Responsibilities of a child to the parent in all stages of life

 
The responsibilities of a child to the parents include the following
1. You ought to LOVE your parents.
LOVE is the only state of mind from which all the only other duties that you owe them, can arise. By love, we mean affection; and surely this is due to a father and mother. The very relation in which you stand to them demands this. If you are destitute of this, if you are without any propensity of heart towards them, you are in a strange and guilty state of mind. Until you are married, or are in prospect of it, they ought, in most cases, to be the supreme objects of your earthly affections. It is not enough for you to be respectful and obedient and even kind; but, where there exists no reasons for alienating your heart, you should be fond of them. It is of infinite importance that you should watch over the internal state of your mind, and not allow dislike, alienation, or indifference, to extinguish your love towards your parents. Do not take up a prejudice against them, nor allow an unfavorable impression to be made upon your mind. Respect and obedience, if they do not spring from love, are valueless in their nature, and very precarious in their existence.


2. You ought to RESPECT your parents.
"Honor," says the commandment, "your father and mother." This respect has respect to your feelings, your words, and your actions. It consists in part of an inward consciousness of their superiority, and an endeavor to cherish a reverential frame of mind towards them, as placed by God over you. There must be high thoughts of their superiority, both natural and instituted, and a submission of the heart to their authority, in a way of sincere and profound respect. Even your love must be that which is exercised and expressed towards a superior. If there be no respect of the heart, it cannot be expected in the conduct. In all virtue, whether it be that higher kind which has respect to God, or that secondary kind, which relates to our fellow creatures, we must have a right state of heart; for without this, virtue does not exist.
3. You ought to OBEY your parents.
"Children obey your parents," says the apostle in his epistle to the Colossians. This is one of the most obvious dictates of nature; even the irrational creatures are obedient by instinct, and follow the signs of the parent animal, or bird, or reptile. Perhaps there is no duty more generally acknowledged than this.
4. SUBMISSION to the family discipline and rule 
Is no less your duty than obedience to commands. In every well ordered family there is a rule of government; there is subordination, system, discipline, reward, and punishment; and to these, all the children must be in subjection. Submission requires, that if at any time you have behaved so as to render parental chastisement necessary, you should take it patiently, and not be infuriated to anger, or excited to resistance. Remember that your parents are commanded by God to correct your faults, that they are actuated by love in performing this self-denying duty, and that it costs them more pain to inflict it, than it does you to endure it. Sincerely confess your faults, and submit to whatever punishment their authority and wisdom may appoint.
5. It is the duty of children to CONSULT their parents.
Your parents are the guides of your youth; your natural counselors; the family teachers, which you are ever to consult, and the responses of which are to be received with pious respect. Even if you have just reason to suspect the solidity and astuteness of their judgment, it is due to the relation in which you stand to them, to undertake nothing without laying the matter before them, and obtaining their opinion. How much more ready should you be to do this, where you have every reason to confide in their wisdom. You are young and inexperienced; the path of life is in a considerable degree untraded by you, and perplexities are perpetually arising, which you have yet acquired no experience to understand, nor to deal properly with. They have traveled the road, and know its turnings, its dangers, and its difficulties. Go to your parents, then, with every concern; consult them on the subject of companions, books, and recreations. Let a father's and a mother's ear be the receptacle of all your cares. Have no secrets which you conceal from them.