Flattery creates personality reactions. Flattered people do things which otherwise they would not do. They feel this fact eventually and try to reject the will of the flatterer. This is the moment that the flatterer loses his prestige and his dignity in the eyes of the one whom he tried to flatter.
Flattery is an effort to control other people and use them for selfish interests. Do not flatter your friends. Tell them you respect and love them, that you stand by them, but do not flatter them. Bribery and flattery sometimes imprison many souls in their net of selfish interest for a long time. But when the fact is seen the relations end.
One day a girl asked me, “Do you think that there is a girl in the world prettier than I am?”
“I think,“ I said, “that you proved that you are ugly because you want to be flattered.Flattered children are the most dangerous children. They cannot adapt themselves neither to school nor to society. They become addicted to flattery, and if no one flatters them, they become sick or crazy.
From the beginning, parents must try not to flatter their children if they want them to be sane and successful. If children do something good, their parents must tell them, “That was good.” If they do bad things, their parents must tell them, “That was bad.” Flattery builds an unreal, artificial personality that later takes ages to break and clear away.
Do not tell your children that they are great talents or that they are going to be great and important persons. This is the wrong way to talk. Tell them that there are great potentials in them, as in other human beings, and if they strive and work hard, they can awaken their potentials and become prominent members of society. Let them know that they must achieve through their own efforts. You cannot create right human relations with your children through flattering them. Many children even hate the things they want to do when they see that they were flattered into doing them.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1
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