Help me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, to answer all their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting them, talking back to them and contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them to be to me. Give me the courage to confess my sins against my children and to ask of them forgiveness, when I know that I have done them wrong.
May I not vainly hurt the feelings of my children.
Forbid that I should laugh at their mistakes or resort to shame and ridicule as punishment. Let me not tempt a child to lie and steal. So guide me hour by hour that I demonstrate by all I say and do that honesty produces happiness.
Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. May I cease to nag; and when I am out of sorts, help me Oh Lord, to hold my tongue. Blind me to the little errors of my children and help me to see good things that they do. Give me a ready word for honest praise. Help me to treat my children as those of their own age, but let me not exact of them the judgments and conventions of adults. Allow me not to rob them of the opportunity to wait upon themselves, to think, to choose and to make decisions.
Forbid that I should never punish them for my selfish satisfaction. May I grant them all their wishes that are reasonable and have the courage always to withhold a privilege which I know will do them harm.
Make me fair and just, so considerate and companionable to my children that they will have a genuine esteem for me. Fit me to be loved and imitated by my children.
- Garry Cleveland Myers
May I not vainly hurt the feelings of my children.
Forbid that I should laugh at their mistakes or resort to shame and ridicule as punishment. Let me not tempt a child to lie and steal. So guide me hour by hour that I demonstrate by all I say and do that honesty produces happiness.
Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. May I cease to nag; and when I am out of sorts, help me Oh Lord, to hold my tongue. Blind me to the little errors of my children and help me to see good things that they do. Give me a ready word for honest praise. Help me to treat my children as those of their own age, but let me not exact of them the judgments and conventions of adults. Allow me not to rob them of the opportunity to wait upon themselves, to think, to choose and to make decisions.
Forbid that I should never punish them for my selfish satisfaction. May I grant them all their wishes that are reasonable and have the courage always to withhold a privilege which I know will do them harm.
Make me fair and just, so considerate and companionable to my children that they will have a genuine esteem for me. Fit me to be loved and imitated by my children.
- Garry Cleveland Myers
