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Parents — Duties and Attitude toward Their Children

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 11, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 23.

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Parents — Duties and Attitude toward Their Children

By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M.S.

IN no respect are parents to be one, more than in the training and care of their children. "A house divided against itself can not stand." If the father is a Christian and the mother is not, or vice versa, the outlook for the welfare of the children is surely uncertain. If parents disagree in regard to the rules and regulations of the home, there is sure to be discord in proportion to the disagreement. The minds of children are very keen and active, and they are not long in discovering the fact if the domestic machinery does not run smoothly. If one parent is lenient and the other severe, children soon learn to ask the one who is lenient for privileges which they feel quite sure the other would deny them. If both parents are severe, the children rebel, or become mere human machines, depending constantly upon some one else to tell them just what to do. If both parents are too lenient, the children take advantage of the fact, and do about as they please. If parents do not have proper love and respect for each other, it is impossible to do justice in the training of their children.
It requires all the tact and all the skill and all the wisdom that parents can muster to do that which is their duty and their great privilege to do for their children. The true Christian home is the type after which every home should be modeled. In such a home the parents are a unit in the government. The father provides the necessaries of life, and the mother is the home-keeper, looking after the welfare and highest interests of her husband and children, while both parents together seek to "make of home a little heaven to go to heaven in." They are wise rulers, never arguing different ideas of government in the presence of their children. Such parents are not arbitrary with each other, but settle differences of opinion privately, so that there is no friction.
The atmosphere of home should be that of sunshine and good cheer, in which uplifting thoughts may be easily cultivated. So much depends upon keeping the home sky free from unnecessary clouds and shadows! Children, like plants, must have sunshine, or their characters will become weak and dwarfed. If love unites the hearts of the parents so firmly that cold criticism is left out of the life, the children will catch the spirit, and will learn to love the good in life, and not form the habit of dwelling upon the evil or distasteful.
Parents who seek to extort obedience by means of threats of exaggerated punishment, come far short of the divine standard in child training. A mother once said to her disobedient small boy, "If I just had the energy, I would skin you." The effect was not very depressing upon the little culprit, for he well knew his mother's exaggerated way of speaking, and seemed to expect her lack of energy to continue, which it did. Our heavenly Father never seeks to frighten us into obedience. He never chastens us except in love. And were earthly parents to imitate the divine example, surely by far the greater part of present-day punishments would be eliminated. One may quote Solomon as authority in recommending the use of the rod, and at the same time fail to comprehend the real meaning of his advice. The fact is, Solomon's recommendation agrees perfectly with the advice of Paul when he says, "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." Solomon recommends the "rod of correction," which is the only rod that should ever be wielded in the interests of child training. The loving rod which corrects the fault is all right; but the rod of anger, the rod of revenge, the rod of indignation, and every other kind of rod, would far better be left growing where nature placed them, and where they may accomplish some good. The impatient spank, also, is a very common method of punishment which often does more harm than good. Then there is the dark closet — may it never be inflicted except by parents who enjoy the thought of going to jail themselves! It is a shame to crush the sunshine out of little lives by such unwarrantable means of torture.
No set code can be formulated for the successful training of all children. Physical ills of the same nature in different individuals may require very different treatment. So with natural ills. Treatment which would correct a fault in one child, might not be at all effectual in correcting the same fault in another. Every child is different from every other child, and it is the duty of parents to study their children individually. When little feet stray from the path of obedience, often no punishment is necessary, a few kind words being all that is needed to cause the wanderer to return. Unnecessary punishment would better be left entirely out of the home training. O, how much better it is to be loving and Christlike than to become impatient, and angrily slap and spank and whip! Kind words are so effectual, and leave only sweet memories behind. Occasions are rare when the rod is a necessity; but when it is, let it be wielded in love. The parent who does not govern himself is unfit to govern children.
The child who obeys outwardly because of fear, is not conquered, and is not in sympathy with the rules and regulations of the home. Such a child grows up lacking in filial love and respect for parental authority and advice.
Some parents pay little regard to the proper training of their children. There is a moral to be gained from the familiar story of the man who said to his dog, "Come here," and the dog went under the bed, whereupon the master resumed, "Well, then, go under the bed." There are parents who compromise with their children just like that. "Mary, you must not have that thimble. Bring it to mother." But Mary lays the thimble on a chair, and her mother resumes, "Well, then, lay it on the chair." Thus Mary learns a primary lesson in disobedience, which will make her mother more trouble later on. The woman who hides cookies from her children for fear they may eat them contrary to her wishes is depriving them of a very valuable lesson in honesty, self-denial, and respect for parental authority. There are children who do not seem to realize what real, true obedience means. When a parent makes a request, a child should comply, and do so promptly and cheerfully.
Children who are usefully employed have little time for mischief. There is nothing like exercise to keep people healthy both mentally and physically. Honest industry is a great strengthener of both brain and muscle, and its twin virtue is economy of both time and means. The child who does not learn to value moments while he is growing up, is likely never to know the value of hours in later years. The one who is allowed to waste pennies while he is a child, will probably waste dollars when he is older. Many who to-day are eking out an existence, living from hand to mouth, might be in comfortable circumstances had they only learned in childhood the worth of a penny.
Parents, while industrious and economical, should be living examples of liberality, loving their neighbors as themselves; and this sweet grace of unselfishness should be instilled into the minds of the children from early infancy. There is nothing that so clears the atmosphere of home, that renders it so congenial and enjoyable, as the divine characteristic of unselfishness. The home where each esteems others better than himself, where each finds heartfelt pleasure in loving service to others, is the home where angels love to dwell. And a neighborhood made up of such homes would surely be a foretaste of heaven itself.
Parents should cultivate good manners in the home, if they would have their children appear at ease when away from home. Company airs are like misfit clothing — they never give a good impression. The baby who stole quietly into church with his father's hat on attracted attention, but not because the hat fitted him. The quiet grace of good manners — always doing the proper thing with ease — is of inestimable value to one who would reach his greatest possibilities in life.
Every home should be supplied with good reading. Boys and girls should be taught to prize good books and papers, and to shun evil reading as they would shun the most virulent poison. Words can not express the awful consequences which eternity will reveal as the result of bad literature. Many well-meaning fathers and mothers are asleep to the fact that their boys and girls are feeding upon the miasmatic poison from the yellow scum of the swamp of sin, little dreaming that later on it will prove their ruin. But he who has acquired a real love for good reading, has found a preventive for all the ills of idleness.
Added to good reading in the home should be good music. Children who are early taught to love good reading and to appreciate good music, with drawing, painting, etc., will find enjoyment in spending their evenings at home, the place where evenings should be spent, instead of forming the ruinous habit of always seeking entertainmentelsewhere. Parents who never allow the baby to go into the street, who never permit the wee boy or girl to go down-town unattended, who see to it that their school children never loiter by the way, and who seek to make the home training in every way interesting and enjoyable, are saving themselves and their children from many unpleasant experiences later on.
The most important work in the world devolves upon parents. A sacred responsibility rests upon them which they can not evade, and parents who fail to recognize this fact will make a failure of their life-work. It is possible to keep the confidence and affection of children from babyhood to mature years. It is possible for the parents' interests and the children's interests to remain one, and for parents and children to remain companions as long as life shall last. And O, the blessedness of such loving and sacred associations!
"Sweet scenes where those who view life's setting sun, Cast radiance on later lives begun; Where silver tresses mingle with the gold, And tottering man forgets that he is old."
Ah! it is possible to retain the sweetness of family relationship. It is possible so to live day by day, and to have the heart so filled with heavenly love and parental affection, as to be able to say with Saint John the Beloved, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."