Child Discipline by Condé Pallen

You cannot discipline a child as you would a soldier. Childhood has no understanding of the reason of things; it does not foresee ends, and has no just apprehension of means. Too much and too rigid discipline cripples this natural environment, and so clouds and blights the freshness of the soul, and the joy of innocence. The iron of Puritanism sunk into the soul in childhood sours and hardens it, and often leads to revolt in maturer years. I suppose that you have observed that boys brought up in the strait-jacket of puritanical discipline, when they get a chance to relish the first taste of freedom from the odious restraint of their younger years, frequently rush headlong into excess. It is this observation I suppose, that has led to the common notion that clergymen’s sons usually turn out badly. Protestantism used to be very rigid in the imposition of its observances upon the young, and this doubly so in the instance of the families of ministers. With the recent decay, the puritanical regime of Protestantism has proportionately relaxed, so that the old saying about clergymen’s sons is somewhat obsolete. I do not believe in exacting too much from children. In essential things the parent should make an absolute demand upon their obedience, letting it be understood in such cases that the rule is inflexible; this of course, in all matters of religious and moral requirements. But where there is no other question of these, we should “temper the wind to the shorn lamb.” A course so stern makes a child an enemy, thrusting back upon itself that natural flow of love which gushes so bountifully out of the child’s heart for the parent, forcing the little soul into tricks of deceit to hide its shortcomings, and hardening it into moods of resentment against the mistaken harshness of parent, who errs, indeed, only through love, yet none the less thwarts his own purpose while losing the affection of the child.

On the other hand we may sin by the other extreme: by overlooking too much, by shirking, out of sheer disinclination to take the trouble or through excessive affection, the enforcement of necessary discipline, and neglecting to administer, at the required time, that chastisement  which is a tonic to the wayward soul. A child brought up without regimen, needless to say, is systematically spoiled and grows into a lawless and unruly spirit. A wayward child is nearly always an evidence of negligent parents. A flower soon withers with too much sunshine or too much shade. One child is not as another, and while we lay down a general principle for all, it is not always applicable in the same way. One child differs from another in irascibility, for instance; and our method in dealing with this one or that must discreetly vary according to disposition and the exigence of time and place. (Condé Pallen, Education of Boys)