p. 39Correction

It is your duty to correct your children whenever they do anything wrong. All children have their faults, and yours are no exception to the rule. You are bound in conscience to correct and punish your children whenever they deserve it. You must do this from their very infancy, otherwise they would soon become unmanageable. The correction may consist in a simple sign of disapprobation; in a word, a rebuke, a severe reproof; the privation of some delicacy, of some amusement, or even of a meal. Sometimes their temper or obstinacy may require even the infliction of bodily pain. It is absurd to say that you can always manage or control your little ones by talking to them and reasoning with them, and that you never need to use the rod; your children are neither angels nor prodigies of virtue.

The younger they are, the less apt are they to be influenced by mere reason or a sense of duty and honor. Just as colts need to be broken, so also must young children, to a certain extent, be subdued by the dread of bodily pain. Some parents fail in their duty by constantly scolding, threatening, and abusing their children, without, however, inflicting actual punishment. Others very frequently beat them in anger amidst a volley of abuse; and others again go to the other extreme, for they entirely neglect to reprimand and punish them, and allow them to have their own way and do as they please. Excessive severity begets hypocrisy, and too great leniency produces license.

You should guard against showing partiality or favoritism towards any of your children, but should correct them all alike when they do wrong. Let your correction be proportionate to the gravity of their fault, especially if it proceeds from malice. Strive to inspire them with the hatred and horror of sin. Correct them with prudence, with firmness, with a loving kindness, carefully avoiding all display of passion, harshness or bitterness, and all angry and abusive words. So correct them as to convince them that you punish them, not because you are angry, but because they have done wrong p. 40and it is your painful duty to punish them. If you act thus, your correction, even when most severe, will bind your children more closely to yourself. Having punished them, do not spoil the effect of your correction by petting them immediately after. You ought, on the contrary, to endeavor to make them sensible of their fault and of the displeasure it gave you, by being, for a time, a little cold and distant towards them.

Beware of listening to their tales, or of taking their part against everybody, and especially against their teachers. Whenever you find out that they have received punishment in school, be sure to punish them for it at home also, for it is always to be presumed that the punishment inflicted at school is really deserved. Beware, then, of condemning and abusing the teacher for punishing your child; and especially abstain from doing so in your child’s hearing. Since you do not relish being condemned by others without a hearing, it is meet that you should refrain from condemning the teacher on the bare report of a faulty and, perhaps, untruthful and deceitful child. Your readiness to accept tales concerning the teacher or anybody else will encourage your children to manufacture them whenever it may serve their purpose, and will tend to make them both deceitful and untrustworthy.

In correcting the children both the father and the mother should act in concert. You ought both to follow the same line of conduct and uphold each other’s authority, for if you do not your children will soon become uncontrollable, and lose all respect for you and your authority. The father should always maintain the mother’s authority, and the mother should not fail to inspire the children with the utmost respect for their father. The mother’s simple threat “to tell father” about their misconduct should suffice to recall them at once to a sense of duty.

It behooves you, moreover, not to fail to encourage your children when they do well. You should even, at times, reward them for their good conduct. It is not advisable to give them money for their arbitrary use, except perhaps in rare cases and only in small sums. And whenever you have given them money, be sure cautiously to inquire how they have spent it. Although you are strictly obliged to teach them how to economize and appreciate the value of the money, which it costs you so much to earn, you should, nevertheless, consider it a sacred duty to inspire them with sentiments of true Christian charity and the spirit of generosity towards the poor, the Church, and all works of spiritual and corporal mercy.