PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN.
By Kate M. Holt
So many recent articles on the punishment of children discourage whipping, and say the child should be ruled by love. The latter is true, but the former need not be separated from it. God rules with love, but wrong-doers are severely punished, and he tells us that “he who spareth the rod, hateth the child.” The command is quite plain, I think; but we are sometimes troubled with the same thought that enters into the heads of some children—we know as much as “our Father.” We can not expect good from the fear of the whip, which is sure to be the result when upraised in the hand of an angry parent. There are few of us, grown ones, who would not flee in terror from a madman with a whip or club in his hands, and some parents in punishment present no more peaceful a scene. Get some one to view you with a kodak when about to punish your child, study the result, and perhaps my meaning will be plain. If the face is an angry one, you are not more fit to govern your child than he is to rule you. Did our Saviour look with anger on wrong-doers? Was it not with pitying love? It is an unpleasant task to whip a child, and so we shrink from it, as we do from many other of God’s commands, and try to find what we are pleased to call a better way, or, rather, one more to our liking. When the little one has done wrong, do not rob him of his play by way of punishment, and do not chastise him in the presence of any one else (you destroy his self-respect, and he grows bolder in disobedience); rather take him apart from the others. Take him on your lap, tell him that God gave him, a little child, to you, and that with your love and help he is to grow up to be a useful man; but that you can not do this alone, you must have his help, and together the help of God. When people have done wrong they must be punished, and it is much easier to learn while we are little to do what is right. It may be a long struggle, but the naughty little spirit must be quelled. Explain why you must punish, and then administer the punishment. By that time, your anger, if you feel any, will be cooled, and your whipping will be within reason. Your child will understand that the punishment is the result of his disobedience, and not the way of working off your anger. The little lips will meet yours in a loving kiss, and “I love you, mama,” will come from the very depths of that little heart, for he feels that he has a hand in the molding of his future self, and that mama and papa stand ready to guide and help him.—Mrs. Kate M. Holt, in Housekeeper.