This was written 150 years ago

and we thought we had just invented the concepts that follow.  For, you see, since we had no children of our own, we became natural intellects on how to raise children so that they would  become proper adults who in turn could raise children to become proper adults.
We acquired this skill from being students of our parents who seemed to have known the tricks all along.
Well, anyway, this article appeared in the Ontonagon, Michigan newspaper published on February 26, 1870, We liked all the items but we especially were attracted to item number 11.
Read the whole listing, and pay good attention.  (violating No. 8 already)

Sowing the Seed
A work with the above title just published in England and reprinted in Boston, gives the following hints with regard to "Sowing the seed" in the juvenile mind. They are worthy of consideration.
I will by going once more over the subject, and collecting the different ways that may be tried to sow the seeds of a brave and cheerful temper as if I were trying to write a recipe to avoid fretfulness.

1. Never refuse a thing if it is harmless, but give it, if you are able, without delay.
2. Never give anything that is cried for, that you have refused when asked for.
3. Be careful to observe real illness, and avoid causing bodily uneasiness, from over clothing, or cold, or unwholesome food such as candy, sugar plums, sour fruit, or giving buns, or cakes, to quiet a child.
4. Avoid false promises.  They are sure to be found out false.
5. Avoid threats of all kinds. If believed, they make children timid, and injure both mind and body;  if not believed, they are useless.  Such threats as bogie, policeman, black man are sure to be found out false if the child lives.
6. Never say anything to a child that is untrue.
7. Do not wreak your own bad temper, or visit your feelings of fatigue and trouble on children, by being severe with them, or by saying  "you shan't have it" or "I won't give it to you" when there is no reason for refusal except that you yourself are tired, or in trouble, or out of sorts.
8. Avoid giving orders such as "stand still", "go on", "hold your tongue", "put it down", unless you really mean that they should be obeyed; and the fewer orders given, the better.
9. Neither give too much pity, nor yet be severe when a child tumbles down and hurts oneself.
10. Do not worry a child.  Let it alone and let it lie in peace
11. Teach it early to play alone, and amuse itself without your help.  Let it alone is a golden  rule in nine cases out of ten.

To sum up all in a few words:  Try to feel like a child; to enter into its griefs and joys, its trials and triumphs.  Then look forward to the time when it shall have a numbered as many years as you have seen and pray for help and strength to do your duty by it.  You may fail, as we all may, but if you sow the seed with humility and faith, you will have done all that is permitted to us imperfect creatures; and you haver reared up a cheerful, loving,  truthful and brave spirit, in a healthy body, you have been working with Him who told us  it was "not the will of our Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish".