t do this you will lose his respect and make future control more difficult and actually create the need for stronger control measures to be used. Notice I said you  “promise” to punish him. Never threaten him. Threatening is an activity of tyrants and sadists. Threatening implies that you are angry to a degree such that you are out of control yourself and in this condition your judgment of enough force will be seriously impaired.

Stake a point of rewarding a child for being good but never offer bribes. There is a vast difference between the social implications of rewards and bribes.

Punishment will only be effective if the child who is punished considers that the punishment is deserved. Even for him, too much punishment, or more punishment than he considers adequate, will have an effect opposite to that intended. Consider how you would feel if you were punished for something you didn’t do, or, something you couldn’t help doing or didn’t mean to do. The child who considers that he deserves to be punished in a particular circumstance does so because he is already a sociable child and so does not really need punishing. He does not necessarily know this, however, and will therefore accept the punishment he considers he deserves without resentment and can actually benefit from it. Thus, “Making the punishment fit the crime” has some validity. If he is left unpunished for something he thinks he should be punished for he may have a compulsion to make amends. Compulsions of any sort are undesirable. This is the very stuff the reactive mind is made of and you will read more about this later on.

Punishment will not be effective if the child does not consider he deserves it. It is therefore not effective as a corrective for anti-social children because they consider their anÿi-social actions justified and therefore consider the punishment an injustice. Punishment is not effective upon such a child as a corrective severe enough to reduce him to apathy in which state he will still not have been corrected and he will be docile and obedient but much less able. Before a child is driven to the state of apathy he will reach a stage where as a defense measure to avoid further punishment. be pretends to have been corrected, and this is our potential juvenile delinquent and criminal. He too, appears to have been reformed until controls are removed Then he cuts loose and extracts what he considers to be justifiable revenge on society.

Punishment (and this includes punishment from the environment, like touching a hot stove) can teach children what NOT to do.

Animals similarly learn what NOT to do.
There are a limited number of things you can learn NOT to do before you reach a stage of not doing anything. Mental hospitals are full of people who have “learned” very well that they must not DO anything.

Animals will learn to DO things when rewarded Children will learn to DO things when rewarded The end product of reward is DOINGNESS.

The end product of punishment is NOT-DOINGNESS.

Not-doingness is anti-social. Criminals and the insane are anti-social. They do not work. They have to be provided for by others. Not-doingness is destructive

Criminals and vandals destroy. Doingness is constructive. Sociable people create and construct.

Not so long ago it was generally accepted that children should be punished if they did not do what they were told, and, with no further thought or qualification, that was that. More recently, enlightened parents have adopted the principle of rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior. However, because the end product of punishment is not-doneness, unsociability, and even worse behavior, it seems that an even better principle is to reward good behavior and simply penalize or not-reward bad behavior. Reward sociability. Do not reward unsociability. Reward doingness. Do not reward not-doingness.

So, if you feel that you need to punish your child, remember that all that should be needed is sufficient force to hurt him momentarily. If this is not sufficient, when applied along with other control measures I have covered, then we must be dealing either with a problem child, or a problem parent, or both, and that is a matter which is outside the intended scope of this book.

There are no doubt some people who would not agree with what I have said about the ineffectiveness of punishment. If such people must insist, without qualification, that punishment is effective as a control measure, then it should follow that I should be able to convince them to the contrary by beating them into submission and so control them and make them agree with me. Now I am sure that you will realize that this would not work and you will probably see quite dearly how it would most likely have the opposite effect

One more point about control. Be honest with your child. Do not try to deceive him.

Example: Mother. “Well I’ m going to town. You keep Johnny interested in the workshop until I’ve gone.” Johnny gets interested in the workshop. Mum goes Johnny finds out she’s gone and cries for the next half hour. Dad is upset by this and does not get his job done. When Mum comes home Dad is irritable and blames both Mum and Johnny, and any sort of a situation can develop. Johnny doesn’t trust either mother or father from then onwards and screams and cries any time he thinks they are about to deceive him, and whether or not they have the slightest intention of doing so; but this is the least of the ensuing troubles. Deceive your child and you will lose his trust and respect. Deceive your child and you will automatically give him a license to do the same to you. He will have adequate justification for deceiving you from then onwards. It may seem rather harmless when a three-year-old tries to deceive you but what about when he’s sixteen years old? Remember that pattern of behavior mentioned earlier?

Consider how you feel about a person who deceives you. Don’t you tend to retaliate by deceiving him any time it seems to be to your advantage? Your child feels the same, and if things deteriorate to the point where you cannot trust him and never know whether he is telling the truth or not, you eventually become an unhappy victim of what was originally your own deception. Deception, even of the “white lie” variety, is anti-social conduct, and used as a means of control, will serve only to create further anti-social conduct.

At some stage as you progress through this book, you may get the idea that emphasis is placed on being mindful of the child’s feelings and desires to the point where you could become a virtual slave to the child, and almost afraid to say or do anything that might injure his mind or personality. It would be careless of me to leave you with this impression. The child’s mind is quite rugged, I can assure you, and he can tolerate a lot without suffering unduly or becoming antisocial. It must be realized that adults have rights too, and they are senior to childish desires and whims. Children have growing up as one of their main goals. If becoming adult means forfeiting rights and privileges, then why grow up? The rights of adults provide some of the essential barriers among the child’s freedoms. Insistence upon adult rights is therefore quite a valid control measure.

Note the difference between punishment and the imposition of penalties. Breaches of discipline should incur known and agreed-upon penalties. Rewards and penalties are some of the freedoms and barriers and are part of the very woof and warp of any game, whether it be a game of football, the game of raising a family, or the overall game of life itself.

Being properly controlled and living an effectively and efficiently controlled life is a pleasant experience. At the other end of the scale there is no control, which is confusion and chaos, and the person, mall, woman or child, who lives amid confusion and chaos, is neither happy nor sociable.

