GENTLE PUNISHMENT OF DISOBEDIENCE.
Children have no natural instinct of obedience to their parents, though
they have other instincts by means of which the habit of obedience, as an
acquisition, can easily be formed.
The true state of the case is well illustrated by what we observe among the
lower animals. The hen can call her chickens when she has food for them, or
when any danger threatens, and they come to her. They come, however, simply
under the impulse of a desire for food or fear of danger, not from any
instinctive desire to conform their action to their mother's will; or, in
other words, with no idea of submission to parental authority. It is so,
substantially, with many other animals whose habits in respect to the
relation between parents and offspring come under human observation. The
colt and the calf follow and keep near the mother, not from any instinct of
desire to conform their conduct to her will, but solely from love of
food, or fear of danger. These last are strictly instinctive. They act
spontaneously, and require no training of any sort to establish or to
maintain them.
The case is substantially the same with children. They run to their mother
by instinct, when want, fear, or pain impels them. They require no teaching
or training for this. But for them to come simply because their mother
wishes them to come--to be controlled, in other words, by her will, instead
of by their own impulses, is a different thing altogether. They have no
instinct for that. They have only a _capacity for its development_.
_Instincts and Capacities_.
It may, perhaps, be maintained that there is no real difference between
instincts and capacities, and it certainly is possible that they may pass
into each other by insensible gradations. Still, practically, and in
reference to our treatment of any intelligent nature which is in course of
gradual development under our influence, the difference is wide. The dog
has an instinct impelling him to attach himself to and follow his master;
but he has no instinct leading him to draw his master's cart. He requires
no teaching for the one. It comes, of course, from the connate impulses of
his nature. For the other he requires a skillful and careful training. If
we find a dog who evinces no disposition to seek the society of man, but
roams off into woods and solitudes alone, he is useless, and we attribute
the fault to his own wolfish nature. But if he will not fetch and carry at
command, or bring home a basket in his mouth from market, the fault, if
there be any fault, is in his master, in not having taken the proper time
and pains to train him, or in not knowing how to do it. He has an instinct
leading him to attach himself to a human master, and to follow his master
wherever he goes. But he has no instinct leading him to fetch and carry, or
to draw carts for any body. If he shows no affection for man, it is his own
fault--that is, the fault of his nature. But if he does not fetch and carry
well, or go out of the room when he is ordered out, or draw steadily in a
cart, it is his teacher's fault. He has not been properly trained.
_Who is Responsible?_
So with the child. If he does not seem to know how to take his food, or
shows no disposition to run to his mother when he is hurt or when he is
frightened, we have reason to suspect something wrong, or, at least,
something abnormal, in his mental or physical constitution. But if he does
not obey his mother's commands--no matter how insubordinate or unmanageable
he may be--the fault does not, certainly, indicate any thing at all wrong
in _him_. The fault is in his training. In witnessing his disobedience,
our reflection should be, not "What a bad boy!" but "What an unfaithful or
incompetent mother!"
I have dwelt the longer on this point because it is fundamental As long as
a mother imagines, as so many mothers seem to do, that obedience on the
part of the child is, or ought to be, a matter of course, she will never
properly undertake the work of training him. But when she thoroughly
understands and feels that her children are not to be expected to submit
their will to hers, _except so far as she forms in them the habit of doing
this by special training_, the battle is half won.
_Actual Instincts of Children_.
The natural instinct which impels her children to come at once to her for
refuge and protection in all their troubles and fears, is a great source of
happiness to every mother. This instinct shows itself in a thousand ways.
"A mother, one morning"--I quote the anecdote from a newspaper[B] which
came to hand while I was writing this chapter--"gave her two little ones
books and toys to amuse them, while she went to attend to some work in an
upper room. Half an hour passed quietly, and then a timid voice at the foot
of the stairs called out:
"'Mamma, are you there?'
"'Yes, darling.'
"'All right, then!' and the child went back to its play.
"By-and-by the little voice was heard again, repeating,
"'Mamma, are you there?'
"'Yes.'
"'All right, then;' and the little ones returned again, satisfied and
reassured, to their toys."
