Christian Home Part #4

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children...
- Titus 2:4

The mother's work begins with the babe in her arms. I have often seen the little one throw itself and scream if its will was crossed in any way. This is the time to rebuke the evil spirit. The enemy will try to control the minds of our children, but shall we allow him to mould them according to his will? These little ones cannot discern what spirit is influencing them, and it is the duty of parents to exercise judgment and discretion for them. Their habits must be carefully watched. Evil tendencies are to be restrained, and the mind stimulated in favor of the right. The child should be encouraged in every effort to govern itself.

Regularity should be the rule in all the habits of children. Mothers make a great mistake in permitting them to eat between meals. The stomach becomes deranged by this practice, and the foundation is laid for future suffering. Their fretfulness may have been caused by unwholesome food, still undigested; but the mother feels that she cannot spend time to reason upon the matter, and correct her injurious management. Neither can she stop to soothe their impatient worrying. She gives the little sufferers a piece of cake or some other dainty to quiet them, but this only increases the evil. Some mothers, in their anxiety to do a great amount of work, get wrought up into such nervous haste that they are more irritable than the children, and by scolding and even blows they try to terrify the little ones into quietude.

Mothers often complain of the delicate health of their children, and consult the physician, when, if they would but exercise a little common sense, they would see that the trouble is caused by errors in diet.

We are living in an age of gluttony, and the habits to which the young are educated, are in direct opposition to the laws of nature.

Those children who are the most indulged become willful, passionate, and unlovely. Would that parents could realize that upon judicious early training depends the happiness of both the parents and the children. Who are these little ones that are committed to our care? They are the younger members of the Lord's family. "Take this son, this daughter," he says, "nurse them for me, and fit them up 'that they may be polished after the similitude of a palace,' that they may shine in the courts of the Lord."

E.G. White