NAUGHTINESS

There will be times when you think your child is being naughty or acting unreasonably and you will be wondering what to do. Should you try to direct his attention to something that will interest him? Should you love and comfort and reason with him? Should you send him to his room? Should you ignore him) Should you lock him in a dark cupboard? Should you shout at him? Should you threaten him? Should you tell him the bogy man will get him? Should you deny him all privileges for the next twenty-four hours? Should you beat him with a strap? Oh dear! What should you do? These are some of the “remedies” some parents are likely to try.

The first three of these methods can be used and are fairly effective according to circumstances. The others, some of them in particular, are likely to drive the child raving mad. Some of them are methods used an us by our parents, and on them by their parents and so on, back through generations. This is a phenomenon known as “contagion of aberration”. Customs and habits passed on in this way are often mistaken for knowledge or assumed to be hereditary factors which they are definitely not. This chain of aberration can be easily broken by someone coming into possession of the reliable information which is now available in Scientology.

We all expect our children to be able to learn things by example, and so they do, but we can’t expect a child to learn only from examples of our good behavior. He will also learn from parents and other examples of bad behavior. Now there is nothing wrong with this is in principle. He has to know about both good and bad, but when parents behave badly in the child’s presence, they should admit it to the child and seek his understanding of their breach of social cant duct. At first sight this may appear to be unreliable; I can almost hear someone saying, “Fancy apologizing to a child for my behavior . It is none of his business. Anyway, he wouldn’t understand what the argument was about.”  But it IS the child’s business. He wants to love and respect his parents and it is pretty hard toil; love and understand people who apparently do not love and understand each other. Also, consider this: if you; and your marital partner created a scene in a friends house, you would feel obliged to apologist wouldn’t you? Your friend is adult and has adult feeling Yours children may be only little adults but they hays similar feelings and merit similar consideration. Children spa do not receive apologies for, and have their understanding sought regarding their parent’s mistakes and misdemeanors, will “learn” how to behave and will dramatize probably the worst of each parents attitudes in their dealings with other people, and with their own children in turn. This is the dwindling spiral contagion of aberration.

However, what should we do about the naughty or unreasonable child? First of all what do we mean by being naughty or acting unreasonably?

EXAMPLE 1. Is a child being naughty when he will not eat his dinner? No, almost never. He just does not want to eat. He does not feel hungry. This is not a crime. Maybe he feels a little off color. Consider how you would feel if someone tried to make you cram a meal down your throat when you were not hungry or felt off color. You would object. So, in such a case, a child has a tantrum. He’s not being naughty or unreasonable. He’s defending himself and he’s entitled to. In fact, the child who is unfortunate enough to have parents who force him to eat is going to have to defend himself a great deal and virtually rear himself if he is going to remain healthy and sociable.

EXAMPLE 2. Is a child being naughty when he dashes boisterously around the place laughing and yelling at the top of his voice? No, not usually. This may annoy adults who have aberrations and phobias about motion and noise but there is nothing wrong with the child’s actions. This is simply a natural expression of well-being of a child who is enjoying life, and he should be allowed to enjoy life.

EXAMPLE 3. Is the child being naughty who gets a stool, gets up to the kitchen sink, tries to wash the dishes and breaks your best fruit bowl? No, he’s not being naughty. He’s trying to help. He will try to help in all sorts of ways. In order to feel secure in the family he must be allowed to contribute. If you refuse to allow him to help he will feel insecure and do all sorts of unthinking things to gain your attention, or, the lower scale version of attention, sympathy. So, he makes messes and breaks things and screams and cries for attention and hurts himself to get sympathy. By refusing or belittling his help you will create future trouble for yourself, for him, and in later life, for other people. Another thing too is that the child’s contribution must be HIS contribution. He has to think what he can do to help and be allowed to do it. It is not sufficient to say that his contribution is to run the messages. You may certainly suggest methods by which we may contribute but if he doesn’t like what you select then that is not his contribution. Of course, some of these contributions can be regarded as the barriers which have been mentioned as being necessary, and all you have to watch is that you don’t give him too marry such chores to do. The most important thing to know is that to refuse a child’ s help is to ruin him.

EXAMPLE 4. Is the child naughty who has just knocked a cup off the table or spilt his milk? No, not usually. Parents have accidents like this too, even though they have much better control over their bodies than children. How would you feel if someone scolded you, cursed or smacked you any time you had a minor accident? A better remedy is to actually take time to give a child more practice with handling cups and pouring milk or water from a jug. The child will learn to handle things better, will enjoy this as a game, will love to do it, and will love you for helping and encouraging him to overcome his clumsiness. This is the sort of thing that is part of a typical child’s effort to copy. He wants to be able to do things for himself. To pour out his own milk and use a cup to drink out of like an adult. Your child wants to grow up. Adults are big and strong and able. Your child wants to be big and strong and able. This is survival. He is trying to survive. He wants to contribute in any way that helps him grow up to be self-determined and self-sufficient. Of you help him do this, then your goals and his goals are aligned together. If you scold him for trying to be self-determined and self-sufficient, then you are at cross purposes with him and this creates trouble for both you and the child.

EXAMPLE 5. There are times, however, when for similar survival reasons, a child is naughty deliberately, willfully, and quite analytically. These are the times when you might be justified in punishing him. For instance, he is climbing up the Venetian blind cord. You tell him to stop it. He gives you a cheeky look, says, “Nuts to you”, and climbs up the cord. This is probably an occasion for punishment. The child is analytically defying you, knowingly testing his strength against yours and expecting consequences which he is prepared to accept should he lose the contest. You will actually go down in his estimation if you do not provide some consequences for him to experience. Consider what sort of respect you would have for a boss who meekly accepted your telling him to go to hell. Consider what a shambles a business would get into if all employees could do the same. In such a case you would recognize the necessity for strict discipline. So does your child.

