Proper Discipline and Education of our Children
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carefully to the temporal wants of their children; they kindly and
faithfully nurse them in sickness, and then think their duty done. Here
they mistake. Their work has but just begun. The wants of the mind
should be cared for. It requires skill to apply the proper remedies to
cure a wounded mind.
Children have trials just as hard to bear, just as grievous in char-
acter, as those of older persons. Parents themselves do not feel the
same at all times. Their minds are often perplexed. They labor under
mistaken views and feelings. Satan buffets them, and they yield to
his temptations. They speak irritably, and in a manner to excite wrath
in their children, and are sometimes exacting and fretful. The poor
children partake of the same spirit, and the parents are not prepared
to help them, for they were the cause of the trouble. Sometimes ev-
erything seems to go wrong. There is fretfulness all around, and all
have a very miserable, unhappy time. The parents lay the blame upon
their poor children and think them very disobedient and unruly, the
worst children in the world, when the cause of the disturbance is in
themselves.
Some parents raise many a storm by their lack of self-control.
Instead of kindly asking the children to do this or that, they order
them in a scolding tone, and at the same time a ensure or reproof is
on their lips which the children have not merited. Parents, this course
pursued toward your children destroys their cheerfulness and ambition.
They do your bidding, not from love, but because they dare not do
otherwise. Their heart is not in the matter. It is a drudgery, instead of
a pleasure, and this often leads them to forget to follow out all your
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directions, which increases your irritation, and makes it still worse for
the children. The faultfinding is repeated, their bad conduct arrayed
before them.
Do not let your children see you with a clouded brow. If they yield
to temptation, and afterward see and repent of their error, forgive them
just as freely as you hope to be forgiven by your Father in heaven.
Kindly instruct them, and bind them to your hearts. It is a critical
time for children. Influences will be thrown around them to wean
them from you, which you must counteract. Teach them to make you
their confidant. Let them whisper in your ear their trials and joys. By
encouraging this, you will save them from many a snare that Satan has
prepared for their inexperienced feet. Do not treat your children only