The sense of their mother's presence, or at least the certainty of her
being near at hand, was necessary to their security and contentment in
their plays. But this feeling was not the result of any teachings that they
had received from their mother, or upon her having inculcated upon their
minds in any way the necessity of their keeping always within reach of
maternal protection; nor had it been acquired by their own observation or
experience of dangers or difficulties which had befallen them when too far
away. It was a native instinct of the soul--the same that leads the lamb
and the calf to keep close to their mother's side, and causes the unweaned
babe to cling to its mother's bosom, and to shrink from being put away into
the crib or cradle alone.
_The Responsibility rests upon the Mother_.
The mother is thus to understand that the principle of obedience is not
to be expected to come by nature into the heart of her child, but to be
implanted by education. She must understand this so fully as to feel that
if she finds that her children are disobedient to her commands--leaving out
of view cases of peculiar and extraordinary temptation--it is _her_ fault,
not theirs. Perhaps I ought not to say her _fault_ exactly, for she may
have done as well as she knows how; but, at any rate, her failure. Instead,
therefore, of being angry with them, or fretting and complaining about the
trouble they give her, she should leave them, as it were, out of the case,
and turn her thoughts to herself, and to her own management, with a view to
the discovery and the correcting of her own derelictions and errors. In
a word, she must set regularly and systematically about the work of
_teaching_ her children to subject their will to hers.
_Three Methods_.
I shall give three principles of management, or rather three different
classes of measures, by means of which children may certainly be made
obedient. The most perfect success will be attained by employing them all.
But they require very different degrees of skill and tact on the part
of the mother. The first requires very little skill. It demands only
steadiness, calmness, and perseverance. The second draws much more upon
the mother's mental resources, and the last, most of all. Indeed, as will
presently be seen, there is no limit to the amount of tact and ingenuity,
not to say genius, which may be advantageously exercised in the last
method. The first is the most essential; and it will alone, if faithfully
carried out, accomplish the end. The second, if the mother has the tact
and skill to carry it into effect, will aid very much in accomplishing the
result, and in a manner altogether more agreeable to both parties. The
third will make the work of forming the habit of obedience on the part of
the mother, and of acquiring it on the part of the child, a source of the
highest enjoyment to both. But then, unfortunately, it requires more skill
and dexterity, more gentleness of touch, so to speak, and a more delicate
constitution of soul, than most mothers can be expected to possess.
But let us see what the three methods are.
_First Method_.
1. The first principle is that the mother should so regulate her management
of her child, that he should _never_ gain any desired end by any act of
insubmission, but _always_ incur some small trouble, inconvenience, or
privation, by disobeying or neglecting to obey his mother's command.
The important words in this statement of the principle are _never_ and
_always_. It is the absolute certainty that disobedience will hurt him, and
not help him, in which the whole efficacy of the rule consists.
It is very surprising how small a punishment will prove efficacious if it
is only _certain_ to follow the transgression. You may set apart a certain
place for a prison--a corner of the sofa, a certain ottoman, a chair, a
stool, any thing will answer; and the more entirely every thing like an
air of displeasure or severity is excluded, in the manner of making the
preliminary arrangements, the better. A mother without any tact, or any
proper understanding of the way in which the hearts and minds of young
children are influenced, will begin, very likely, with a scolding.
"Children, you are getting very disobedient. I have to speak three or four
times before you move to do what I say. Now, I am going to have a prison.
The prison is to be that dark closet, and I am going to shut you up in
it for half an hour every time you disobey. Now, remember! The very next
time!"
_Empty Threatening_.
Mothers who govern by threatening seldom do any thing but threaten.
Accordingly, the first time the children disobey her, after such an
announcement, she says nothing, if the case happens to be one in which the
disobedience occasions her no particular trouble. The next time, when the
transgression is a little more serious, she thinks, very rightly
perhaps, that to be shut up half an hour in a dark closet would be a
disproportionate punishment. Then, when at length some very willful and
grave act of insubordination occurs, she happens to be in particularly
good-humor, for some reason, and has not the heart to shut "the poor thing"
in the closet; or, perhaps, there is company present, and she does not wish
to make a scene. So the penalty announced with so much emphasis turns out
to be a dead letter, as the children knew it would from the beginning.
_How Discipline may be both Gentle and Efficient_.