EXAMPLE 6. Children will exhibit various aberrations and phobias from time to time. One child may become frantic and do unthinking things when he hears the noise of a fire engine. Your presence, reassurance and love is probably all that is usually required. Another will simply hate getting water on his face and scream and kick when you attempt to wash his face. Another must wear a certain suit even if it is in the wash sopping wet. He will not respond to reasoning, he not look at the facts you present (the wet suit) and will scream and cry and resist being dressed in anything else.

On such occasions the future happiness and sociability of your child is very much in your hands. True, you can at such times beat the child into a state of apathy and he will become docile and controllable. and an ignorant parent would probably be happy to achieve such a result for his own temporary peace of mind. Notice that I say, “temporary”, for that is all it would be. A child repeatedly treated in this way, instead of being understandingly helped to subdue the irrational content of his reactive mind, is most likely to become an anti-social terror. Later I will give you a process that you can use to deal with such situations. If you do not use the process suggested, if you have not got the time to spare at the particular moments or, if you think you would make a mess of it if you tried, then the next best thing to do is to leave the child alone somewhere where he can do no harm until he finds his own way out of his problem. Check now and then to see how he is doing and get him back into his normal routine as soon as he seems all right. This is the “Go to your bedroom” technique.

From the examples I have given you will see that so-called “naughtiness” can be divided into certain categories as follows:

1. 	Actions which are not actually naughty but are considered by a particular parent to be so.

	Such things are considered by a parent to be naughty because of the aberrations of the parent. These aberr ations are products of the parent’s reactive mind content modified by training and experience received during his lifetime.

2. 	Pure accidents due to the inability and inexperience of the child.

	Some parents do not recognize these for the trivialities they really are, and get unnecessarily and even uncontrollably emotional and upset by them.

3. 	Attempts to help or contribute.

Parents are likely to misconstrue such attempts as interference by the child in what they are doing. This is simply due to mistaking of the child’s intention, and lack of knowledge of the significance of help in human relations and development. Here again, the parent ’s reactive mind is entering its aberrated experience into what should be purely analytical observations and conclusions.

4. 	Deliberate, willful, defiance of parental authority.

	This can be part of any child’s normal experimentation with his faculties to establish his own “optimum survival potential” set of values and relationships with regard to other people and the environment. These experiments are an essential part of his education. Remember, the child is basically good, and anyone who is basically good will always be striving in some way to better his present state and realist the full potential of this basic goodness. Thus, it may be necessary to do some bad things, to make some mistakes, just to find out that they are bad, and, how bad they are. in comparison with other possible courses of action

5. 	Reactive naughtiness.

	This is the product of the child’s reactive mind He does not consciously or analytically contrive to be naughty in such cases. He cannot help it. He is being naughty and knows it, but he does not know what to do about it. He is incapable of helping himself when one of these reactive mind aberrations is restimulated On these occasions he needs understanding and skilled help.

	You will notice that the only arch villain in the whole business is the reactive mind. This book is intendedly too brief to deal with it in detail, but a knowledge of its existence, and some idea of what it is, what it does, and what it can do, is vital!

THE REACTIVE MIND

“The reactive mind is that portion of a person’s mind which works on a stimulus-response basis (given a certain stimulus, it gives a certain response) which is not under his volitional control and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body and actions.” (Definition from the Scientology Abridged Dictionary compiled from the works of L. Ron Hubbard.)

What is the purpose of this part of the mind? Well, it is supposed to protect us in times of emergency so it consists of a record of all the times we have experienced some danger or emergency which threatened our survival. This record is very, very detailed and is complete with all perceptions, sights, sounds, colors, smells, tastes, voices, words and emotions. The idea is that should a similar emergency occur again, then any one or more of the perceptions contained in the original emergency will serve to restimulate the previous record which is also complete with the successful survival action taken.

The idea seems good at first, and actually was apparently a necessary development in the evolution of the human species at a time when life was a primitive, tooth and claw existence. However, that was many thousands, possibly millions of years ago, and with the development of language the reactive mind has gained tremendously in power for it now contains words that have command value (like hypnotic suggestions) and its commands must be reactively or compulsively obeyed, unknowingly and uncontrollably. A phrase like, “I’m dying to see”, literally applied by the reactive mind, can mean exactly what it says, insanely, that one must literally die in order to see. But one wants to survive, to live. The only way to stay alive then, would be to be blind, and the reactive mind will obligingly precipitate some trouble with the eyes that may result in blindness. This is what is meant by “psychosomatic illness”, and such illnesses comprise at least 70% and possibly up to 95% of all illnesses. In the reactive mind we have something which was originally developed to enhance our chances of survival but which now makes us stupid, irrational and sick, is even capable of killing us prematurely, and in these modern times will always lessen our survival potential. The next evolutionary step is therefore to handle and erase this moronic reactive mind and begin to make our own analytical decisions instead of being driven by irrational compulsions

Well, as I said, the idea of the reactive mind seems good at first, until we find out that it does not apply any logic whatsoever to any situation. If one or more of the perceptions in a present-time situation is roughly similar to any one or more of the perceptions m a past situation, we react to the present situation in the same way as we did to the past one, and this is crap. This mind works on a purely mechanical basis. It does not and cannot deal with differences in situation therefore it applies the remedy of a dangerous sib m the past to what is only apparently a dangerous in the present, and it always applies the same solution to what are actually very different problems and situations.

