Logical Punishment

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 10, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 10.

Logical Punishment.

A rude child must not join the company in the parlor until he is willing to behave — the parlor is sacred to courtesy, which means only minute consideration for others.

An ill-tempered child must vent his spleen on emptiness, since friendly ears would ache when listening to the insanities of anger.

A tardy child should find his pleasures delayed; if he dawdles in dressing he must lose some part of his breakfast. If he lingers unduly over getting to bed at night, his bed-time should come earlier the next night to make up for lost sleep.

The child who will not help others should

not be helped. If he quarrels, he should be left companionless; if he lies, his word should not count — other persons’ speech may be golden, but his is counterfeit; his simple statement must be proved, it can not stand unsupported. If he steals, he must restore what he took, with open acknowledgment of his deed; if he persists, he must steal his own freedom and be shut up. If he fights, he must be cut off from association with those whom he thus maltreats.

In all these instances, a misbehaving child merely gets a home foretaste of what the world decrees for a misbehaving man. In most cases, the child himself will recognize the justice of such a return of the deed upon the doer.

The busy mother, with other children, a husband, a house to manage, and a few faults and frailties of her own, can not always make sure of dealing prompt and perfect retribution; but she must try to teach the child to regulate his conduct because he really wants to be good; to teach him to fear the sin, and not the consequences of it to himself. She should seek to make the punishment she feels she must administer so convincing and enlightening as to set the child to work mastering his own shortcomings. Above all things, one must have patience and forbearance, and the charity that “covereth a multitude of sins,” when dealing with the child, striving to keep the idea of the sin separate from the suffering the consequences must surely bring, not only to the child himself, but to others.—Success.