Security Through Love
145
many cultivate the poisonous plants that kill out the precious fruits of
love and defile the soul
Remember Your Own Childhood—Do not treat your children
only with sternness, forgetting your own childhood and forgetting that
they are but children. Do not expect them to be perfect or try to make
them men and women in their acts at once. By so doing, you will close
the door of access which you might otherwise have to them and will
drive them to open a door for injurious influences, for others to poison
their young minds before you awake to their danger....
Parents should not forget their childhood years, how much they
yearned for sympathy and love, and how unhappy they felt when
censured and fretfully chided. They should be young again in their
feelings, and bring their minds down to understand the wants of their
children
They need gentle, encouraging words. How easy it is for mothers
to speak words of kindness and affection which will send a sunbeam
to the hearts of the little ones, causing them to forget their troubles
Parents, give your children love: love in babyhood, love in child-
hood, love in youth. Do not give them frowns, but ever keep a sunshiny
countenance
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Keep Children in a Sunny Atmosphere—The little ones must
be carefully soothed when in trouble. Children between babyhood and
manhood and womanhood do not generally receive the attention that
they should have. Mothers are needed who will so guide their children
that they will regard themselves as a part of the family. Let the mother
talk with her children regarding their hopes and their perplexities. Let
parents remember that their children are to be cared for in preference
to strangers. They are to be kept in a sunny atmosphere, under the
mother’s guidance
Help your children to gain victories.... Surround them with an
atmosphere of love. Thus you can subdue their stubborn dispositions
3
The Signs of the Times, June 20, 1911
.
4
Testimonies For The Church 1, 387, 388
.
5
The Review and Herald, July 9, 1901
.
6
Manuscript 129, 1898
.
7
Manuscript 127, 1998
.
8
Manuscript 114, 1903
.