As a rule it will be found that the students most ready to complain of school discipline are those who have received a superficial education. Having never been taught the necessity of thoroughness, they regard it with dislike. Parents have neglected to train their sons and daughters to the faithful performance of domestic duties. Children are permitted to spend their hours in play, while father and mother toil on unceasingly. Few young persons feel that it is their duty to bear a part of the family burden. They are not taught that the indulgence of appetite, or the pursuit of ease or pleasure, is not the great aim of life. (FE 65.1) MC VC

The family circle is the school in which the child receives its first and most enduring lessons. Hence parents should be much at home. By precept and example, they should teach their children the love and the fear of God; teach them to be intelligent, social, affectionate, to cultivate habits of industry, economy, and self-denial. By giving their children love, sympathy, and encouragement at home, parents may provide for them a safe and welcome retreat from many of the world’s temptations. (FE 65.2) MC VC

“No time,” says the father, “I have no time to give to the training of my children, no time for social and domestic enjoyments.” Then you should not have taken upon yourself the responsibility of a family. By withholding from them the time which is justly theirs, you rob them of the education which they should have at your hands. If you have children, you have a work to do, in union with the mother, in the formation of their characters. Those who feel that they have an imperative call to labor for the improvement of society, while their own children grow up undisciplined, should inquire if they have not mistaken their duty. Their own household is the first missionary field in which parents are required to labor. Those who leave the home garden to grow up to thorns and briers, while they manifest great interest in the cultivation of their neighbor’s plot of ground, are disregarding the word of God. (FE 65.3) MC VC

I repeat, it is the lack of love and piety, and the neglect of proper discipline at home, that creates so much difficulty in schools and colleges. There is a fearful state of coldness and apathy among professed Christians. They are unfeeling, uncharitable, unforgiving. These evil traits, first indulged at home, exert their baleful influence in all the associations of daily life. If the spirit of kindness and courtesy were cherished by parents and children, it would be seen also in the intercourse between teacher and pupil. Christ should be an honored guest in the family circle, and His presence is no less needed in the class room. Would that the converting power of God might soften and subdue the hearts of parents and children, teachers and students, and transform them into the likeness of Christ. (FE 66.1) MC VC

Fathers and mothers should carefully and prayerfully study the characters of their children. They should seek to repress and restrain those traits that are too prominent, and to encourage others which may be deficient, thus securing harmonious development. This is no light matter. The father may not consider it a great sin to neglect the training of his children; but thus does God regard it. Christian parents need a thorough conversion upon this subject. Guilt is accumulating upon them, and the consequences of their actions reach down from their own children to children’s children. The ill-balanced mind, the hasty temper, the fretfulness, envy, or jealousy, bear witness to parental neglect. These evil traits of character bring great unhappiness to their possessors. How many fail to receive from companions and friends the love which they might have, if they were more amiable. How many create trouble wherever they go, and in whatever they are engaged! (FE 66.2) MC VC