Want of harmony between the father and mother in the government of the
children; so that the child appeals from the decision of the one to the
other.
Preventing young children from attending temperance meetings on the
Lord’s day.
DR. VINCENT: Well, there are certain types of temperance meeting
that I would not allow my child to attend on the Lord’s day. Some
temperance meetings are conducted in so irreverent a way that I would
not blame parents who are careful where they send their children on
the Lord’s day, if they do prevent them from attending such meetings.
Nevertheless, it is a great mistake not to commit our children to total
abstinence.
Not knowing where the children are after dark.
Not knowing the needs of the children, and the neglect to provide for
them in the matter of literature, taste, associations, and all that.
Parents deceiving their children. They begin this very early; sometimes
telling the children horrible stories about horrible things, if the
child goes “out of that door;” and the child finds that his mother told
a downright lie, though she punished him the other day for telling a
lie.
Not enough real work for the children, in which the whole family can
take an interest.
Children sitting up too late nights.
Children allowed to go away from home at too early an age, without
permission from parents.
Young girls graduating from school and college, and spending their time
in reading novels.
Parents loading the plates of their children with a variety of dishes,
and then doctoring them for some trouble of the stomach.
Laughing at children’s big stories, thus teaching them to be untruthful
as they grow older. We should not punish a child for having told a big
story of something he saw, without the most careful examination of the
case. The child lives in the domain of the imagination; and many a time
a child has been flogged and cruelly treated for telling a thing while
he honestly believed that which he told was true.
Fretting. There is an immense amount of misery caused in the household
by fretting; and children brought up in a fretting atmosphere grow up
to make other people miserable by fretting themselves.