VI. Teaching Eurythmy, Music, Drawing, and Language

I would now like to say something about the difficulties that arise during puberty. These arise only when children have not been properly brought up. If children have the kind of introspection and inner experience that I described today, then that will have an effect upon the entire physical body and soul of the child. The child will have different perceptions and a different relationship to the external world than it would have had had it developed it too intellectually or with too little experience in art when the child was about seven or eight years old. The errors made in teaching children when they are seven or eight years old reappear in their problematic feelings during puberty. If we were to speak about the things that we often hear mothers and fathers tell about their children, we would be able to see how materialism has taken control of our feelings. People come to me and tell me about their five- or six-year-old child who has undesirable sexual behaviors. This shows only that people can no longer differentiate. If a knife has been made into a razor blade, then it is no longer a pocketknife. In the same way, activities that occur with children and which at a superficial level appear to expose some sexual desires are in fact not actual sexual activities, but simply demands that the child be brought up according to his or her own nature. When that is done, then abnormal feelings will not occur during puberty. It is no more a sexual act if a child scratches herself in the region of the sexual organs because there is a small sore (which may be easy to miss) than it would be if she were to scratch herself on the nose or cheek.