For thousands of years all sorts of creeds, cults, ‘ologies and ‘isms have tried to find ways of driving out devils and demons from the minds of their unfortunate fellow beings. The devil they were chasing was in them too. It was their reactive mind. Everybody in the world except a few hundred (at the present time) known, extraordinary people, has a reactive mind and suffers from its effects. It is now a very urgent and necessary step in our further evolutionary development, that we know about, handle, control, and eventually erase this outmoded, useless, dangerous and diabolical part of the mind. If we do not control it then it will control us and possibly even erase us as a species. So, the sooner we begin to help our children control their reactive minds the better.

Here is a hypothetical but nevertheless typical example of reactive mind behavior. A child accidentally gets a strong whiff of ether just as he is being born. This is accompanied by a splash of something wet across his face and the noise of a fire engine passing in the street. The child is feeling very groggy, his eyes are bunged up and his nasal and bronchial passages are full of fluid. He is at this moment desperately trying to survive. All of these things and many more are perceptions recorded by the reactive mind. The child cries, struggles, and lashes out with his arms and legs and has a feeling of animosity towards whatever or whoever has caused his discomfort, and seems to be threatening his survival. He gets immediate attention, has soothing words spoken to him, and gets wrapped in a blue shawl and made comfortable and thus survives. Two years later, with no conscious memory whatsoever of this incident, he visits a chemist’s shop with his mother. At the time he is not feeling very well. The chemist has just been mixing a prescription containing ether and the smell of it pervades the shop. A fire engine passes by with siren wailing. The child immediately feels uncomfortable and alarmed. His mother is busy talking and takes no notice. He cries out and his mother scolds him. He is difficult for the rest of the day and in his bath that night recoils from having his face washed. Another argument with mother, more scolding, and she splashes water liberally in his face. Some of it goes into his nose. He seems to begin to choke. To the child it feels as if all his nasal and bronchial passages are full. He cries and lashes out and is restrained. After the bath he insists on wearing his blue pajamas which are being washed and he cannot be made to understand why he cannot wear them. Next day he is quite sick with a high temperature and a nasty cold and still insists on having his blue pyjamas which, fortunately, can now be given to him For the next few days he is sickly and difficult to deal with but is finally more or less getting the attention demanded by the original reactive mind recording and thus survives once again.

This could be a very typical incident in which the reactive mind is involved. This mind can not only precipitate all sorts of illnesses but also is responsible for all irrational and anti-social behavior. Wherever we find uncontrollable behavior, unreasonableness irrationality, anti-social activity, crime, insanity and most illnesses then, we can be sure, absolutely sure, that the reactive mind is the cause.

Fortunately, these days, thanks to Scientology, we can do something about this. Before Scientology nobody knew of the existence of the reactive mind although there existed a lot of speculation about what was called the “subconscious mind”. Very little was known of the operation of this part of the mind or its capabilities, and almost nothing was known about what to effectively do about it. It can now be effectively dealt with. Fully trained and highly skilled Scientology practitioners using powerful mental processing techniques, can, in fact, raise the ability of any average person to such a degree that he cannot only get to grips with his reactive mind, but can handle and control it, and finally erase it completely, so that he is no longer subject to its influence. This brings about a state of health, well-being and freedom from irrationality that has previously been unknown to Man. People who achieve this state of ability are known as CLEARS. The term CLEAR simply means that such people have been cleared of mental aberration. There are several hundred Clears in the world today and their number is fast increasing as more and more people avail themselves of Scientology services.

For the parent who just wants to know more about how to help and handle his children better, the implications of all this may seem to be unnecessary and can indeed be set aside for the moment. Even without extensive study there is plenty that can be done to help children to handle their reactive minds. The necessary things are very simple to do but will nevertheless minimize confusion and trouble that would otherwise undoubtedly ensue. Using very simple techniques a parent can process his own children when the need arises. This is no substitute for actual Clearing of children and parents but it takes very little effort, very little time, and the result is far better than has ever before been so easily attainable.

The better we handle our children now, the more easily will they be able to later attain the state of Clear and play a vital part in the developing of a much better type of life than has ever before been possible. Even if they do not press on to greater heights, they will still be more sociable as adults than ever they would have ban otherwise.

SOME SIMPLE PROCESSES

From the foregoing chapters you will now realize that when your child is acting unreasonably, irrationally and unsociably, a reactive mind incident is in restimulation. Observe too, from the example of the operation of the reactive mind given, that the child at this time is actually living in the past. His attention has been directed to the past incident by present-time restimulators, and his thoughts, actions and feelings, are dictated by the content of the past incident. The present-time restimulation is called a KEY-1N, and occurs only at times of reduced awareness caused by present-time pain or upset. The action of de-stimulating the past incident is called a KEY-OUT. Keying out an incident with very simple techniques is not equivalent to erasing it with much higher skills but it is nevertheless a very worthwhile accomplishment.

How do we effect a key-out? Simple. The child’s attention is stuck in the past so we direct his attention to the present by having him put his attention on the immediate, present-time environment again and again, for as long as it takes to key out the incident. Here is how it is done. Let us assume that the child is screaming, kicking, struggling, crying, will not listen to you, will not talk to you, and will not look at you, or, maybe he is sullen or apathetic and not interested in anyone or anything. Whichever way it is, he is observably out of control and out of communication with you and his present environment. The purpose of what we are about to do is to establish control for the child, get him into communication with you and his present environment, and then hand control back to him when he is able to take over again. Consider this analogy. If you were out driving with a friend and he became unconscious at the wheel of the car in motion, you would do exactly the same thing. You would take control of your friend’s car (your child’s body), revive your friend (bring your child’s attention into present time), have your friend tell you about what had happened (establish communication with your child), and hand over control of the car to your friend only when you were satisfied that he was fit to drive again (let your child control himself and his own body again).

I hope that this analogy is sufficient to assure you that there is nothing mumbo-jumbo-ish about what is to be done. Scientology is all as simple as this. One of the main reasons Man has failed to conquer his mind before is that he was looking for tremendous complication whereas the answers he was seeking are actually very simple.

