A WORD TO PARENTS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 28.

A WORD TO PARENTS.

NEXT to the highest responsibility in life is that which you sustain to your children in their earlier years. No question can be of greater importance to you than your habits of thought, and your general attitude toward your children. The sense of authority which comes to parents sometimes blinds them to the rights of children, and leads to imperativeness which easily becomes cruelty. Parents are in danger of demanding things of their children for their own sake, rather than for the sake of the child and its best good. Few mistakes could be greater than this, and few are fraught with worse results.

Your children have many rights, and most of all, the right to be treated so that their unfolding powers and distinct personality shall be given right tendencies and just development. You are to have judgment for both yourself and them, but your judgment and wisdom must be so applied to their lives that growth and unfolding will result rather than suppression.

Both observation and experience have taught us that the average parent is in danger of underrating the rights of his child, and of demanding of the child, under given circumstances, more than physical powers and general experience will justify. It must be remembered that beyond its intuitions the child has everything to learn, including that most difficult of problems, the adjusting of itself to a superior will, to stronger physical powers, and to standards of thought and action which come only with years of experience. The parent who is always looking out for some act or purpose on the part of his child which is contrary to the parent's wishes, as tho there was a natural antagonism between them, is most unfortunate, and probably he will be unjust to his child. Correspondingly dangerous is that attitude which sees only the good traits of the child, and fails to recognize the necessity of such training and pruning as will bring the child to its best in after-life. Remember that every interest of the child must be considered in the light of coming years, rather than of momentary surroundings. What the parent does for the child, and the habitual attitude he assumes toward it, go far to determine the destiny of the child for all time. This is enough to set you thinking.—Sabbath Advocate.