In the same message that pastor Spurgeon addressed Sunday School teachers, he also spoke to parents:
And then, you parents, 'Do not sin against the child' by being so very soon angry. I have frequently heard grown-up people repeat that verse, 'Children, obey your parents in all things.' It is a very proper text, and boys and girls should carefully attend to it. I like to hear fathers and mothers preach from it; but there is that other one, you know, which is quite as fully inspired, 'Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.' Do not pick up every little thing against a good child, and throw it in his or her teeth, and say, 'Ah, if you were a Christian child, you would not do this, and you would not do that!' I am not so sure. You who are heads of families do a great many wrong things yourselves, and yet I hope you are Christians; and if your Father in heaven were sometimes to be as severe with you as you are with the sincere little ones when you are out of temper, I am afraid it would go very hard with you. Be gentle, and kind, and tender, and loving.
After a warning to parents not to be too stern, Spurgeon than urges them not to be too lenient:
At the same time, do not sin against the child by overindulgence. Spoiled children are like spoiled fruit; the less we see of them, the better. In some families, the master of the house is the youngest boy, though he is not yet big enough to war knickerbockers. He manages his mother, and his mother, of course, manages his father, and so, in that way, he rules the whole house. This is unwise, unnatural and highly perilous to the pampered child. Keep boys and girls in proper subjection, for they cannot be happy themselves, nor can you be so, unless they are in their places. Do not water your young plants either with vinegar or with syrup. Neither use too much nor too little of rebuke. Seek wisdom of the Lord, and kep the middle of the way.
Those of us who are blessed with children have our hands full. We will not be perfect parents, but by God's grace we can model something of his compassion and discipline.
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