The Kindness of Correction

We would turn for a moment or two today to what could seem to be a paradoxical subject: The kindness of correction. We are thinking of some lines of a letter from a girl whose parents had corrected her for some wayward ways: “You know, right then I decided my parents really did love me,” she said. “They loved me enough to care what I did or what became of me, and to try to keep me from getting into trouble.” What kind of mother or father would fail to teach or fail to correct a child as occasion requires? We all make mistakes, and correction is part of the teaching process. It should be positive and purposeful, not cutting or unkind, not with an edge on it, and, if possible, not in anger—always taking feelings and circumstances into consideration, but never failing to distinguish right from wrong. How can anyone ever learn, if someone doesn’t care enough to correct. And even though there is some sting in it at the time, some embarrassment, some resentment, nevertheless, as we look back later in life, we come to know that we have cause to be grateful to those who cared enough to correct. Of course, there are the caustic critics, the cruel critics, the self-appointed faultfinders who too much enjoy their task, and the harsh punishers of people who needlessly embarrass. But blessedly there are also the pleaders, the persuaders, the true teachers, the molders and the shapers who try to be kind, and constructive, and nor more severe than circumstances make absolutely essential. So inseparable are we associated with each other that the success of children is the success of parents, and so it is with failures, and so it is with sorrows. And to parents — young parents especially — we would say: It is never too early to teach, never too early to set a proper example, never too early to correct in kindness — and there is no real way of removing from parents the responsibility to tech their children. In youth, and all along the years of life, we all do things that call for the kindness of correction. And in giving it, or in taking it, we should learn that these are among the indispensable elements: “persuasion, …long-suffering, …gentleness and meekness… Reproving betimes with sharpness… and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved.”¹ Love, earnest and “unfeigned love”¹ is among the greatest elements in a successful kind of correction.