2106.—Choice and Compulsion.
Until what age should parents compel children to obey? INQUIRER. This also is a question which it is utterly impossible to answer. It depends on the parents, on the children, and early teachings, on the tasks required, and many other things which should be taken into consideration. The obedience of after years almost wholly depends on the training of the early years. "The discipline of the child," one writer has said, "should begin a hundred years before he is born." It is almost impossible to begin too early with the child in a wise way, and if the early training of the child has not been neglected, the later guidance will come, not in the way of compulsion and command, but of counsel and advice. Older children should be companions of father and mother, in which the child has learned to respect the counsel of the father and mother. Yet there will be times when the probable results of certain acts must be laid before the young man or young woman, and he or she left to decide for themselves and learn by their own reaping the kind of seed they have sown.