Chapter 20—Helpfulness
Teach the Children to Be Helpful—In the home school the chil-
dren should be taught how to perform the practical duties of everyday
life. While they are still young, the mother should give them some
simple task to do each day. It will take longer for her to teach them
how than it would to do it herself, but let her remember that she is to
lay for their character building the foundation of helpfulness. Let her
remember that the home is a school in which she is the head teacher.
It is hers to teach her children how to perform the duties of the house-
hold quickly and skillfully. As early in life as possible they should
be trained to share the burdens of the home. From childhood boys
and girls should be taught to bear heavier and still heavier burdens,
intelligently helping in the work of the family firm
Overlook Childish Mistakes—Thousands in their own homes are
left almost uneducated. “It is so much trouble,” says the mother. “I
would rather do these things myself; it is such a trouble; you bother
me.”
Does not mother remember that she herself had to learn in jots and
tittles before she could be helpful? It is a wrong to children to refuse
to teach them little by little. Keep these children with you. Let them
ask questions, and in patience answer them. Give your little children
something to do, and let them have the happiness of supposing they
help you.
There must be no repulsing of your children when trying to do
proper things. If they make mistakes, if accidents happen and things
break, do not blame them. Their whole future life depends upon the
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education you give them in their childhood years. Teach them that all
their faculties of body and mind were given to them to use, and that all
are the Lord’s, pledged to His service. To some of these children the
Lord gives an early intimation of His will. Parents and teachers, begin
early to teach the children to cultivate their God-given faculties
1
Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 122
.
2
Letter 104, 1897
.
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