Parenting Lessons from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Part 2

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If Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is any indication, author Roald Dahl understood children — and parents, too. The story of the book begins with a contest in which five children, including Charlie, win a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The tour itself follows the contest.

All of the winners, except Charlie, have major character flaws. Each is self-centered in his or her own way and each one’s parents have allowed that to happen by doing nothing to stop it.

All of the parents, except Charlie’s, have coddled their children instead of training them. Combine the lessons learned when Willy Wonka exposes these character flaws in the children and parents with the fabulous Oompa Loompa song about the wonder of reading versus watching television . . .

Books are better than television. That's what the Oompa Loompa's told me! Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
Books are better than television. That’s what the Oompa Loompas told me! Photo, c. 1900, Courtesy Library of Congress.

. . . and you have some wonderful parenting instruction and you have loads of fun doing it.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;
yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Hebrews 12:11

 

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