Here is the process complete with the full patter you will use.

To the upset child: “Is it all right if we do something to help you?”

The child will probably not answer if he is as bad as we have assumed, so, we assume that he agrees and say,  “O.K.” “Good”, “Fine”, or “Thank you”, to him AS THOUGH he had agreed, and now having prepared him for what we are about to do, we give him the first command, “Touch that wall”, and indicate by gesture which wall.

If the child does not touch it you pick up his hand and, using just enough force to get your command carried out, you press his hand on the wall. You then thank the child for touching the wall AS THOUGH he had done it willingly. Then, “Touch that door”, same procedure again, including the acknowledgment, then, “Touch that piano”, and so on with many objects. Note particularly that there is no talk other than the commands and acknowledgments. If the child originates something like, “I hear a fire engine”, simply acknowledge, “O.K.”, and get on with the next command, “Touch that chair”.

Include parts of his body and parts of your body as objects from time to time. The process is not ended until the child begins to touch the objects without your commands having to be physically enforced. This should only take a little while. End the process at what seems to you to be some reasonable point where the child is not so much out of control and then leave him alone for a while to settle down.

As you do the process you may find that the child’s condition seems to get worse and better and worse and better and otherwise changes. This is good. The main thing is that he is no longer emotionally stuck. If he is stuck he cannot change for either worse or better. When he is changing he can change for the better. We want him to become more reasonable and sociable but we may have to help him through some rough patches on the way. The maxim is: THE PROCESS THAT TURNS A CONDITION ON IS THE ONE THAT, IF CONTINUED, WILL TURN IT OFF AGAIN. So, don’t be dismayed if he seems to get worse. Keep right on until he gets better and regains at least some degree of willingness to touch things and communicate with you. Then, end the process.

Now, suppose you have been doing the process for a little while and the child has got worse and better a couple of times and now, for the first time, he reaches out for himself and touches something. Next command, he reaches out, touches the object, and looks at you for approval or acknowledgment. Now you will see why you have been acknowledging him all the time. He is now obviously much better so we prepare the way for ending the process by saying, “ Is it all right if we do this just two more times and then finish?” The child will now usually agree but may say something like, “More, please.” If we get his agreement to finish we give just two more commands and say, “That was the last one. That is the end of that.” If he wanted to go on we would give a few more commands and then, if he is still happy, again try for his agreement to finish.

An absolutely tremendous amount of technology and knowledge is innocently concealed in the apparent simplicity of this process and its patter. For instance, the idea of preparing him for what is about to happen should be extended to other normal activities of the child. When you want him to go to bed you don’t suddenly stop him in mid flight and snatch him from his toys and games. You prepare him by giving him say, five minutes warning: “In five minutes time” or, “Soon,

I want you to stop playing and go to bed.” Then, when five minutes has passed, “O.K., that’s the end of the game for tonight. Finish playing.” End his cycle of action.

I mentioned before about mother going out. Once again we prepare Johnny for this by telling him in advance that mother is going out. When she goes there is no sudden break. He is informed. He is prepared. Parents often think that they will spare themselves worry and trouble if they do not prepare a child for what is just ahead. For example, when a child has his first injection, many parents will tell him not to worry as it is not going to hurt and the doctor is a nice man. Well, the doctor is a nice man, that’s true, but the injection will probably hurt a little and the child should be told that it is going to hurt a little. Consider how you would feel if your doctor did not prepare the way for you and suddenly did something that hurt. Consider how you feel towards doctors who try to deceive you with false information about your condition which you discover to be untrue. You don’t like doctors who do this and you wouldn’t trust them a second time would you? If you don’t want your child to feel the same way about you tell him the truth. Prepare him for what is about to happen.

Don’t underestimate the value of this “touching things” process because it seems so utterly simple. It is powerful! It has many bonuses too. It teaches both the parent and the child good control. It shows how to prepare the way both for the start and the finish of a cycle of action so that there are no abrupt, unexpected starts and stops. It demonstrates the importance of having a definite beginning and a definite ending to each cycle of action. It teaches communication and gives practice in getting agreement about what is to be done and to acknowledge what is being or has been done. There is another considerable bonus for the parent. When a child is having a tantrum many a parent loses control of himself. He doesn’t know what to do for the best. He feels helpless, confused, frustrated and angry, because all attempts to reason with the child have failed. This is the effect the parent’s reactive mind is having on the parent. So, this process gives the parent something to do that he can do, and puts him in control of himself.

Up to this point I have been talking mostly about a child having a reactive mind and I have not laid much stress on the fact that the parent too has a reactive mind and is similarly subject to its effect. This is true of course, and the average parent has many, many more irrationalities keyed-in than the average child. Keyed-in incidents which contain violent emotional charge will certainly take control of us and we will react like puppets, but the greater majority of incidents are comparatively light and the compulsive reactions from these, provided that we recognize them as such, can be controlled to some degree by normal education and training as long as we are in good shape generally. However, to carry out the suggestions I have made, and to effectively use even the very simple processes that are given in this book, will require a degree of patience and understanding which is probably beyond the present ability of some parents. It should be obvious that the parent who is so much under the influence of his own reactive mind that he cannot help feeling angry and frustrated when his child has a tantrum, is very unlikely to be able to do anything helpful. He would first have to be able to do something about controlling his own “tantrum” before he could ever hope to do anything for the child.

There are almost daily occurrences of parents maiming and even killing their children in uncontrollable fits of rage. Hence the advice that if you doubt your ability to effectively handle a situation with your child it is better to simply leave him alone until things balance up again in their own time. A better way to deal with this problem, however, is for parents themselves to have Scientology training and processing to equip them not only for bringing up their children but also to help them with their own personal problems.

