Children Handbook

For the Love of Children
A Handbook
Concepts & Tools for Guiding Children
Based on the Edgar Cayce Readings

Compiled by the A.R.E. Youth and Family Staff

Chapter 4

In making suggestions for developing the mind, the Cayce readings often emphasized the importance of developing what is already there and guiding it in conjunction with the child’s will for spiritual purposes. A child’s creative imagination, encouraged, trained, and guided toward spiritual ends can combine with his or her natural desires to create and accomplish any goal.

Imagination

The Cayce readings’ emphasis on the development of strong, directed imaginative forces in children were part of a general encouragement to develop all that is constructive and creative in the child’s mind. By guiding children to use their imaginations, we also can help them toward a closer relationship to the Creative Forces within and allow greater soul development.

The following are some suggestions for helping your child learn to use his or her creative imagination.

Develop your child’s imagination through the arts or through crafts that s/he enjoys: watercolor painting, clay and wax sculpture, drawing and coloring, wood carving, knitting and crocheting, sewing and embroidering, weaving, designing and making clothes, shoemaking, creating and binding books, drama, expressive movement, dance, songs, finger plays, music, journaling, etc.
Encourage imagination through creative family activities, making sure a closer relation to the Source is the result of those activities.
Use visualization (See next section in this chapter.) to assist in attunement, learning, solving problems, or aiding healing.
Remind your child that what is visualized and acted on will come to pass!
Have a special time for relaxing and visualizing. (This is often an eagerly anticipated ritual.)
Stop your child and yourself in a particularly difficult situation and imagine a better one or a solution to this one.
A younger or very sensitive child may feel s/he is totally one with what s/he reads or listens to. Share very positive, helpful stories, and also teach your child to surround him/herself with the Christ Light or to visualize a chosen safe place to keep the self separate and protected.

Guided Visualization

The Cayce readings encouraged the use of imagination in the form of visualizations as a way of building the mind and establishing new patterns. For example, the readings suggested seeing the food one eats as nourishing and giving energy to the body. Visualizations can be used within the family unit, with children and with adults, too! Once the parent has acquired some basic skills regarding visualizations, using them can become very comfortable and valuable. Procedural guidelines for using guided visualizations are as follows:

1. Conduct the visualization at a time when the surroundings are quiet and there are no distractions.

2. Ask your child to close his or her eyes. However, some may want their eyes open or have difficulty closing them. Accept this behavior by saying, “Close your eyes when you are ready” or “Tell me when your are ready for me to begin.”

3. Speak in a soft, kind, reassuring voice.

4. Pause after each thought unit.

5. Continue the visualization even though the child may be giggling or moving about during it.

6. Adapt to individual needs and responses. Children differ in how much they want to participate verbally in the visualization. Some don’t want to answer questions, some do. If questions are asked, they should require a short response.

7. Visualizations can be used before school to set the tone for the day or for support and reassurance before a child begins homework.

8. Your child’s independent use of visualizations is the ultimate purpose. Although a child may initially resist them, he or she will eventually begin to use them in school by him/herself.

9. The sequence of the actual visualization includes:

a. Setting the scene, having the child see him/herself in a favorite, safe and comfortable place.

b. Introducing the situation in which the child seeks attunement, needs healing, etc.

c. Developing the situation and attitudes constructively in a step-by-step process, oftentimes only including one or two steps in a single visualization. The number of steps included in a visualization depends upon the child’s readiness and the intensity or complexity of the situation desired.

d. Closing the scene, reminding the child he will return later to his comfortable, safe place and asking him to bring that calm feeling back to the place he is now.

Examples of Visualization (Use your own imagination to make up others!):

IN THE GARDEN–a visualization for attunement

[Note: You can do this outside in the garden, in the sun, if you like. Relax; use any of the suggestions for preparation from sections 1-9 above that are appropriate for your child.]

Imagine yourself out in the garden, sitting on the soft ground, with the sun warm on your face.

You look down at a small mound of dirt, down into it, deeper, and you find a tiny seed.

Look at the seed closely. What does it look like? How does it feel?

Now feel yourself become smaller and smaller, until you can slip into that seed.

Feel what it’s like to be covered with cool earth, sprinkled with water, and waiting, silently, to begin to grow.

Feel the tiny movings, as you begin to sprout...pushing, slowly, breaking open the soft seed coat.

One thin shoot threads its way up through the soil, while at the same time, your tiny fuzzy-coated roots begin spreading, reaching down and out into the ground, soaking in the moisture and minerals that are your food.

Stretch...upwards! How do you feel? Happy? Nervous? Excited?

Feel the soil as it becomes warmer towards the top until, finally, you break through and feel the sun!...warming you, giving you light, encouraging you to become what you were meant to be!

Feel the wind and sway with it as you grow taller and taller.

What are you? How tall? Are you bushy? What do your leaves look like? Do you have flowers? fruit? What else do you notice about yourself?

