On Making Your Child Come First or Second

Your first success as a parent comes when your child becomes a good human being. If they develop a good mindset, can think positive thoughts, and form a healthy understanding of themselves—that is your primary achievement as a parent.

Getting your child to score first or second in exams—this doesn't count as any kind of success. Because when exams are held, someone will inevitably come first or second—there's nothing to make such a fuss about. Today's first or second place might not even rank anywhere ten years from now! The person who comes first or second today might very well be forgotten ten years later, might even disappear entirely. This is entirely possible. I've seen it many times! Many, many times!

When you tell your child, "So-and-so's child came first in the exam, why couldn't you!", what if your child retorts: "So-and-so's father/mother isn't my parent—I wasn't born in their house! If I had been born in their house, if I were their child, then I would have come first too!" Where would you hide your face then, tell me?! The child who came first—are you that child's parent? Your son is your son, your daughter is your daughter, isn't that right? Do you even know what opportunities and facilities that child received at home? Do you know how their parents guided them? How can you be certain that the way you're teaching your student, the way you're educating your child, the way you're providing their learning—is it enough? How can you be sure? Tell me honestly.

You don't know any of this! What's enough in which situation, what's not enough in which situation—you'll never be able to understand these things. So it's entirely possible that the way you guided them, the way you directed them, there was some flaw in it. It's entirely possible! Why are you putting all the blame on them—the fault could be yours too. Maybe they're young, so they can't argue back with you. If they spoke like that, they'd get beaten. You'd hit them or scold them, so they can't speak out of fear. But there could be problems there too—how can you be certain there aren't?

Remember, more important than a student coming first or second is paying attention to how strong their foundation is. How much they know, how well they can adapt themselves to circumstances—that's more crucial. Their mental maturity matters. How well they can make decisions, how analytically they can think—that's more important. I know many incompetent first-place students who know nothing beyond their studies! They don't know how to socialize, have no creativity, no external knowledge, and their foundation isn't very strong either. They only know as much as they need to come first. Don't shape your child that way, don't mold them in that format. Try to bring them close to perfection in all aspects.

So what if they couldn't come first?! Think about it—among people your age, the ones you see around you, whom do you consider superior? Whom do you think are in good positions? Among those you respect, how many used to come first or second in school? Calculate and see. So how your child is today doesn't matter. What matters is where they'll be ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. To reach there, they need to be mentally strong, have mental maturity, strengthen their foundation, have decision-making ability, physical capability, and high confidence.

If you constantly call your child worthless, stupid, a fool, their confidence will keep diminishing. A person with low confidence can never achieve anything good in life. So confidence is sometimes more important than knowledge. Yes, this confidence is more important than knowledge itself. The primary source of building that confidence is you—you, the child's parents. Try to be clear about this aspect. Think about where they'll go and where they won't, what their future will be like. Whether they came first or second today—it doesn't matter at all. Even the most worthless, most foolish, most failed person has sometimes come first or second in life. So what comes of it?! What use is that first or second place to them? When they grow up, how much does that first or second place affect their life? Does it affect it at all?

Look and see if your child can write freehand! See if your child can write with correct grammar! See if your child can write with correct spelling! See if your child is good at math! See if your child is good at science! See if your child has a balanced knowledge base! Look at these things. I think learning to swim is more important than coming first or second in school, maintaining fitness is more important. That's what I believe. Because this too is a very necessary aspect of a person. For a person to become complete, they need some knowledge in all directions. Some fitness is needed in all directions. Just coming first or second doesn't fall under any kind of fitness. Coming first or second is a very trivial matter that happens simply by studying.

A student's primary job is studying, but their only job isn't studying—there are many other aspects. Your child is a first-place student but can't speak properly with anyone. What will happen in this case? What will happen is that when they grow up, they'll lose many opportunities that they should have grabbed. Teach them that. After teaching them that, if they can still come first or second, if they have knowledge at that level, then that's very nice, that's very good. But if you can't ensure those things and only make your child come first or second, then you've held them back in other ways. It doesn't mean anything. It has no value, it doesn't actually mean anything. If you keep these things in mind, you can break free from this mania.

More important than making your child come first or second is shaping them into a good person, a capable person, a worthy person, a humane person. Develop their knowledge in all directions, not just one. If we can do this, we'll receive a good generation as a gift. A talented beast remains a beast at the end of the day. It's more important to be a less talented good person than a highly talented bad person. That's what I believe.