banner

Last Updated on : Saturday, October 11, 2014

 

spacer
spacer

selah

 

spacer
spacer

Chapter 6

Parental Discipline

 


spacer
spacer

 

What a pleasing sight is a family of obedient children - children who rise at their parents' bidding and hasten to perform their behests - who regard it as an all-sufficient reason that father and mother have bidden or forbidden certain acts. To Israel. this was the first command with promise: "Honour thy father and thy mother." it is good education in our obedience to the Father above. There is, however, a reverse picture in regard to disobedient children, which it is odious to look upon.

WHEN parental discipline destroys filial love. it is bad. Veneration is a mixture of fear and love, and is created in every well-organised child by strict discipline and kindness on the part of the parent. But a parent who is always beating, always frowning, scolding and commanding, and never coaxing and caressing a child, can only be feared, and ultimately, disliked. Children can never be beaten into goodness, any more than nations can be persecuted into orthodoxy. They generally love their mothers best, because they are most indulgent; but at last they find that indulgence is weakness, and then they learn to disobey the old lady, as they call her. They fear the father, because he is stern and severe; and at last they dislike him, and avoid his society for his want of sympathy. Were the weakness of both parents combined in one, they would make a virtue. The joint and cordial co-operation of the two sexes make the best discipline for children; but we are sorry to say, that there is very little of that co-operation to be found. The mother is generally a shield from the father, and her opposition always increases his severity, whilst his severity increases her indulgence. Children cannot be well reared unless parents are well married. --John Thomas.

 

 


Selah Contents

Also available in chapter format (one chapter --- on one web page) small flower

 

spacer
spacer spacer