Chapter 84—Directing Juvenile Thinking Regarding
Recreation
Standards Are Being Lowered—Christian parents are giving
way to the world-loving propensities of their children. They open the
door to amusements which from principle they once prohibited
Even among Christian parents there has been too much sanctioning
of the love of amusements. Parents have received the world’s maxim,
have conformed to the general opinion that it was necessary that the
early life of children and youth should be frittered away in idleness, in
selfish amusements, and in foolish indulgences. In this way a taste has
been created for exciting pleasure, and children and youth have trained
their minds so that they delight in exciting displays; and they have a
positive dislike for the sober, useful duties of life. They live lives more
after the order of the brute creation. They have no thoughts of God or
of eternal realities, but flit like butterflies in their season. They do not
act like sensible beings whose lives are capable of measuring with the
life of God, and who are accountable to Him for every hour of their
time
Mothers to Invent and Direct Amusements—Instead of sending
her children from her presence, that she may not be troubled with their
noise and be annoyed with the numerous attentions they would desire,
she will feel that her time cannot be better employed than in soothing
and diverting their restless, active minds with some amusement or
light, happy employment. The mother will be amply repaid for the
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efforts she may make and the time she may spend to invent amusement
for her children.
Young children love society. They cannot, as a general thing,
enjoy themselves alone; and the mother should feel that, in most cases,
the place for her children when they are in the house is in the room
she occupies. She can then have a general oversight of them and be
prepared to set little differences right, when appealed to by them, and
1
Manuscript 119, 1899
.
2
The Youth’s Instructor, January July 20, 1893
.
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