Charlotte Mason wisdom

Get the child's will with you...

"Now here is a point all parents are not enough awake to~that serious mental and moral ailments require prompt, purposeful, curative treatment, to which the parents must devote themselves for a short time, just as they would a sick child.

Neither punishing him nor letting him alone~the two lines of treatment most favour~ever cured a child. If parents recognised the efficacy and the immediate effects of treatment, they would never allow the spread of ill weeds. For let this be borne in mind, whatever ugly quality disfigures a child, he is but a garden overgrown with weeds: the more fertile the soils; he has within him every possibility of beauty of life and character.

Get rid of the weeds and foster the flowers. It is hardly too much to say that most of the failures in life or character made by man or woman are due to the happy~go~lucky philosophy of the parents. They say, 'The child is so young; he doesn not know any better; but all that will come right as he grows up.' Now, a fault of character left to iteself can do no other than strengthen." Vol. 2 (Parents and Children) , p.87