SECTION 26 OF 108

Chapter 15—Care in Handling Property

Repress Destructive Tendencies—Education must be all-round and uniform. Every mother needs to be diligent. She must allow nothing to divert her mind. She must not allow her children to follow their uneducated will in handling things in the home. They should be taught that they are not to keep the house in perpetual disorder by handling things for their own amusement. Mothers, teach your children from their earliest years that they are not to look upon everything in the home as playthings for them. By these little things order is taught. No matter what fuss the children may make, let not the organ of destruction, which is large in babyhood and childhood, be strengthened and cultivated. “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not,” God says. Without loss of temper, but decidedly, parents are to say to their children, No, and mean it.

With firmness they are to refuse to allow everything in the home to be handled freely and thrown about on the floor or in the dirt. Those who allow a child to pursue such a course are doing him a great wrong. He may not be a bad child, but his education is making him very troublesome and destructive.1

Teach Respect for Others’ Property—Some parents allow their children to be destructive, to use as playthings things which they have no right to touch. Children should be taught that they must not handle the property of other people. For the comfort and happiness of the family, they must learn to observe the rules of propriety. [102] Children are no happier when they are allowed to handle everything they see. If they are not educated to be caretaking, they will grow up with unlovely, destructive traits of character.2

Strong and Durable Playthings—Do not give the children playthings that are easily broken. To do this is to teach lessons in destructiveness. Let them have a few playthings, and let these be strong and durable. Such suggestions, small though they may seem, mean much in the education of the child.3 [103]

1Manuscript 64, 1899.

2The Signs of the Times, September 25, 1901.

3Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 123.

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