Ties of Affection and Companionship

"Make it a special object of attention and effort to gain an influence over the minds of the children with whom you shall find within your reach. Parents often pay too little attention to this. Their fellowship with children is only the necessary contact of command and obedience. A father who devotes some time daily to involving himself in the pursuits and pleasures of his children: talking with them, playing with them, or reading stories to them, will gain an ascendancy over them which, as they grow up, will be found to be immensely powerful. They are bound together by common feelings, by ties of affection and companionship, which have a most controlling moral influence upon the heart. It is, however, often neglected."~Jacob Abbott, Training Children in Godliness