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94
Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students
wills. The blunders of untrained, undisciplined childhood become
the inheritance of manhood and womanhood. The perverted intellect
[113]
can scarcely discern between the true and the false.
Parents who truly love Christ will bear witness to this in a love
for their children that will not indulge, but will work wisely for their
highest good. They will lend every sanctified energy and ability
to the work of saving their children. Instead of treating them as
playthings, they will regard them as the purchase of Christ, and will
teach them that they are to become the children of God. Instead
of allowing them to indulge evil temper and selfish desires, they
will teach them lessons of self-restraint. And the children will be
happier, far happier, under proper discipline than if left to do as
their unrestrained impulses suggest. A child’s truest graces consist
in modesty and obedience—in attentive ears to hear the words of
direction, in willing feet and hands to walk and work in the path of
duty.
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While many parents err on the side of indulgence, others go to
the opposite extreme, and rule their children with a rod of iron. They
seem to forget that they themselves were once children. They are
dignified, cold, unsympathetic. Childish mirth and waywardness,
the restless activity of the young life, find no excuse in their eyes.
Trifling misdemeanors are treated as grave sins. Such discipline is
not Christlike. Children thus trained fear their parents, but do not
love them; they do not confide in them their childish experiences.
Some of the most valuable qualities of mind and heart are chilled to
death as a tender plant before the wintry blast.
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While we are not to indulge blind affection, neither are we to
manifest undue severity. Children cannot be brought to the Lord by
force. They can be led, but not driven. “My sheep hear My voice,
and I know them, and they follow Me,” Christ declares.
John 10:27
.
He does not say, My sheep hear My voice and are forced into the
path of obedience. Never should parents cause their children pain
by harshness or unreasonable exactions. Harshness drives souls into
Satan’s net.