OUR CHILDREN
Patri, Angelo
Our Children By ANGELO patrI GIVING a child everything he wants, often more than he thought of wanting, is no way to train him to be useful or to be happy. It is childish to want everything in...
...It is much needed and if wisely inspired and controlled by fathers and mothers, very valuable in its effects on character...
...Things, property, never satisfy in themselves...
...To have any meaning at all a child's possessions must be earned by some effort of his own...
...It is the easy way out of any difficulty with him...
...They may be as costly as the purse can buy but beside the cheap little thing the child earned, or made for himself, they count very little...
...It is scarcely possible to prohibit all gifts but if, right at the start, a family agrees that gifts shall be limited to special days, Christmas and birthdays, graduations and confirmations, and holds to it, things will not become too complicated...
...Effort is what sharpens a child's will, purpose, and strength...
...If a child after mending a toy wants to keep it, let him do so...
...Effort is what adds spiritual power to physical growth...
...Then too, if periodic clearings are made of closet shelves and toy closets, and the children led to mead and paint the toys they no longer use so they can give them to children who can play with them, the things have served a double purpose of value to their owners...
...The child who is choked with things is usually whining, selfish, and dull...
...It is childish to want everything in sight, and very human to add want to want, and so build up a mass of dissatisfaction where no contentment can dwell...
...What he gets without effort he cannot value...
...They will not inspire ambition in a child, nor make him long to be useful, nor generous, nor kind...
...It is cheap and easy for an adult to buy a child's favor with gifts...
...But one should look gifts to children squarely in the eye—to make certain that their intentions are honorable...
...But there should be no forced giving...
...The fact that he prepared it for giving will stay in his mind and before long he will part with it cheerfully, which is the only way he should part with it...
...Respect his property rights...
...The trouble with that notion is that the more things he gets the more he wants and the less he values them...
Vol. 8 • May 1944 • No. 22
