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Show W Talks With Mothers - j I j n R iNY mothers mnke the mistake of, 4 IVi. training much that-is best out of their children, and. albeit with the i best intentions in the world, this is a mis-" mis-" tnkc that cannot be corrected in after life. ' Most of us have certain standards of " onr own. which we come at last- to feci cannot be changed in any way, and either I -we arc too apt to curb much that should I; be allowed to develop, or we are prone to ': be too lenient in our demands. It If we could only reach a middle ground, F vrherc wc arc neither too strict or too in-f in-f dulgent. it would be best for both mother F and children, hut a's wc arc all of us Lhuman we usually err on one .side or the The mother who usually accomplishes t the best results is she who makes a companion com-panion of her children. If she docs this,, and is the right kind of mother, she will find that they may stray away, but that , they are very sure to come back to the go many mothers fail to remember their " own childhood and expect so much more j of their children than they have any right V When you were a child going to school ijlli- did you not una many proDicms mat no ilf one could solve but your mother or your ill father? In later life, did you not often it ( feel that you must have their sympathy II I In your email affairs? Or, if you did not It , receive this sympathy and help, did you II j not feel that, in some way, you were dc-I' dc-I' Erery child has the right to the ;com-' ;com-' ft jPaw'onship of his parents, as well as to H i their guidance. Most parents eeem to ft think that their duties arc only disdplin-Iftarr, disdplin-Iftarr, when, on the contrary, they do not ftffpay half of their obligations to their chil-Bjdren chil-Bjdren unless they nrc their playmates as Maxell as their mentors. JK5De C the most successful women of if ' j the day has always been a companion to j Jhcr three sons, in spite of the fact that not only did the usual duties of the mother 'fall to her lot, but that a large part of teach day was given over to the grind of I !-'. : N earning money devoted to their comfort' and education. She never let a day pass that she did not fi play as well as work with them. There were certain hours given to earning their bread and butter, and after that she devoted de-voted herself wholly to their other needs. Children, even more than grown people, need sympathy. The world to them is a strange place, and many things that we of an older growth know not only to be harmless, but benficial, nre to them objects ob-jects of terror and fear. No child should ever go to his father or mother with a problem and be thrust aside. If you cannot help hiui in any material ma-terial way, you can at least give to him the comfort of understanding. And it should be remembered that if your children arc to develop in any natural nat-ural way they nre going to have wills of their own, which you may find it hard to control. The best way to control children is to teach them to control themselves. The child who is put on his honor must develop de-velop honor. The boy or girl who is given to understand under-stand that he is trusted will seldom betray be-tray that trust If you do not play with your "kiddies" you win miss some oi the nnppiest mo-1 mcnts that life has to give you. Play time is the training time of the young, so the hours that you spend with them on the tennis court or on the ball ground, in the woods or on the water, over the library table in the evening, or before the fire engrossed en-grossed in some indoor game these are not wasted hours, but perhaps the most valuable that your children may ever know. Besides the value to your children yon will find that the hours spent with them are broadening to yourself in mnny ways. Grown persons as well as children need their play time, when the cares of the dny are put aside and tho miud is allowed to relax, or else concentrates itself in some entirely new and interesting problem. At first you may find that you do not like the games your boys and girls like, but as you throw yourself into their in terests you will find that your own interest inter-est will develop. One woman spends the summers with her sons camping in the woods. At first she did not like these jauntings at all. She was somewhat frnil and nervous of temperament, and at night she used to lie awake and imagine nil kiuds of terrors. But at the end of her first camping season sea-son she found that her appetite was ns keen as a child's, that she no longer tired so easily and that she slopt nine hours each night without turning over. Now she says she would not miss these summers in the woods auy more than her sons would, and not only have they drawn her into closer companionship with her children, but they have mndo hef a strong and healthy mother instead of one who was anaemic and nervous and more or less of an invalid. |