A further bonus of this “touching things” process is that the child who is allowed and even encouraged to touch lots of things while under supervision, satisfies a lot of his natural desire to touch things. Thus, when he goes visiting, he is much more likely to keep his hands off Grandma’s precious crystal.

All through this CHAPTER you have probably had a child of a certain age in mind, but I must assure you that you can run this process with benefit on anyone from a week-old baby to an adult of ninety. On very young children there is yet another bonus. It speeds up their learning. When you tell them to touch many named objects they learn the names of all the things around the environment much sooner than they would have otherwise. They also take more interest in their surroundings at all times and ask the names of new things that they encounter.

Don’t wait until your child has some trouble before trying yourself out with the process. Try it out for just a little while now and again when the child is well and happy. You will find that he enjoys “touching things” and will look forward to “playing that game some more.” Just to make sure that you have not lost the details in the accompanying explanations, here again is the basic patter of the process.

“Is it all right if we do something to help you?”

“Good.” (Whether he agrees or not.)

“Touch that wall.” (Indicating which wall and taking his hand and pressing it on the wall if he does not do so.)

“Thank you.”

Repeat with many objects and body parts, then, when the child appears to have improved—

“Is it all right if we do this just two more times and then finish?”

“Good. “ (This time with his agreement. ) “Touch that piano.”

“Thank you.”
“Touch that chair.” “Thank you.”

“That was the last one. That is the end of that.”

Very brief processing sessions are the rule for very young children as their attention span is rather short. Longer sessions may be given to teenagers and

adults, but remember, there is nothing magical about it. You do not have someone do it for an hour a day like piano practice. Use the process only when it is needed and for only as long as necessary, and occasionally perhaps for a bit of fun.

Another useful process in the handling of children is the TOUCH ASSIST. When a child bumps or bruises or other wise hurts some part of his body, he can be helped immediately and considerably with this simple process.

EXAMPLE: Child has just fallen and bumped his head on a concrete step. A bluish bump is beginning to form but no immediate first aid is required. Proceed as follows:

“Is it all right if we do something to help you?”

(Whether he observably agrees or not we assume that we have his agreement and continue.)

“Good. Touch that step.” (Taking his hand and pressing it on the step if he does not touch it.)

“Thank you.”

“Touch your head.” (Again enforcing the command physically if necessary.)

“Thank you.”

“Touch that step.”

“Thank you.”

Continue these commands alternately until the child has stopped crying or is otherwise obviously feeling better and is to some degree willingly touching the places indicated, then—

“Is it all right if we do this just two more times and then finish?”

“Good.” (This time with his agreement.)

“Touch that step. Thank you. Touch your head. Thank you. That was the last one. That is the end of that.”

Notice particularly that there is no other random talking, no drooling sympathy, no censure for being silly or clumsy, or anything like that. Show love, compassion, comfort, interest, attention and understanding, but not sympathy. Naturally if the child is badly injured and bleeding or has broken bones, you will apply first aid measures and, if necessary, seek qualified medical attention, but as soon as this is done, get him back into communication with the environment and his body by the use of this process. The reasons you do the process at all are, firstly, the child gets over the immediate effects much more quickly, and, secondly, the injury heals much more quickly. The main reason why a physical injury does not heal, when it does not, is that the child has gone out of communication with the injured part. Restore this communication and the physical healing processes work more quickly.

The touch assist can be used on burns sometimes with results that seem almost miraculous. The beginning and end of the processing is the same as previously and only the commands are different. Actually there is only one command which is repeated many times. The command is, “Put your attention on my finger.” You touch the child’s skin somewhere outside the actual burned area and say, “Put your attention on my anger.” You then thank him for doing this and, moving your finger to a new spot, repeat the command. You continue by moving your finger to another spot for each command, thanking him for carrying out each command, and gradually working in towards the location of the severest burning. If you are succeeding with one of the miraculous” cases of this type, you will actually see marked changes taking place as the redness around the burned area diminishes and you will easily know how much closer to the center of the burn you can approach. Don’t be surprised if the burn is not completely gone in a short while as this can happen. Don’ t be disappointed if you do not produce a “miracle’> cure at the first attempt with the process. Be assured that whatever you do in this way to get the child into better communication with the burned area will help to hasten healing.

Conditions are often not ideal for these assists of course. Either you haven’t got the time, there is too much distraction, or it is pouring with rain or something like that, but do what you can, when you can. It is always worthwhile. Again, do not underestimate the effectiveness of these processes. In operation they are directly comparable to, and even more effective than, the technique of having an airman who has just crashed a plane, immediately take to the air again.

There is one more type of simple assist I will recommend in this book and this has to do with some naughty thing  a child has done, knows he has done, regrets having done, and now doesn’t know what to do about it, so it keeps on worrying him. If he doesn’t find some way of letting go of or dealing with this guilty feeling it will drive him into anti-social behavior. This usually takes the form of his justifying his OVERT ACT by considering that the person to whom the act was done deserved it because that person has done something to him. Then, he will invent something that person has done to him, and, if he can get the consideration of this to be real enough to himself, then he can also consider with reality that his overt act was really justified and therefore not really bad. This, it seems, is one of the traps that human beings fall into simply because they are basically good and thus regret their actions that hurt others.

