Giving and Taking Counsel and Correction

Sometimes there comes a cleavage between people who should keep close to each other—a cleavage that comes because of an inability to give or take counsel and criticism and correction kindly. Parents and children often are estranged because of this problem of giving and taking counsel and correction.

It isn’t always easy to balance authority with love—because people are not perfect, and because proximity often shows up imperfections. And parents become impatient with children, and children become impatient with parents, and feel they don’t understand. But parents do pretty well understand. They understand many things. They understand causes and consequences—and the need for correction—even if they can’t always make counsel and correction completely palatable to young people.

Learning to give criticism and correction as they should be given, learning to take them as they should be taken, is one of the greatest lessons of life—and one of the most essential, because there aren’t any perfect people, and because we all need counsel and criticism and correction.

We all make mistakes. We all need to learn about apology and repentance. And the child, of the adult, who thinks he is above counsel and correction, who thinks he is above apology and repentance, has a very important lesson to learn.

Parents have an obligation to give counsel and correction—and children (and adults and all of us) have an obligation to take criticism and correction when we have made mistakes – and to apologize and repent—and then go on to improve, without rankling resentment.

Parents and children have need to keep close to each other – and not withhold confidences and not shut off communication. There is no happiness or peace in living in injured silence, and there is no safety in supposing oneself to be above counsel and correction.

Heaven help us in our homes—and elsewhere also – to give and to keep confidences, and to give and to take constructive counsel and correction – with a balance of authority and love – remembering always that people aren’t perfect—and that correction can be done with kindness.