With a little dexterity and tact on the mother's part, the case may be
managed very differently, and with a very different result. Let us suppose
that some day, while she is engaged with her sewing or her other household
duties, and her children are playing around her, she tells them that in
some great schools in Europe, when the boys are disobedient, or violate the
rules, they are shut up for punishment in a kind of prison; and perhaps she
entertains them with invented examples of boys that would not go to prison,
and had to be taken there by force, and kept there longer on account of
their contumacy; and also of other noble boys, tall and handsome, and the
best players on the grounds, who went readily when they had done wrong and
were ordered into confinement, and bore their punishment like men, and who
were accordingly set free all the sooner on that account. Then she proposes
to them the idea of adopting that plan herself, and asks them to look
all about the room and find a good seat which they can have for their
prison--one end of the sofa, perhaps, a stool in a corner, or a box used as
a house for a kitten. I once knew an instance where a step before a door
leading to a staircase served as penitentiary, and sitting upon it for
a minute or less was the severest punishment required to maintain most
perfect discipline in a family of young children for a long time.
When any one of the children violated any rule or direction which had been
enjoined upon them--as, for example, when they left the door open in coming
in or going out, in the winter; or interrupted their mother when she was
reading, instead of standing quietly by her side and waiting until she
looked up from her book and gave them leave to speak to her; or used any
violence towards each other, by pushing, or pulling, or struggling for a
plaything or a place; or did not come promptly to her when called; or
did not obey at once the first command in any case, the mother would say
simply, "Mary!" or "James! Prison!" She would pronounce this sentence
without any appearance of displeasure, and often with a smile, as if they
were only playing prison, and then, in a very few minutes after they had
taken the penitential seat, she would say _Free_! which word set them at
liberty again.
_Must begin at the Beginning_.
I have no doubt that some mothers, in reading this, will say that such
management as this is mere trifling and play; and that real and actual
children, with all their natural turbulence, insubordination, and
obstinacy, can never be really governed by any such means. I answer that
whether it proves on trial to be merely trifling and play or not depends
upon the firmness, steadiness, and decision with which the mother
carries it into execution. Every method of management requires firmness,
perseverance, and decision on the part of the mother to make it successful,
but, with these qualities duly exercised, it is astonishing what slight and
gentle penalties will suffice for the most complete establishment of her
authority. I knew a mother whose children were trained to habits of almost
perfect obedience, and whose only method of punishment, so far as I know,
was to require the offender to stand on one foot and count five, ten, or
twenty, according to the nature and aggravation of the offense. Such a
mother, of course, begins early with her children. She trains them from
their earliest years to this constant subjection of their will to hers.
Such penalties, moreover, owe their efficiency not to the degree of pain
or inconvenience that they impose upon the offender, but mainly upon their
_calling his attention, distinctly_, after every offense, to the fact that
he has done wrong. Slight as this is, it will prove to be sufficient if it
_always_ comes--if no case of disobedience or of willful wrong-doing of any
kind is allowed to pass unnoticed, or is not followed by the infliction of
the proper penalty. It is in all cases the certainty, and not the severity,
of punishment which constitutes its power.
_Suppose one is not at the Beginning_.
What has been said thus far relates obviously to cases where the mother is
at the commencement of her work of training. This is the way to _begin_;
but you can not begin unless you are at the beginning. If your children
are partly grown, and you find that they are not under your command,
the difficulty is much greater. The principles which should govern the
management are the same, but they can not be applied by means so gentle.
The prison, it may be, must now be somewhat more real, the terms of
imprisonment somewhat longer, and there may be cases of insubordination so
decided as to require the offender to be carried to it by force, on account
of his refusal to go of his own accord, and perhaps to be held there, or
even to be tied. Cases requiring treatment so decisive as this must be very
rare with children under ten years of age; and when they occur, the
mother has reason to feel great self-condemnation--or at least great
self-abasement--at finding that she has failed so entirely in the first
great moral duty of the mother, which is to train her children to complete
submission to her authority from the beginning.
_Children coming under New Control_.
Sometimes, however, it happens that children are transferred from one
charge to another, so that the one upon whom the duty of government
devolves, perhaps only for a time, finds that the child or children put
under his or her charge have been trained by previous mismanagement to
habits of utter insubordination. I say, trained to such habits, for the
practice of allowing children to gain their ends by any particular means is
really training them to the use of those means. Thus multitudes of
children are taught to disobey, and trained to habits of insubmission and
insubordination, by the means most effectually adapted to that end.
_Difficulties_.
