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Child’s First School
95
Administer the rules of the home in wisdom and love, not with
a rod of iron. Children will respond with willing obedience to the
rule of love. Commend your children whenever you can. Make their
lives as happy as possible. Provide them with innocent amusements.
Make the home a Bethel, a holy, consecrated place. Keep the soil
of the heart mellow by the manifestation of love and affection, thus
preparing it for the seed of truth. Remember that the Lord gives
the earth not only clouds and rain, but the beautiful, smiling sun-
shine, causing the seed to germinate and the blossom to appear.
Remember that children need not only reproof and correction, but
encouragement and commendation, the pleasant sunshine of kind
words.
The home should be to the children the most attractive place in
the world, and the mother’s presence should be its greatest charm.
Children have sensitive, loving natures. They are easily pleased and
easily made unhappy. By gentle discipline, in loving words and acts,
mothers may bind their children to their hearts.
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Above all things, parents should surround their children with
an atmosphere of cheerfulness, courtesy, and love. A home where
love dwells and where it finds expression in looks, in words, in acts,
is a place where angels delight to dwell. Parents, let the sunshine
of love, cheer, and happy content enter your own hearts, and let its
sweet influence pervade the home. Manifest a kindly, forbearing
spirit, and encourage the same in your children, cultivating all those
graces that will brighten the home life. The atmosphere thus created
will be to the children what air and sunshine are to the vegetable
world, promoting health and vigor of mind and body.
Instead of sending her children from her that she may not be
annoyed by their noise or troubled by their little wants, let the mother
plan amusement or light work to employ the active hands and minds.
By entering into their feelings and directing their amusements and
employments, the mother will gain the confidence of her children;
thus she can the more effectually correct wrong habits or check the
manifestation of selfishness or passion. A word of caution or reproof
spoken at the right time will be of great value. By patient, watchful
love she can turn the minds of the children in the right direction,
cultivating in them beautiful and attractive traits of character.