ping
potions to prevent the little ones from disturbing their rest at night,
or to keep them quiet and from annoying them in the day time, and thus
are liable to stunt their brain development.

Even if children were not seriously injured by fear, it would be wicked
to frighten them, for it is wrong to deceive them. If there is
anything in the world that is sacred to the parent or teacher, it is
the unquestioned confidence of children.

I believe that the beginnings of deterioration in a great many people
who go wrong could be traced to the forfeiting of the children's
respect and confidence by the parents and teachers. We all know from
experience that confidence once shaken is almost never entirely
restored. Even when we forgive, we seldom forget; the suspicion often
remains. There should never be any shadows between the child and his
parents and teachers. He should always be treated with the utmost
frankness, transparency, sincerity. The child's respect is worth
everything to his parents. Nothing should induce them to violate it or
to shake it. It should be regarded as a very sacred thing, a most
precious possession.

Think of the shock which must come to a child when he grows up and
discovers that those he has trusted implicitly and who seemed almost
like gods to him have been deceiving him for years in all sorts of ways!

I have heard mothers say that they dreaded to have their children grow
up and discover how they had deceived them all through their childhood;
to have them discover that they had resorted to fear, superstition, and
all sorts of deceits in order to govern or influence them.

Whenever you are tempted to deceive a child again, remember that the
time will come when _he will understand_, and that he will receive a
terrible shock when he discovers that you, up to whom he has looked
with such implicit trust, such simple confidence, have deceived him.

Parents should remember that every distressing, blood-curdling story
told to a child, every superstitious fear instilled into his young
life, the mental attitude they bear towards him, the whole treatment
they accord him, are making phonographic records in his nature which
will be reproduced with scientific exactness in his future life.

Whatever you do, never punish a child when he is suffering with fear.
It is a cruel thing to punish children the way most mothers and
teachers do, anyway; but to punish a child when he is already quivering
wit