Chapter 113—Building Character at Home
Satan tempts children to be reserved with their parents, and to
choose as their confidants their young and inexperienced companions,
such as cannot help them, but will give them bad advice....
Children would be saved from many evils if they would be more
familiar with their parents. Parents should encourage in their children a
disposition to be open and frank with them, to come to them with their
difficulties and, when they are perplexed as to what course is right,
to lay the matter just as they view it before the parents, and ask their
advice. Who are so well calculated to see and point out their dangers
as godly parents? Who can understand the peculiar temperaments of
their own children as well as they? The mother who has watched every
turn of mind from infancy, and is thus acquainted with the natural
disposition, is best prepared to counsel her children. Who can tell as
well what traits of character to check and restrain as the mother, aided
by the father?
Making Parents Happy
Children who are Christians will prefer the love and approbation
of their God-fearing parents above every earthly blessing. They will
love and honor their parents. It should be one of the principal studies
of their lives how to make their parents happy. In this rebellious age,
children who have not received right instruction and discipline have
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but little sense of their obligations to their parents. It is often the case
that the more their parents do for them the more ungrateful they are,
and the less they respect them.
Children who have been petted and waited upon always expect
it; and if their expectations are not met they are disappointed and
discouraged. This same disposition will be seen through their whole
lives; they will be helpless, leaning upon others for aid, expecting
others to favor them and yield to them. And if they are opposed,
even after they have grown to manhood and womanhood, they think
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