look back upon their home as a sweet, beautiful, charming oasis in their life; the happiest spot on earth.
Let them give vent to all that is joyous and happy in their natures, and they will blossom out into helpful men and women instead of sedate, suppressed, sad, melancholy natures. Spontaneity, buoyancy, the bubbling over of animal spirits are worth everything in one’s education. Children who are encouraged in self-expression of their play instinct will make better business men, better professional men, better men and better women in any walk of life. They will succeed better and have a better influence in the world than those who are repressed.
Only the happiest children can make the happiest and most useful citizens. You can not give children too much heart sunshine, too much love. They thrive on fun. It is their normal food and the home is the place above all others where they should get an abundance of it. Some one has said that if you want to ruin your children let them think that all mirth and enjoyment must be left on the threshold when they come home at night. When once the home is regarded only as a place in which to eat, drink, and sleep, the work is begun which often ends in degradation.
Children who have no childhood often develop hard, cold, unsocial dispositions which are a great handicap to their success later in life.
A happy childhood is an imperative preparation for a happy maturity. The disposition, the cast of mind, the whole life tendencies are fixed in childhood. An early habit of cheerfulness—the fun-loving habit—has a powerful influence over the mature man and his career.
A happy childhood is the best possible protection against ill-health, unhappiness, and failure; the best possible protection against development of handicapping peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, and even insanity. A large percentage of the people in the insane asylums did not have a happy childhood.
It is of immense importance to teach children to avoid unpleasant, disagreeable, soul-harrowing books. Keep them from reading morbid stories, morbid descriptions of crime and misery in the newspapers. Do not let these black pictures etch their hideous forms into their tender, sensitive minds.
Children should be taught the art of getting enjoyment out of the common things of life. This will prevent the development of a restless tendency, a disposition always to think that they would be happier if they were only somewhere else, under other conditions.
If you want your children to be well, strong, and happy, try to cultivate the sense of humor, the fun instinct, in them just as much as possible. Teach children to laugh at their misfortunes and to see the ludicrous side of unpleasant things which can not be avoided or ignored.
“Mirth is God’s medicine; give the children a lot of it.”
Blessed indeed are the Joy Makers.
I once knew a little girl who was so happy that she asked her mother if she could say “Good-morning” to God. She used to say “Good-morning” to her canary, and “Good-morning” to the sun, and she naturally thought, and rightly, that she ought to say “Good-morning” to her Creator.
All the members of the mental family, all our faculties, are dependent upon their harmony for their helpfulness and efficiency. If they are unhappy their efficiency is seriously impaired. Discouragement, worry, anxiety, fear, anything which makes them abnormal, practically ruins their efficiency.
On the other hand, whatever tends to encouragement, to cheerfulness and good humor, whatever brightens hope and brings good cheer, multiplies their efficiency.
There is no other one thing which so buoys up the faculties and refreshes the whole man as good, innocent fun. The enormous success of the theatrical business is based largely upon the instinctive demand in human nature for amusement.
When this demand in us is gratified, the whole man is improved, enlarged; is more healthy, more efficient, more normal; but when it is denied, as it was among many of the Puritians in our early history, there is a famine in the nature, the faculties shrivel, and the whole character deteriorates.
It is a great thing to encourage fun in the home. There is nothing like a fun-loving home. It keeps children off the street, it discourages vice and all that is morbid. The fun-loving faculties in many children are never half developed; hence the melancholy traits, the tendency to sadness, moroseness, morbidness, which we see in men and women everywhere. These are not normal. They are indications of stifled, suppressed, dwarfed natures.
Many parents have a great idea of being stern, not realizing that suppression means strangling growth, stifling aspiration, dwarfing ideals. There can be no real growth, enlargement of faculties, where there is no freedom of expression.
The child that has been trained to be happy, that has been allowed free expression to his fun-loving nature, will not have a sad or gloomy disposition. Much of the morbid mentality which we see everywhere is due to stifled childhood.
Soul sunshine keeps everything within us sweet, pure, like the material sun which destroys the miasma. It antidotes the poisons caused from worry, jealousy, and the explosive passions. It preserves us from becoming soured on life.
A pessimistic, crotchety disposition, a faultfinding, finical, disagreeable mind sours everything in life. Pessimism is darkness. Things do not thrive or ripen, become sweet or beautiful, in the dark. It requires the sun of optimism to bring out soul-beauty and to ripen and sweeten the juices of life. The tendency of pessimism is to sour, to distort one’s way of looking at things.
What makes us happiest makes us most efficient. Happiness is the great lubricator of life which keeps the wheels from creaking, which prevents the grinding, wearing effect caused by discord.
How much stronger, clearer brained, and more efficient we feel after we have had a real jolly good time! How it refreshes, renews, and restores our flagging energies!
If you carry about a gloomy face, you advertise the fact that hope has died out of you; that life has been a disappointment to you.
The habit of frequent and hearty laughter will not only save you many a doctor’s bill, but will -also save you years of life.
Laughter is a foe to pain and disease, a sure cure for the blues and melancholy. Be cheerful and you will make everybody around you happier and healthier.
Laughter and good cheer make love of life, and love of life is half of health.
Laughter keeps the heart and face young and enhances physical beauty.
Chapter XVIII.
Neglect Your Business But Not Your Boy
Every boy is going to have a confidant, some one to whom he can tell his secrets and whisper his hopes and ambitions which he would not breathe to others. We take it for granted that his mother will stand nearer to him than any other person, but every boy will have some male friend who will stand in a peculiar relation to him. This friend, this confidant, should be his father.
You can not afford to have your boy feel that you are too busy or too indifferent to tell him how to fly his kite or bait his hook or make a toy, or to play games with him.
If you begin early enough, it is comparatively easy for you to gain your boy’s confidence. From infancy, he should grow up to feel that no one else can take your place; that you stand in a peculiar relation
