Proper Discipline and Education of our Children
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lives; they will be helpless, leaning upon others for aid, expecting
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others to favor them and yield to them. And if they are opposed,
even after they have grown to manhood and womanhood, they think
themselves abused; and thus they worry their way through the world,
hardly able to bear their own weight, often murmuring and fretting
because everything does not suit them
A woman does herself and her family a serious wrong when she
does her work and theirs too—when she brings the wood and water,
and even takes the ax to prepare the wood, while her husband and
sons sit about the fire having a social, easy time. God never designed
that wives and mothers should be slaves to their families. Many a
mother is overburdened with care while her children are not educated
to share the domestic burdens. As the result, she grows old and dies
prematurely, leaving her children just when a mother is most needed
to guide their inexperienced feet. Who is to blame?
Husbands should do all they can to save the wife care and keep
her spirit cheerful. Never should idleness be fostered or permitted in
children, for it soon becomes a habit
Parents, Lead Your Children to Christ
Children may wish to do right, they may purpose in their hearts
to be obedient and kind to their parents or guardians; but they need
help and encouragement from them. They may make good resolutions;
but unless their principles are strengthened by religion and their lives
influenced by the renewing grace of God, they will fail to come up to
the mark.
Parents should redouble their efforts for the salvation of their chil-
dren. They should faithfully instruct them, not leaving them to gather
up their education as best they can. The young should not be suffered
to learn good and evil indiscriminately, with the idea that at some
future time the good will predominate and the evil lose its influence.
The evil will increase faster than the good.
Parents, you should commence to discipline the minds of your
children while very young, to the end that they may be Christians. Let
all your efforts be for their salvation. Act as though they were placed in
298
Testimonies for the Church 1:392, 393
299
Testimonies for the Church 5:180, 181