Child training from an early age is of utmost importance in raising children. For example, when children are trained to help around the house at an early age, they will enjoy helping as much as playing. In encouraging this helpfulness, the mother is urged to never discourage or scold the child. She should rather look for ways to encourage even if mistakes are made. It may take longer for the child to complete the task, and the task may be imperfectly completed, but the little one's efforts should be met with smiles and affirming words of approval!
"The long-term goal is for the child to see what needs to be done without being told, and happily completing the task"
The long-term goal is for the child to see what needs to be done without being told, and happily completing the task—there is much joy found in helping and serving! Such habits inculcated early will translate into an attitude of helpfulness later in life—for example Mrs. White exhorted students to notice things that needed to be done at the college.
"The first lesson that children are to be taught is the lesson of obedience. When they have learned to obey their parents, it will not be hard for them to obey God. Obedience becomes a part of their nature."
Of course such training necessarily means that children must be taught to obey, which includes "bending" their wills to the will of the parents. Though it takes time to bring this "bending" about, it is worth investing the time in, for a child who has appropriately and voluntarily submitted his or her will to the parents, will happily follow the age-appropriate directions to do tasks around the home. There is, however, a great difference between "bending" the will, and "breaking" the will, a fact that many parents are minimally aware of if at all. A will that has been bent in the right direction will be empowered in strengthened over time to always serve God—hopefully, if the child is given the right example and shielded from Satan's many efforts to detour him or her. "Breaking" the will results in a weakened will that always seeks to please others and is a great disservice!
However and this is a major however! in learning to help, which means learning to obey, the child is also learning to obey God. The child who comes to appropriately and voluntarily submit to his or her parents will also happily and voluntarily submit to God. The child who refuses to submit to his or her parents, will also find it hard to submit to God.—Dan Augsburger
"[Children] should be taught to ... see and improve opportunities for helping others. Such a training is of untold value to a child, and it can be so given that the child will find pleasure and happiness in learning to be helpful. This is the mother’s work...."
"The first lesson that children are to be taught is the lesson of obedience. When they have learned to obey their parents, it will not be hard for them to obey God. Obedience becomes a part of their nature."
"The future of the rising generation is in the hands of parents; for, in a great measure, they hold within their control the destiny of their children both for time and for eternity. The salvation of the young depends almost wholly upon the training they receive in childhood."
"Tell your children exactly what you require of them. Then let them understand that your word is law, and must be obeyed. Thus you are training them to respect the commandments of God, which plainly declare “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not.” It is far better for your boy to obey from principle than from compulsion. If as teachers in the home the father and the mother allow children to take the lines of control into their own hands and to become wayward, they are held responsible for what their children might otherwise have been. From babyhood the child should be taught that the mother is master. Never is the mother to do anything that would give Satan opportunity to arouse or strengthen the disagreeable passions of her child. She should not use the rod, if it be possible to avoid doing so. But if milder measures prove insufficient, punishment that will bring the child to its senses should in love be administered. Frequently one such correction will be enough for a lifetime to show a child that he does not hold the lines of control."