Now that summer is almost coming to an end, it’s time to go back to school. As parents prepare for their children’s coming academic year with new books and stationery, it is also a time to think about making sure the coming year turns out to be one of learning and all-round development. Here are a few guidelines from Sadhguru.

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#1 Encouraging the Habit of Reading

Sadhguru: Reading as a habit and as a culture must be nurtured. The impact of reading is totally different from watching videos or playing computer games. It exercises your mind and insight in a completely different way. Hopefully, the younger generation will be brought more into reading than watching videos. Yes, the audio-visual media could be very educative, it is powerful too in its own way but reading has more intricacy and depth to it. There is more profoundness in reading when compared to watching cinema. If the larger public was reading more than what they are doing right now, if they just focused on something to read, they would be much quieter, more thoughtful and would look at life with a little more depth.

#2 Nurturing Intelligence and Ambition

Every child has the necessary intelligence to live his life fully. As a parent, you should just create an atmosphere for him to grow into his intelligence; just encourage him to be intelligent and aware. The problem comes when a parent wants their child to be intelligent their way, not the child’s way. A parent’s idea of intelligence may be that the child should become a doctor. Maybe he would have made a wonderful carpenter but you want him to become a doctor not because you want your child to dedicate himself as a doctor, but simply because you have an idea in your head that in the social structure, a doctor or an engineer means some kind of prestige. Don’t try and live your life through your children. This is a sure way to destroy children.

Your child need not do what you did in life. Your child should do something that you did not even dare to think of in your life. Only then will this world progress.

#3 Instilling Discipline

Essentially, in English, the word “discipline” means “a learning” or “to learn.” When you say, “I am disciplined,” that means you are always willing to learn. You are not stuck in some mode. Discipline is not just doing something in a particular way. If you constantly strive and are willing to learn how to do everything better, you are disciplined.

If you bring yogic practices into a child’s life there is no way they cannot be disciplined. Discipline will happen to them. Practicing yoga brings discipline into life because you have to do certain things in a certain way. Otherwise it does not work. The way yoga is taught is so meticulous that once you start doing it with that sense of meticulousness, there is no way you cannot be disciplined.

Editor’s Note: Download the free ebook Inspire Your Child, Inspire the World for more of Sadhguru’s wisdom on parenting.