Children copy what is done and ignore what is said.
बच्चे वही सीखते हैं जो देखते हैं, जो सुनाया जाता है वह नहीं।
His answer on raising children with sanskar. Keep the naam audible in the house and be what you want them to become; a lectured child learns less than a watching one.
Children copy what is done, not what is said
Parents ask him constantly how to give children sanskar, and they usually mean what to tell them. He redirects it immediately. Children are poor listeners and extremely good observers, and what forms them is the behaviour available in the house every day, not the instruction delivered on a Sunday.
The example he uses is uncomfortable enough that people remember it. A father who tells his son not to lie and then, in the boy's hearing, sends a lie down a phone line to get out of an obligation, has taught the boy exactly one thing, and it was not the sentence. The demonstration always outweighs the instruction, because the demonstration is what was real.
The same logic applies to practice, and this is where he is most direct with parents. A child instructed to take the name, in a house where nobody visibly does, learns that this is something adults require of children. A child who simply grows up with a parent who chants during ordinary work absorbs it as part of how a day is shaped, and never has to be persuaded.
Living with this saying
He warns against the opposite error too, and it is a common one among devotees. Practice enforced on a household produces compliance and resentment, and the resentment often outlasts the childhood. Children made to sit through something for an hour because a parent has become serious about it will remember being made to sit, and will drop the whole thing at the first opportunity.
There is a wider claim underneath. Most of what he says about grihastha dharma rests on the household being where devotion is tested, and children are the most exacting part of that test because they are watching without discretion. How you speak to your wife when you are tired, how you talk about your employer, what you do when the shopkeeper gives you too much change, are all curriculum whether or not you intended them to be.
What it asks of you is to stop teaching and start being observed. Do the practice where it can be seen, without announcing it and without requiring anybody to join. Let the household notice that you take the name during ordinary work, that you do not lie on the phone, and that you are steady when something goes wrong. That is the entire method, and it does not need a lecture attached.
A saying, not a certified transcription: a short statement of a position he has taken consistently in public satsang.
Questions about this saying
What does Premanand Ji Maharaj mean by “Children copy what is done and ignore what is said”?
His answer on raising children with sanskar. Keep the naam audible in the house and be what you want them to become; a lectured child learns less than a watching one.
What is this saying in Hindi?
बच्चे वही सीखते हैं जो देखते हैं, जो सुनाया जाता है वह नहीं।
Is this an exact quotation?
No. It is a short statement of a position he has taken consistently in public satsang, not a certified transcription of one recording.
Where can I hear him speak about this?
His satsang is recorded and published on the official channels. This site is an independent devotee site and is not connected to the ashram.