[Sidenote: The danger is greatest in the case of parents of strong personality]
[Sidenote: though there may be difficulties also in the case of weak parents]
The danger is perhaps greatest in the case of strong willed, self-assertive and energetic parents, who in any case, as we have seen, are likely to exert a powerful influence over their children, and who, by an undue insistence on the authority which they possess, may easily cripple all initiative on the part of these latter. In parents who themselves are weak and averse from serious effort there is naturally less likelihood of this occurring: in such cases the danger lies more frequently in the direction of their devoting too little time, trouble or guidance to their children: or else in their adoption of a changeable and inconsistent attitude--petting, indulging, spoiling and bribing one minute, bullying, nagging and punishing the next; being now overstrict, now easy-going.
[Sidenote: Necessity of parental readjustment]
Here, as in the case of the love-weaning, it is difficult or impossible for parents to carry out satisfactorily the steps necessary for the gradual emancipation of their children, except in so far as they are able to make a corresponding readjustment of their own emotions and tendencies. New interests and occupations must gradually take the place of those that formerly centred round the children; otherwise there is likely to arise a blank in the affective life, which may lead to much unhappiness and even to neurosis.
[Sidenote: Too prolonged parental jurisdiction is a cause of filio-parental hatred in later life]
In considering the question of the emancipation of children from the authority and influence of their parents, it is well to bear in mind also that it is the exercise of this authority and influence which affords the principal occasion for the development or continuance of the hatred of children towards their parents in adolescent or adult life. The arousal of some hatred in the early years of childhood may indeed be inevitable. Its continuance into later life, with all the misery that this is apt to entail, may probably in nearly every case be avoided, provided that the stage of infantile jealousy has been successfully surmounted and that the child is endowed with something approaching the usual degree of amenability and sympathy with the point of view and susceptibilities of others; the rest is very largely a matter of the careful relaxation of parental authority and of the granting of reasonable and ever increasing amounts of liberty and of opportunity for self-guidance and self-control.