Advantage can be produced to Children from Reprehension or Approbation, from Punishments or Rewards, however well proportioned, timed or placed, if there appear to them in the Parents a Dissention in the bestowing them; and that they are the Overflowings of Passion or Partiality, rather than the Result of Reason and Equity? Parents then should seriously acquaint themselves with their own Tempers, and mutually consent and agree on the Methods of regulating their Children; never to reward or punish, seem angry or pleas’d, but by Concert; and above all, never to correct while in a Passion, nor reward till the fond Fit be over. There are many things in the Management of Children rather to be wished than obtained; not so easily practised as desired; among these, one Expedient, I think, might often prove successful towards attaining this happy Medium I have been speaking of. Where a Father is of a choleric, hasty, and severe Disposition, and the Mother the reverse, which is most generally the Case, it were greatly to be wished, that, by mutual Consent, they sometimes exchanged Offices in the Government of their Children. Would the Father resolve to make it his Study so to conquer his Temper, as seldom or never, but in extreme Necessity, to interfere in reprimanding and correcting his Children, but rather to take upon him the Office of Commendations and Rewards; and of treating them with all the Affability he is Master of: and would the Mother take an equal Resolution to conquer the Softness of her Nature, to reprimand and punish them on proper Occasions with all the Sternness she can summon; remitting them for the Applause or Gratifications they may deserve to their Father: would Parents, I say, with these Dispositions, resolve on the Practice, I cannot but think it would produce excellent Effects in the Government of Children: considering the very little Danger there would be of the choleric, or naturally severe Father spoiling his Child by Excess of Fondness; or the naturally tender Mother ruining it by extreme Severity. I will here suppose, what is most agreeable to good Sense, that Parents in general have such good Dispositions as to intend the real Benefit of their Children; but either that they have not thought on what was necessary to be done, or thought on it but confusedly: I will suppose too that both Father and Mother agree in this general Intention. Still, as all have their several Ways of judging, the most sensible People will be liable to have different Notions of different Things, and even different Ways of doing the same Thing; which, so far from being wrong, if well attended to, may contribute to the great Emolument of both. Yet Parents must be extremely cautious never to differ about the Government of Children in their Hearing; it does incredible Mischief; but particularly, it alienates them from their Duty; and weakens the Authority of the Parents on one Side at least, if not on both.