Avoid contributing material to the drama that is always stretched taut between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s energy and consumes the love of their elders, which is effective and warming even if it does not comprehend. Ask no advice from them and count upon no understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance and trust that in this love there is a strength and a blessing, out beyond which you do not have to step in order to go very far!

The child is a living image, in and of the present, not only a historical fact. I emphasize the imaginal child because ordinarily we assume that talk about childhood is personal history.

“Children see events through hypersensitive eyes and have their own magnified impressions about the world. They often explode in joy, but their happiness offsets deep fears and dreads. Their pain can be so devastating as to upset their very souls. In this bigger-than-life arena, parents are figures of myth, literally.

If you wish to grasp a particular child’s soul for care, notice what he or she fears or finds joy in. Individual sensitivity is a key sign of soul. Look at the people she befriends, since friendship is a key element in a soulful life. What does he do when he plays? Play is like dreaming, a world within a world that the soul likes to inhabit or visit. Surely, you will see signs of a future career or lifestyle in a young child. You can nurture that seedling without pressure or demand. The soul does not respond well to force. It wants room to expand and blossom, and it needs understanding and support.

Being present builds a child’s condence because it lets the child know that she is worth thinking about. Without this, a child might come to believe that her activity is just a means to gain praise, rather than an end in itself. How can we expect a child to be attentive, if we’ve not been attentive to her?