Child’s Reaction
217
the lives of their children because of their own great loss in this respect?
The father may think that this is the only course that will be safe to
pursue; but let him remember that all minds are not constituted alike,
and the greater the efforts made to restrict, the more uncontrollable
will be the desire to obtain that which is denied, and the result will be
disobedience to parental authority. The father will be grieved by what
he considers the wayward course of his son, and his heart will feel sore
over his rebellion. But would it not be well for him to consider the fact
that the first cause of his son’s disobedience was his own unwillingness
to indulge him in that in which there was no sin? The parent thinks that
sufficient reason is given for his son’s abstaining from his indulgence
since he has denied it to him. But parents should remember that their
children are intelligent beings, and they should deal with them as they
themselves would like to be dealt with
[286]
To Severity—Parents who exercise a spirit of dominion [dom-
ination] and authority, transmitted to them from their own parents,
which leads them to be exacting in their discipline and instruction, will
not train their children aright. By their severity in dealing with their
errors, they stir up the worst passions of the human heart and leave
their children with a sense of injustice and wrong. They meet in their
children the very disposition that they themselves have imparted to
them.
Such parents drive their children away from God, by talking to
them on religious subjects; for the Christian religion is made unattrac-
tive and even repulsive by this misrepresentation of truth. Children
will say, “Well, if that is religion, I do not want anything of it.” It
is thus that enmity is often created in the heart against religion; and
because of an arbitrary enforcement of authority, children are led to
despise the law and the government of heaven. Parents have fixed the
eternal destiny of their children by their own misrule
To Quiet, Kind Manner—If parents desire their children to be
pleasant, they should never speak to them in a scolding manner. The
mother often allows herself to become irritable and nervous. Often
she snatches at the child and speaks in a harsh manner. If a child is
18
The Signs of the Times, August 27, 1912
.
19
The Review and Herald, March 13, 1894
.