One is, a stern and unsympathizing
maintenance of parental authority, demanding perfect and constant
obedience, without any attempt to convince a child of the propriety
and benevolence of the requisitions, and without any manifestation of
sympathy and tenderness for the pain and difficulties which are to be
met. Under such discipline, children grow up to fear their parents,
rather than to love and trust them; while some of the most valuable
principles of character are chilled, or forever blasted.
In shunning this danger, other parents pass to the opposite extreme.
They put themselves too much on the footing of equals with their
children, as if little were due to superiority of relation, age, and
experience. Nothing is exacted, without the implied concession that
the child is to be a judge of the propriety of the requisition; and
reason and persuasion are employed, where simple command and obedience
would be far better. This system produces a most pernicious influence.
Children soon perceive the position thus allowed them, and take every
advantage of it. They soon learn to dispute parental requirements,
acquire habits of forwardness and conceit, assume disrespectful manners
and address, maintain their views with pertinacity, and yield to
authority with ill-humor and resentment, as if their rights were
infringed upon.
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