Difference between revisions of "Week 3 Questions/Comments-327 11"
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(→Benjamin Wadsworth, 1712 – Well-Ordered Family) |
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I found the letter from Susanna Wesley to her son to be very interesting. Many of her child-rearing practices seemed harsh and extreme by today’s standards, yet I saw many things in her letter that I can relate to my own experiences with babysitting. That “cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying…”; lying and disobedience “must never pass unpunished…” and if a child does something unacceptable but with good intentions, “the obedience and intention be kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to better for the future.” -- Emma C. | I found the letter from Susanna Wesley to her son to be very interesting. Many of her child-rearing practices seemed harsh and extreme by today’s standards, yet I saw many things in her letter that I can relate to my own experiences with babysitting. That “cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying…”; lying and disobedience “must never pass unpunished…” and if a child does something unacceptable but with good intentions, “the obedience and intention be kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to better for the future.” -- Emma C. | ||
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| + | It would be a lie to say I was unacquainted with the phrase "spare the rod, spoil the child" before reading Wesley's letter. It would be completely legitimate to say I was utterly unprepared for how rigid Wesley actually was with her children. What I think was most surprising to me was how deeply entrenched in religion Wesley's system of discipline was: when trying to rein her children back in (after they're returned from their post-fire dispersal), Wesley most emphasized religion as a method of structuring her children's lives: "...and then was begun the system of singing psalms at beginning and leaving school, morning and evening. Then...[starting at 5pm] they read the psalms for the day and a chapter of the New Testament, as in the morning they were directed to read the psalms and a chapter in the Old Testament, after which they went to their private prayers..." I reread that paragraph several times--I found it that difficult to imagine a life of prayer and Bible reading, broken up only by psalms and school. Those children must have been extremely disciplined!--Nicole S. | ||
== Eliza Pinckney, 1750s, To Improve in Every Virtue == | == Eliza Pinckney, 1750s, To Improve in Every Virtue == | ||
