Dangers of the Young
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can your children, who are weaker than you and cannot endure as
much. Let your pleasant, cheerful words ever be like sunbeams in
your family. The fruits of self-control, thoughtfulness, and painstaking
on your part will be a hundredfold. Parents have no right to bring a
gloomy cloud over the happiness of their children by faultfinding or
severe censure for trifling mistakes. Actual wrong and sin should be
made to appear just as sinful as it is, and a firm, decided course should
be pursued to prevent its recurrence. Children should be impressed
with a sense of their wrongs, yet they should not be left in a hopeless
state of mind, but with a degree of courage that they can improve and
gain your confidence and approval.
Some parents mistake in giving their children too much liberty.
They sometimes have so much confidence in them that they do not see
their faults. It is wrong to allow children, at some expense, to visit
at a distance, unaccompanied by their parents or guardians. It has a
wrong influence upon the children. They come to feel that they are of
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considerable consequence and that certain privileges belong to them,
and if these are not granted, they think themselves abused. They refer
to children who go and come, and have many privileges, while they
have so few.
And the mother, fearing that her children will think her unjust,
gratifies their wishes, which in the end proves a great injury to them.
Young visitors, who have not a parent’s watchful eye over them to
see and correct their faults, often receive impressions which it will
take months to remove. I was referred to cases of parents who had
good, obedient children, and who, having the utmost confidence in
certain families, trusted their children to go from them at a distance
to visit these friends. From that time there was an entire change in
the deportment and character of their children. Formerly they were
contented and happy at home, and had no great desire to be much
in the company of other young persons. When they return to their
parents, restraint seems unjust, and home is like a prison to them. Such
unwise movements of parents decide the character of their children.
By thus visiting, some children form attachments which prove
their ruin in the end. Parents, keep your children with you if you
can, and watch them with the deepest solicitude. When you let them
visit at a distance from you, they feel that they are old enough to take
care of and choose for themselves. When the young are thus left to