Should We Discipline or Love?
Q: What is your view on disciplining?
A: Disciplining is not an objective, it is a result. The result of love.
Q: Is it really the result of love? Doesn’t love mean pampering?
A: It is so easy to mix up notions, isn’t it? Pampering is the result of weakness. It is mostly inconsistent, and unpredictable in its expectations. It is bad for the pampered one as well as the person who is doing the pampering. It is bad not only in its results, but also in its process: it leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction. The child will despise the adults whom he or she can rule, and certainly won’t respect them. The adult feels ashamed that he serves in spite of his convictions.
Q: The adult serves?
A: Yes, he or she serves without any reason. Love is completely different. Love is an inner fire, constantly burning, radiating even heat.
Q: Is the heat always even?
A: Always. What I am talking about is unconditional love. All of us crave for this. In fortunate cases we receive this from our parents.
Q: Only in fortunate cases?
A: Indeed, only in very fortunate cases. Most of the adults don’t know unconditional love, for they themselves have grown up without it.
Q: But most of the parents love their children, don’t they?
A: They love them on certain conditions. If you behave like this, then… If you behave like that, then… This lacks unconditional acceptance from which the child’s sense of security is born.
Note
Klára Kokas: With Parents (excerpt)
Children don’t need coddling or fondling; they need unconditional acceptance and the knowledge that they are loved in all circumstances. The Queen of Night wants to control Pamina, what’s more, she wants to use her to kill Sarastro. I love you if… Haven’t we heard such sentences of “love on certain conditions” from parents who have, for example, divorced or are struggling with conflicts. You don’t necessarily need a knife to kill. Words, grimaces, laughs, mocking, thousands of spiteful signs can destroy, and even swallowed anger, wrath raging deep inside can destroy.
Q: Who has unconditional love?
My belief is that God has unconditional love. But even this is difficult to recognize and the parents’ love is still more difficult to recognize. The other day I read in a book by an American psychologist that most adults cannot show their love, not even if they feel it. The whole book is about explaining how we should show our love. It is a bit frightening to think that the author might be right.
Q: How do you teach this through music?
In the experience of beautiful music, beautiful emotions come into being. It is good to catch some of these, and to keep them in our memories. Perhaps in those layers of the sub- or supraconscious we might consciously retrieve them. If we experience beauty profoundly, it is already ours in a way. It shapes and inspires us.
Q: How do you show your love?
A: With my face primarily, and with my touch for those who are blind.
Q: Sighted people can’t show their love through touching?
A: My teaching is associated with touching: I touch with love children and adults, too. This is my personal characteristic: I touch people with pleasure, I am not afraid of this, and they never misunderstand me. They can touch me, too, I don’t shrink away, I can feel the true touch and I can handle the false one. Those who are different can express their feelings differently, in their own personal way.
Note:
Klára Kokas: Out of a Clear Spring Only (excerpt)
Q: Do you praise with words?
A: It is a good question. Yes, I praise with words for a long time, until they have learnt other expressions of my praise. When we know each other, only a few words are enough. They receive encouragement from my face, my touch, the tone of my voice.
Q: What is your aim with so much praise?
A: They have to feel brave and self-secure. I praise so that they would not need my or anyone’s praise.
Q: Isn’t this a contradiction?
A: No, it is not a contradiction. It is the experience of my long years of teaching that children are taken towards independence through encouragement. Their successes helped them realize their abilities more than their failures did.
Q: What is the use of criticism then?
A: You may get into such a close personal relationship with your children or your students that they accept or are even grateful for your criticism. You always have to be careful, however: you should never criticize their imagination. You have to accept their dreams, creations, ideas, that is, their character and personality completely.
Q: For example?
A: For example, by seeking the other’s face or by the voice. Sometimes a sigh is enough if it comes from the heart. Do you really sympathize? Do you really pay attention? Don’t you feel you are wasting your time? Don’t you think about other important tasks? What are you missing out on right now?
Q: Can thoughts radiate?
A: Of course they can. Even less sensitive adults receive them, what about children then who are equipped with hundreds of excellent antennas?
Q: You demand a lot from those who deal with people. Can’t one be tired? Or indisposed?
A: They can, but they should communicate this, and apologize for it. They will be understood and accepted. Indifference, however, cannot be a natural state. If they are indifferent, they should choose a different occupation, they should deal with objects. Nonetheless, I think even objects react to indifference: they hate it.