Young parents looking forward to their first child are sobered by the realization that this child’s future depends, in large measure, on the care and training they will give it.
Sensing their unpreparedness, they may go to the library and obtain books on the care and training of children. They watch for magazine articles dealing with parent-child relationships. They think back to their own childhood with the hope of improving, if they can, on the method their parents used.
Time slips by rapidly. Even before they are ready, it seems, the child is born. By now they are so concerned with the infant's physical needs that forget to keep up their study on how to be good parents. The library books have to be taken back mostly unread. The magazines with articles on parenthood lie in a stack.
“Anyway,” the young parents' reason, “the child is still young to be disciplined. We will find time to learn about child training by the time we need to put our good intention into practices.”
And so, in many homes--too many-the training of children becomes a trail-and-error enterprise. Sometimes, unfortunately, the father and the mother have not even taken sufficient time to decide on policies for rearing their children.
No single method of child training ever devised will invariably bring good results. Even within the same family, methods of training have to be individualized to suit the personalities of family to family, depending on circumstances and varying ideas. But certain broad principles, applicable in all cases, will help parents to deal wisely with their children.
A child enters life as a helpless babe, unable to care for himself, much less to know what is good for him. The parents are, therefore, totally responsible for his welfare during infancy. Without adequate care and guidance the helpless child would suffer or even perish.
Gradually, during the early months and years of a child life, mental and physical powers develop. Soon the child becomes able to think clearly, to express himself, and to have opinion of his own. But even yet he does not have good judgment. This attributes comes by experience, a commodity still in short supply because the child has not yet lived enough. The parents, one generation ahead of the child, have had the experience necessary to help the child develop his understanding of the meaning of life. They should, therefore, transfer the benefits of this greater experience to the child, patiently coaching him in making of wise choices. With good guidance a child becomes more able, year by year, to carry responsibility for his own activities. By the time he reaches his late teens and early twenties he should be prepared to act wisely in making life's major decisions; the choice of a lifework, the choice of life companion, and (most important of all) the choice of his personal philosophy.
Parent need to avoid two extremes as they develop the policies of their home. One is that of sidestepping the responsibilities of parenthood by allowing the child to grow up as he pleases. Permissiveness, we call it. The parent excuses himself, so he thinks, from the effort and toil and worry of helping his child build his personality and character. This approach to child training is based on the false belief that something inherent within the child nature gives him sufficient wisdom to guide his own course through life. How contrary to the wisdom of the ages! Solomon, for example, admonished parents: Train up a child the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
Educators and sociologists generally recognize that of the many factors tat influence a child during the period of his development, the influence of the home stands out above even that of the church or school. Communities consist of individual homes. And only as homes establish and maintain high ideals will the nation remain strong enough to withstand the influences of greed and lawlessness.
The opposite extreme, which will also avoid, is that of rigidly controlling each detail of a child's conduct right through the years of adolescence. Parents who adopt this extreme mistakenly believe that the goal of a child training is to make their children comply with their own concepts of perfect behavior. Such parents expect their children to make no mistakes. They make no allowance for a child's personal preferences. They assume that he should obey without question just because the parent has told him what to do. These parents expect the child to forfeit his individuality and to follow exactly the pattern of conduct which the parent chooses to foster.
Instead of conforming to either of these extremes in child training, parents should choose a broad and far reaching course. Their duty is to prepare their children for successful living-not to force them to comply, puppet fashion, to an arbitrary list of dos and don'ts, nor to allow them grow up with little or no restraint.