When under these circumstances the children come under a new charge,
whether permanently or temporarily, the task of re-form in or their
characters is more delicate and difficult than where one can begin at the
beginning; but the principles are the same, and the success is equally
certain. The difficulty is somewhat increased by the fact that the person
thus provisionally in charge has often no natural authority over the child,
and the circumstances may moreover be such as to make it necessary to
abstain carefully from any measures that would lead to difficulty or
collision, to cries, complaints to the mother, or any of those other forms
of commotion or annoyance, which ungoverned children know so well how to
employ in gaining their ends. The mother may be one of those weak-minded
women who can never see any thing unreasonable in the crying complaints
made by their children against other people. Or she may be sick, and it may
be very important to avoid every thing that could agitate or disturb her.
_George and Egbert_.
This last was the case of George, a young man of seventeen, who came to
spend some time at home after an absence of two years in the city. He found
his mother sick, and his little brother, Egbert, utterly insubordinate and
unmanageable.
"The first thing I have to do," said George to himself, when he observed
how things were, "is to get command of Egbert;" and as the first lesson
which he gave his little brother illustrates well the principle of gentle
but efficient punishment, I will give it here.
Egbert was ten years of age. He was very fond of going a-fishing, but he
was not allowed to go alone. His mother, very weak and vacillating about
some things, was extremely decided about this. So Egbert had learned to
submit to this restriction, as he would have done to all others if his
mother had been equally decided in respect to all.
The first thing that Egbert thought of the next morning after his brother's
return was that George might go a-fishing with him.
"I don't know," replied George, in a hesitating and doubtful tone. "I don't
know whether it will do for me to go a-fishing with you. I don't know
whether I can depend upon your always obeying me and doing as I say."
Egbert made very positive promises, and so it was decided to go. George
took great interest in helping Egbert about his fishing-tackle, and did all
in his power in other ways to establish friendly relations with him, and
at length they set out. They walked a little distance down what was in the
winter a wood road, and then came to a place where two paths led into a
wood. Either of them led to the river. But there was a brook to cross, and
for one of these paths there was a bridge. There was none for the other.
George said that they would take the former. Egbert, however, paid no
regard to this direction, but saying simply "No, I'd rather go this way,"
walked off in the other path.
"I was afraid you would not obey me," said George, and then turned and
followed Egbert into the forbidden path, without making any further
objection. Egbert concluded at once that he should find George as easily to
be managed as he had found other people.
_The Disobedience_.
When they came in sight of the brook, George saw that there was a narrow
log across it, in guise of a bridge. He called out to Egbert, who had gone
on before him, not to go over the log until _he_ came. But Egbert called
back in reply that there was no danger, that he could go across alone, and
so went boldly over. George, on arriving at the brook, and finding that the
log was firm and strong, followed Egbert over it. "I told you I could go
across it," said Egbert. "Yes," replied George, "and you were right in
that. You did cross it. The log is very steady. I think it makes quite a
good bridge."
Egbert said he could hop across it on one foot, and George gave him leave
to try, while he, George, held his fishing-pole for him. George followed
him over the log, and then told him that he was very sorry to say it, but
that he found that they could not go a-fishing that day. Egbert wished to
know the reason. George said it was a private reason and he could not tell
him then, but that he would tell him that evening after he had gone to bed.
There was a story about it, too, he said, that he would tell him at the
same time.
Egbert was curious to know what the reason could be for changing the plan,
and also to hear the story. Still he was extremely disappointed in having
to lose his fishing, and very much disposed to be angry with George for
not going on. It was, however, difficult to get very angry without knowing
George's reason, and George, though he said that the reason was a good
one--that it was a serious difficulty in the way of going a-fishing that
day, which had only come to his knowledge since they left home, steadily
persisted in declining to explain what the difficulty was until the
evening, and began slowly to walk back toward the house.
_Egbert becomes Sullen_.
Egbert then declared that, at any rate, he would not go home. If he could
not go a-fishing he would stay there in the woods. George readily fell in
with this idea. "Here is a nice place for me to sit down on this flat rock
under the trees," said he, "and I have got a book in my pocket. You can
play about in the woods as long as you please. Perhaps you will see a
squirrel; if you do, tell me, and I will come and help you catch him." So
saying, he took out his book and sat down under the trees and began to
read. Egbert, after loitering about sullenly a few minutes, began to walk
up the path, and said that he was going home.
