0 Study Circle Program Structure:

1

2

3 Scenes From Sathya Sai Baba Schools all over the world: Sathya Sai Baba is a world-recognized Educator and for many years his Schools and Universities in India have been turning out students with extraordinarily fine character. His wonderful very loving system of Education in Human Values is now spreading around the world. This 13-minute documentary contains scenes from schools teaching the Sathya Sai Baba Education in Human Values program in over twenty countries around the world. Love, Truth, Peace, Right Action, and Non-Violence are the main principles taught to the children in these schools. "Help Ever, Hurt Never" and "Love All, Serve All" are two phrases he frequently repeats in his Discourses.

4 Human Values The Heart of Dymamic Parenting (an excerpt from the book by Pal Dhall and Tehseen Dhall Institute of Sathya Sai Education Canberra, Australia) Good and Bad Communication Patterns Baba has said that poor communication can inflict deep wounds. This is so because it is the means by which we enter our child’s world of feelings and thoughts and understand what is happening in his life. Through sweet, soft speech we can encourage and reinforce his individual uniqueness and convey our views, values, beliefs, convictions and ideas. We teach him how to appreciate life, prioritize, cultivate aesthetics, cultivate an undistracted mind and make healthful choices. Used this way we empower our child through speech and build significant positive self-worth and self-esteem in him. However, our communication pattern can also disable our child when we focus on blame, ridicule, hurt, criticism, undermining, forcing obedience, conveying anxiety and guilt. With these we destroy his self- confidence. When there is misunderstanding and disconfirmation the child experiences pain and this creates serious hurdles in family unity. Conflict and even enmity results from the manner in which we communicate or fail to communicate. Undermining, ridiculing, cynicism, disconfirming, angry responses are processes that violate the personhood of the child and give him the signal that he is no important or significant. As Baba has said in the above quotation, wounds inflicted with the tongue do not heal easily. “Tongue is now the sharpest weapon in the armoury of the villager; it ruins many homes, it divides brothers and neighbors, it does more havoc than a bomb.” - VA, Vol II, pg 151 “The end of education is character.” – Sathya Sai Baba

5 Techniques of Good Communication There are so many techniques the parents can employ to teach the child non-violence of thought, word and deed. Empathy builds deep understanding and intimacy between parent and child. It is based on core-to-core appreciation of the child’s uniqueness. When the child is feeling helpless, frustrated, anxious or sad the parents enable him to deal with those feelings by helping him to identify what he is feeling. Once the emotion is identified the child can unload his anxiety, fear, guilt, tension or uncertainty and get in touch with his own inner wisdom to solve his problem. This heightens his awareness of his own feelings. He is also able to understand other’s feelings. This is a powerful skill since it enhances his capacity to understand himself as well as others and to resolve his conflicts within himself and with others. “Many people attend meetings, but no-one knows what is said, because they are thinking of so many things. Those who are preoccupied should not be there.” - DD, July 96 (1) Parents use Empathy to Increase Child’s Awareness of his Feelings. When parents want to understand what is happening in the child’s life they ask open-ended questions. Such questions encourage the child to think aloud, to explore, reflect and express. It is in such exchanges that the parent can reach genuine appreciation of each other. (II) Parents ask open-ended Questions (III) Parents Practive Reflective Listening

6 Questions: What are the benefits of raising children through EHV? Can we list additional non-obvious benefits of EHV?