The most direct way of dealing with the problem would be for the child to be responsible for his overt act simply by coming straight out and saying that he did it; but this is all well tied up with the reactive mind which “knows” that his survival is likely to suffer and that he is likely to get hurt (punished) or ridiculed if he does this, so, “confession” is difficult and is rarely volunteered. When it is volunteered the person confessing experiences considerable relief and becomes much more sociable, not only to the person he has harmed, but to everyone else too. So, when you see your child acting sullenly, morosely or bad temperedly, when he seems to be almost trying to purposely pick a fight with you, or avoid you, then you can be pretty sure that he has done something to you, or something he considers he should not have done. Tile way to help him is to have him communicate with you about his overt act by asking him firstly, “Have I done something wrong?”, and you may have, or he may consider you have, and will tell you. Now, when he tells you something you have done wrong, you simply understand and acknowledge what he says. You do not try to justify what you did or in any way whatsoever enter into discussion on the subject. Simply say, “Good. Thank you for telling me.” This will give him some relief and a little confidence to tell you more; and there is more; there is the other side to this which you will get by asking the question, “Have YOU done something wrong?” If and when he tells you something he has done wrong, again you simply understand and acknowledge, “Good. Thank you for telling me.” It is most important that you must not be angry with him, remonstrate with him, censure him, or advise him about what he has done. You should not register surprise, disgust or horror or anything else except attention, interest and understanding. The child is baring his very soul to you and trusting you implicitly. If you let him down even once in such a circumstance, he may never trust you to help him with his emotional problems again. A not unusual reaction to this question will be that he will dissolve or considers he has done to you, which is really quite trivial to you but is very important to him, and which, through his withholding of it, has assumed tremendous proportions in his mind.
These questions cannot, of course, be asked of a baby or a child so young that he does not understand or cannot yet talk. The first point of entry in a child’s life with this sort of thing is the ordinary apology. Any time he does something to someone, kicks his little sister, or something like that, then, if possible, have him say he’s sorry. The technical knowledge behind all this and the way it would be handled professionally is beyond the scope of this book, but you will notice that there is nothing new about the principles involved. They have been known for centuries and are to be found in some religions wherein they have confession, in such sayings as, “Confession is good for the soul”, and in common, everyday apologies given by one person to another. All you really need to know about it to immediately help the younger children is to encourage them to say they are sorry when they do something wrong. The very action of their thinking about it will reduce the emotional charge on their overt act and will make them happier and more sociable.

A WITHHOLD. A child who is withholding something that he thinks he ought to tell you about will also tend to act oddly, avoid you, and be generally bad tempered, and the longer he withholds, the greater the proportions the withhold assumes in his mind. The gradient into getting him to let go of this withhold is to ask him at a convenient time, “Is there anything you would like to tell me?”, or, more strongly, “Is there anything you think you should tell me?” Ask this only once and accept and acknowledge whatever answer you got. Do not ask again until some time later. If you feel very sure of yourself and you want to ask more forcibly still, you can use the question, “Is there anything you are not telling me?”, or, “What is it that you are not tolling me?” Once again, only accept and acknowledge whatever answer you get

These questions about withholds may be difficult to apply to the younger children, and in any case, young children are much more open, have not learned moral codes, and are therefore seldom bothered by withholds. From about seven years of age and onwards, and particularly ill the teen-ages, these withholds begin to accumulate and the youngster begins to suffer from what psychology would probably call a “guilt complex”, and this brings about further anti-social behavior. It is good practice, whenever possible, to have school-age and teen-age youngsters recall the events of the past day or week to pick up their overts and withholds, and encourage them to communicate with you about them; but remember, acknowledge only, do not censure. Give advice if it is asked for, appeal to the child’s sense of reason and justice, but do not threaten him with consequences.

One last caution. Never, NEVER use a Scientology process as a reproval, penalty or punishment. To do this would be a gross mis-application of a process and would indicate a serious misunderstanding of even the most elementary, basic principles and purposes of Scientology.

If, through reading this book, you now realize that you have been making some mistakes in the handling of your children, and you now endeavor to correct these mistakes, then be warned that you may find it very rough for a while, but do not let that worry you. Any time we endeavor to bring order to any confused situation or condition we have to be willing to face the confusion that MUST inevitably fly off. Persistence, even in the face of apparent failure, with what you know to be true, will eventually win through.

DO UNTO LITTLE CHILDREN . . .

One will frequently see outbursts in the press regarding the suitability of certain films, books, and TV shows for children. Two opposing points of view usually appear. One viewpoint is that sex, violence and horror, will corrupt children, give them a distorted view of life, and lead them into moral error. Another viewpoint is that such things do not affect children unduly, and even if they do, it is probably better for children to be exposed to them in the comparative safety of their own home rather than to suddenly, without warning, meet them in reality in the environment and have to deal with them.

Both viewpoints can be indisputably proved to be right. That is, sex, violence and horror, DO affect some children and do NOT affect other children. There is no doubt whatsoever about this; both viewpoints are right. But how can they both be right? Simply because the factor that determines how any person will react to conditions, situations and experiences, whether they be viewed, read about, or lived, is within the person himself. The reaction will depend almost entirely upon the content of the individual’s reactive mind. If sex and violence in a film restimulates incidents in the child’s reactive mind which contain sex and violence, then he reacts, and the film seems to be to blame. If there are no similar incidents in the child’s reactive mind to be restimulated, then the child is not restimulated. He neither acts nor reacts in any way out of the  ordinary and the sex and violence material appears to be harmless. The truth of the matter is, then, that in itself, it IS harmless. If this were not true then censors would have minds like cesspools and would quickly become depraved lunatics, which, of course, they do not.

The villain of the piece and the ONLY important factor is the reactive mind. So, should you or should you not allow your children to read doubtful books and see doubtful films? You now have some facts upon which to base your judgment.

This is quite a small book. It nevertheless contains ALL of the information I have personally found essential in the rearing of my own children. Had I not been armed with this information I shudder to think of the mess I might have made. And yet, on looking back over the contents of the book, there is very little in it that I could not have known anyway. All I had to do to find out how to treat little children was to “be” a child and see how I felt about the way I treated me. Try doing this yourself and you will see what I mean.

