Handling violence in children

Have you noticed that kids are getting very violent these days?
Has your child been bullied in school?
How you do handle violence in your children?

I am seeing a worrying trend in children – that is – an increase in violent behaviors amongst children in school. When my son was in Primary school, he had been bullied a lot by his peers who couldn’t tolerate his bubbly joyful demeanor. He shared with me that his classmates would kick and punch him in different parts of the body. During that period, every night before sleep, I would spend time listening to his daily experience in school and helped him bring completion within him. I also taught him the right context of violence and self-defense as a form of protection. The same bullying continued after he entered into Secondary school, but the only difference was Kai is now capable of protecting himself and he responds from the space of completion. When I came back from India this January after a 3-month spiritual program, I was called to his school by the discipline master and his form teachers regarding an incident which involved my son being bullied in Mandarin class and he retaliated out of self-defense. In that meeting, it was very clear to me that his school has no clue how to handle violence in students effectively at its root and they can only request parental assistance and the so-called student counselling dictated by the Ministry of Education (MOE). In that session, I questioned the system and gave them solutions from spiritual understanding.

How do children develop such aggressive and violent tendency at a very young age?

See, by their nature children are not born violent, this pattern is a learned behavior – meaning they pick up from society in the process of growing up. In the first few years after birth, they live in a pure awareness space called Space of a Child where there is no mind only deep listening and awareness. However, many factors, layers of conditioning from society and incidents started to shape their cognitions about themselves, life and world which are the root cause of a violent pattern. These influences include

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