The reaction of children against their parents is the necessary result of the parents' action.

So that we have to pay some attention to the character of parental action.
We cannot expect to find any coherent or uniform action on the part of parents.

But there have been at different historical periods different general tendencies in the attitude of parents towards their children.

Thus if we go back four or five centuries in English social history we seem to find a general attitude which scarcely corresponds exactly to either of Ellen Key's two groups.

It seems usually to have been compounded of severity and independence; children were first strictly compelled to go their parents' way and then thrust off to their own way.