In these cases, although the work is somewhat more difficult, the principles on which success depends are the same.

Slight penalties, firmly, decisively, and invariably enforced--without violence, without scolding, without any manifestation of resentment or anger, and, except in extreme cases, without even expressions of displeasure--constitute a system which, if carried out calmly, but with firmness and decision, will assuredly succeed.
_The real Difficulty_.
The case would thus seem to be very simple, and success very easy.

But, alas! this is far from being the case.

Nothing is required, it is true, but firmness, steadiness, and decision; but, unfortunately, these are the very requisites which, of all others, it seems most difficult for mothers to command.

They can not govern their children because they can not govern themselves.
Still, if the mother possess these qualities in any tolerable degree, or is able to acquire them, this method of training her children to the habit of submitting implicitly to her authority, by calmly and good-naturedly, but firmly and invariably, affixing some slight privation or penalty to every act of resistance to her will, is the easiest to practice, and will certainly be successful.