Now, you slip out of the young plant and are you, growing, growing...coming back to sit quietly on the soft ground in the garden, back to now, back to here. You are you!

THE SECRET ROOM–a visit inside your unique self

[Note: Put on peaceful music. Relax. Use any other suggestions from sections 1-9 above.]

You are in the woods walking along a path. The sun is shining through the trees. What colors do you see? What season is it?

You come to a garden behind a cottage, and you go inside the cottage to explore.

One of the rooms is a library with books all along one wall. You pull out a book, but it is not a book. It is a cover for a secret lever. You pull the lever and a secret door opens in the far wall.

You go through the door and up a bright spiral staircase to a secret room. You know it is your secret place and you can do whatever you’d really like. Explore this place... What is the room like? What do you see?... [Let them explore for a while.]

Finally it’s time to go back. You walk down the stairs, into the cottage library. The secret door closes behind you. You walk out of the cottage into the garden, back to the path and along the path. You listen to the music. Slowly you come back to where you are relaxing, back to here, back to now.

[If it seems appropriate, talk about the experience afterwards. Remembering details often seems to help integrate inner and outer worlds. This reverie encourages a sense of individuality and gives a positive connection with the “me nobody knows.”]

Following Natural Interests

The Cayce readings viewed learning, understanding, and education as “unfoldment.” They suggested that the goal must be to reach and engage the whole child–body, mind and spirit–and indicated ways to engage the inner child as well as the mind in any learning activity. Parents were encouraged to follow their child’s natural interests to arouse his/her desire and will–to pique the curiosity, encourage questions, offer varied activities, give useful applications, and guide the child into seeing the oneness of everything in the Creative Forces.

Following are some suggestions for using your child’s natural interests to help him or her “unfold” in creative mental capacity and as a spiritual being.

Observe your child’s behavior, tendencies, manner of approaching situations, reactions, evidence of talent, ways of doing things, and physical development, and use these as avenues for approaching and applying information.
Notice your child’s usual choices of stories, toys, play situations, activities, etc.; use these or similar ones as patterns for organizing enjoyable activities.
Ponder what kinds of experiences would best help your child to develop and use his or her gifts as a person.
Be sure to offer a variety of activities, and observe your child’s development to make sure there is no overemphasis in any one area. Offer balancing activities if you see to strong an attraction in any one direction.
Remember that there is no such thing as “too much learning” if it is joyously assimilated and applied usefully.
Use your child’s requests, ideas, dreams; notice toys or items that “bring ideas” to him/her.
Choose toys and home items carefully for symbolic importance to your child.
Help you child understand fully, and take the time necessary for that; use practical applications.
Do not push or give too many restrictions, but also do not let your child “drift.” Direct a path, using the child’s modes of expression and interesting activities.
Explain the usefulness of certain information.
As each child grows older, use biographies and stories that depict main characters with admirable qualities (especially Jesus).
Choose an area of special interest to your child, look for activities that will help him or her delve into that interest, and slowly, little by little, add to the understanding.
Pay attention to how you set up your home environment. Put objects in your child’s path to investigate, opportunities to see different aspects of the world around him or her, especially from the natural world, to sharpen his/her observation and unify the thinking: plants, animals, minerals; tools; interesting pictures or stories of people or events (but not war heroes!); objects or tools for painting, sketching, drawing; home objects for making, cooking, preparing; useful applications of math, writing; interesting language uses (poetry, funny or interesting words); information on crafts, or examples of crafts from your family’s present or past; examples of and opportunities for singing, dancing, elocution, movement, drama; and any other areas of interest to your child and you!
Do not force where there is no interest (since the preference is already built in), but do give opportunities and keep an overall balance.
Develop an approach that involves the imagination and feelings. Any area of knowledge may be experienced and assimilated through desire, imagination, and will.
Give your child appropriate opportunities and tools for following his/her interests, and guide him or her into gradually taking more and more responsibility for setting goals, choosing tasks, and accomplishing them him/herself.
Look to reach and enlist your child’s inner self, and train him or her to see the Creative Forces at work in every avenue and subject of learning. Use physical and mental activities that touch her/his spirit; give or suggest reading material that will have meaningful spiritual symbols for your child.
Make adjustments in directions or activities according to some of your child’s suggestions.
Answer questions carefully and correctly, being sure you understand the question!
Use interesting stories, parables, anecdotes to illustrate concepts.
Make a game of learning; it should be fun!
Offer many different methods for learning–sight, sound, touch, movement, etc.–to find more than one way of involving your child’s desire and creative mind.
Use presleep suggestion (See Chapter 3) for better results in the body, in retention, ideas, and ideals, for every area of activity and learning.
Search your local geographic area for many new sources of interesting information: natural environments, museums and galleries, knowledgeable and fascinating people, etc.
Be generous with encouragement and praise!

Visit the A.R.E. Bookstore
for Books on Children & Child Guidance