To make it easier, imagine that although you are feeling healthy and able, you wake up one day with total amnesia and find yourself committed to the care of someone who is a complete stranger and is much, much bigger and stronger than you. You are unable to work and you are completely dependent upon him for all your needs for the next fifteen years. When he first sees you his greeting is little more than a “So that’s the thing Eve got to look after” sort of grunt in a foreign language and with a curious, slightly hostile stare; not a reassuring beginning.

Let us suppose that this person treats you like this. He usually talks down to you as though you couldn’t possibly understand anything that is even slightly involved. He will not let you help much around the place and often gets angry with you when you try to justify your existence by being helpful. You try to explain your position to him but he does not understand you and does not seem to be very interested in oven trying to. Instead, you have to learn his language to be able to explain better, but he does very little to help you do this. Your education and movement in this new environment are so limited that you find it difficult to find enough to do to avoid becoming bored, but he doesn’t seem to realize this or understand your difficulties. If and when you do find something that interests you, he is just as likely to come along and, without any warning, immediately stop what you are doing and pick you up bodily and bundle you off to bed or some other equally uninteresting place. At times he tries to make you do and learn things in which you are not interested and he does not seem to care what YOU want to do.

He has a wife who is almost as big and strong, and who treats you in much the same way. In this new environment there seem to be all sorts of rules, regulations and restrictions of which you are unaware until you happen, mostly by chance, to break one of them, at which time you get scolded, cuffed across the ear or even severely punished. This guardian, who could crush you with one hand, who is four times as tall as you, is absolutely fearsome when he is angry, but as if all this physical advantage were not enough, he uses sticks and straps to beat you with. Little attempt is made to advise you of the rules in advance or warn you of the consequences of breaking them. You get this information by a sort of rough system of trial and error and consequences. Quite often the man and his wife disagree about the rules. One scolds or punishes you for doing something and the other scolds or punishes you for not doing the same thing. Some rules change from day to day. Yesterday it was all right to do something; today it is not allowed.

The man and his wife frequently argue and fight and call each other nasty names in your presence, but if you ever behave in this way, towards them or anyone else, you get told how bad you are, and you are threatened with a thrashing if you do it again.

Daily you are made to eat food you do not want. Sometimes you are forced, under the threat of a thrashing, to eat food you loathe, that virtually chokes you when you try to swallow it. Gradually you learn some of the rules that seem to be more or less stable and you are allowed to do some things. This makes you feel a little better and more secure. You begin to make special efforts to help and please your guardians but they seldom, if ever, acknowledge your efforts. Often they don’t even acknowledge you when you speak to them and this makes you feel insecure again. These “parents” don’t keep you very well informed about their movements, try to deceive and bribe you, and whisper funny things behind your back or say them in some sort of code that you can’t understand. Next thing you know, one of them has gone away somewhere and does not come back for what seems to be a long time.

This worries you, for if they should both go away, you would be left to fend for yourself, and you know you must depend on them to stay alive.

Well, I will leave it at that. This is actually a rather tame version of a child’ s trials, but nevertheless, I feel sure that by being the child in this way, you will see that there is virtually nothing in this book that you do not agree with or find to be factual or reasonably logical, acceptable and workable. Apart from the description of the reactive mind and its capabilities there is probably very little that you did not know before you read the book although in some cases you may not have realized that you knew.

Now, this information alone is not going to solve every problem you will encounter in bringing up your children; in fact, it will not, of itself, solve any problems. You must solve your particular problems yourself, because you are part of them. I have merely provided you with some of the most basic and important tools. How you use these tools is up to you and your skill as a parent.

Bringing up children is actually pretty well covered by Christ’s advice that you “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you”, the difference being, that after having read this book, you will, I hope, be able to do this a little better, because you now have some simple, organized, stable data, in place of a lot of variable, often conflicting, disconnected pieces of information. The parent who does not take steps to seek further knowledge of Scientology is missing out on what, in my opinion, is the greatest humanitarian advance ever, and this applies even to those parents who, in their own right, are accepted authorities in psychology, medicine, religion, education and the social sciences I do not want you to consider that I am an authority. I would prefer that you be your own authority and simply read what established, orthodox practices have to say about human behavior, and decide for yourself how much of what they say makes as much good sense to you as the simple material presented in this book.

There are- many psychology and medical books, on the care of children that contain some excellent information, once you are able to recognize it. The stable data given in this book can be used to measure the importance and truth of what might otherwise seem to be little more than speculative theories. You should nova be more able to measure these theories without consulting any authority other than yourself. The same, self-evident facts regarding human relationships apt not only to the rearing of children and the running of a family, but also to the management of a bust or the government of a country.

A clear mind is THE primary essential to optimum behavior, performance and success, in ALL other fields of human endeavor, for there is no sir or undertaking, that ever was or will be, that is not conceived and directed by the mind.

Attention given by parents, teachers, ministers and government authorities to the factors emphasized in this book will go a long way towards reducing the severity of many of the seemingly insurmountable humanitarian and social problems of the present day. Accidents can be minimized, the incidence of sickness can be reduced, irrationalities leading to divorce, broken homes, suicide, racial hatred, crime, vandalism, insanity and war, can virtually be eliminated, and a happier, more dignified humanity will be able to really enjoy living rather than merely struggling to exist.

Now you may see why Scientology is called, “The Science of Knowing How To Know” or, “The Science Of Life”. You may also realize that the subject of this book has not really been “Child Scientology”, or even, “How to bring up children”, but, rather, a treatise on how any decent person, of any age, of any nationality, race, color or creed, wants and needs to be treated in order to remain physically, mentally and morally healthy and able, to live in peace, in a decent world, and enjoy life as a sociable being among other decent, dignified, sociable human beings.

Children can be better than they are. Men and women can be better than they are. Your children’s future is in your hands. The future of the world and mankind will be in their hands. May you live to enjoy and be proud of not only their technical advances, but also their social and humanitarian achievements.