Children… and the Effect of What They Feel…

“What gift,” asked Cicero, “has Providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?”

The answer suggests itself, and, since it is so, one thing of which we must be ever-mindful is the influence of attitudes and actions. We may say the right words; we may write the right lines, but the lives of youth are influenced by the full effect of all they feel and see and sense⎯by the tensions and standards and morals of the home, of family, and friends, of teachers, and of our times. And no matter what we tell them, what they feel from us and see in us may be much more far-reaching than the routine of our teaching.

“…For,” to quote again, “you must take this for a certain truth, let them have what instructions you will, . . . that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them. Children (nay, and men too) do most by example . . . ”

We would add these further lines from John Locke: “Virtue is harder to be got than a knowledge of the world; and if lost in a young man, is seldom recoverd . . . A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father=s house, . . . should be fortify’d with resolution, . . . to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers . . . and has steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation . . . He that lays the foundation of his son’s fortune in virtue and good breeding, takes the only sure and warrantable way . . . ”

This, in the language of some three centuries ago, simply says that our children will be in large measure a reflection of the background of family and friends and of the moral environment in which they live their lives. “What gift has Providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?” This places upon parents the responsibility of setting such patterns as children may in safety pursue.