03. On Children Notes - KannadaPdf.

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Class : 2nd Puc

Subject : English
Chapter Name : On Children

Answer The Following Questions

1. Your children are not your children’ means

The children should have their own space.

2. They come through you, but are not from you’ means

Though parents give birth to their children they do not own them

3. According to the prophet, what may be given to the children?

According to the prophet, only our love may be given to the children.

4. Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow’ means

a. Children belong to the future.

c. Children have a different vision of life

5. Whom does the word bows refer to ?

Parents

6. What does the phrase ‘living arrows’ refer to?

Children

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7. Who is the archer in the poem?

God

8. Whom does God use as his instrument to send living arrows to the earth?

God uses parents as his instrument

9. Why does god bend the parents with all his might?

God bends the parents with all his might to test them for stability and strength so
that the arrows (children) that they shoot travel far and reach their destination

10. What brings children to the earth?

Life’s longing for itself brings children to the earth.

11. Why shouldn’t parents give their thoughts to their children?

Parents should not give their thoughts to their children because the children have
their own souls and a mind of their own and are free to think for themselves

12.Who dwell in the house of tomorrow?

Children.

Comprehension II
1. Why does the prophet categorically state ‘Your Children are not your
children’?

Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese American artist, poet and writer. ‘On Children’ is
a selection from ‘The Prophet’ published in 1923. The Prophet is one of the

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 03. On Children Notes - KannadaPdf.com
bestselling books of all time. The Prophet offers a critic of the usual
expectations of parents about their children and urges them to introspect. He
states that a child’s parents should not be controlling towards their child: rather
they should give their children the opportunity to succeed on their own. When
it comes to child’s thoughts and points of view, all that the child needs from his
parents is never ending support. Your children are not your children” but many
parents goad (pointed stick to drive cattle with compulsion) their kids
apparently without

even sparing a glance as to what the child wishes or wants “They come
through you but not from you” And though they are with you, Yet they belong
not to you” This quote means that we are all God’s children. We belong not to
a being on Earth. Rather we belong to the man above. Some parents fail to
realize this. They have come through us for a purpose of their own andsome
of them are very different from their parents, in thoughts,attitudes, wishes etc

Kahlil says that they stay with you, but they do not belong to you. Each one of
us has to chart out our own paths and not one of us resembles the other. God
and nature are so brilliant that we cannot find even one fingerprint resembling
another. Parents should love their children without binding them with their own
thoughts. Love is always divine and self less and free like bird.

2. What does the metaphor, bows and arrows signify with regard to parent
children relationship?

Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese American artist, poet and writer. ‘On Children’ is
a selection from ‘The Prophet’ published in 1923. The Prophet’ is one of the
bestselling books of all time. Kahlil Gibran’s perspective on the issue of
children is that a child’s parents can only give them love so as to make them
confident to face all the challenges of life. But they cannot impose their
thoughts. Parents can offer opinions as choices but freewill or ultimate
decision should be given to children.

Parents should allow them to grow and transcend what personality they
aspire. Parents should think that children are our future and the future cannot
be stagnant with the past. The future can only be better and brighter because
all beings (everybody) strive for perfection and that is not possible with
reference

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 03. On Children Notes - KannadaPdf.com
to the past because by focussing on the past, the present gets distorted. Here
Kahlil compares parents as bows, children as arrows and Archer as almighty.
Bow has to stretch to shoot the arrows.

In the same manner parents have to stretch the limits of their thinking and
living. The respect that any adult gets, it should not be because of his age, but
it should be because the next generation feels they deserve it due to their
thoughts which has become a foundation for their character and one day
parents should look at them and wonder, these were my thoughts but my child
has surpassed (excelled) them and parents should hope to become like their
children.Kahlil insist that is the day when any parent should be proud that the
parenting has been good. No person truly belongs to another, each person is
unique. His fingerprints and mind is solely his own parents are the “bows” that
send the “arrows” of their children into future. Each is beloved to God who is
their creator.

The archer “God” who cast the arrows wants it to go to a certain place; he
really cannot make it go unless he holds the bow stable. So that the arrow will
go the way he wants. In other words, parents need to be good stable role
models for their children if they want them to stick to the path of success.

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