George, however, soon succeeded in putting him in good-humor again by
talking with him in a friendly manner, and without manifesting any signs of
displeasure, and also by playing with him on the way. He took care to keep
on friendly terms with him all the afternoon, aiding him in his various
undertakings, and contributing to his amusement in every way as much as he
could, while he made no complaint, and expressed no dissatisfaction with
him in any way whatever.
_Final Disposition of the Case_.
After Egbert had gone to bed, and before he went to sleep, George made him
a visit at his bedside, and, after a little playful frolic with him, to put
him in special good-humor, said he would make his explanation.
"The reason why I had to give up the fishing expedition," he said, "was, I
found that I could not depend upon your obeying me."
Egbert, after a moment's pause, said that he did not disobey him; and when
George reminded him of his taking the path that he was forbidden to take,
and of his crossing the log bridge against orders, he said that that path
led to the river by the shortest way, and that he knew that the log was
firm and steady, and that he could go over it without falling in. "And
so you thought you had good reasons for disobeying me," rejoined George.
"Yes," said Egbert, triumphantly. "That is just it," said George. "You
are willing to obey, except when you think you have good reasons for
disobeying, and then you disobey. That's the way a great many boys do, and
that reminds me of the story I was going to tell you. It is about some
soldiers."
George then told Egbert a long story about a colonel who sent a captain
with a company of men on a secret expedition with specific orders, and the
captain disobeyed the orders and crossed a stream with his force, when he
had been directed to remain on the hither side of it, thinking himself that
it would be better to cross, and in consequence of it he and all his force
were captured by the enemy, who were lying in ambush near by, as the
colonel knew, though the captain did not know it. George concluded his
story with some very forcible remarks, showing, in a manner adapted to
Egbert's state of mental development, how essential it was to the character
of a good soldier that he should obey implicitly all the commands of his
superior, without ever presuming to disregard them on the ground of his
seeing good reason for doing so.
He then went on to relate another story of an officer on whom the general
could rely for implicit and unhesitating obedience to all his commands, and
who was sent on an important expedition with orders, the reasons for which
he did not understand, but all of which he promptly obeyed, and thus
brought the expedition to a successful conclusion. He made the story
interesting to Egbert by narrating many details of a character adapted
to Egbert's comprehension, and at the end drew a moral from it for his
instruction.
_The Moral_.
This moral was not, as some readers might perhaps anticipate, and as,
indeed, many persons of less tact might have made it, that Egbert ought
himself, as a boy, to obey those in authority over him. Instead of this he
closed by saying: "And I advise you, if you grow up to be a man and ever
become the general of an army, never to trust any captain or colonel with
the charge of an important enterprise, unless they are men that know how
to obey." Egbert answered very gravely that he was "determined that he
wouldn't."
Soon after this George bade him good-night and went away. The next day he
told Egbert not to be discouraged at his not having yet learned to obey.
"There are a great many boys older than you," he said, "who have not
learned this lesson; but you will learn in time. I can't go a-fishing with
you, or undertake any other great expeditions, till I find I can trust you
entirely to do exactly as I say in cases where I have a right to decide;
but you will learn before long, and then we can do a great many things
together which we can not do now."
_The Principles Illustrated_.
Any one who has any proper understanding of the workings of the juvenile
mind will see that George, by managing Egbert on these principles, would in
a short time acquire complete ascendency over him, while the boy would
very probably remain, in relation to his mother, as disobedient and
insubordinate as ever. If the penalty annexed to the transgression is made
as much as possible the necessary and natural consequence of it, and is
insisted upon calmly, deliberately, and with inflexible decision, but
without irritation, without reproaches, almost without any indications even
of displeasure, but is, on the contrary, lightened as much as possible
by sympathy and kindness, and by taking the most indulgent views, and
admitting the most palliating considerations in respect to the nature
of the offense, the result will certainly be the establishment of the
authority of the parent or guardian on a firm and permanent basis.
There are a great many cases of this kind, where a child with confirmed
habits of insubordination comes under the charge of a person who is not
responsible for the formation of these habits. Even the mother herself
sometimes finds herself in substantially this position with her own
children; as, for example, when after some years of lax and inefficient
government she becomes convinced that her management has been wrong, and
that it threatens to bring forth bitter fruits unless it is reformed. 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. It requires no ingenuity, no skill, no
contrivance, no thought--nothing but steady persistence in a simple
routine. This was the first of the three modes of action enumerated at the
commencement of this discussion. There were two others named, which, though
requiring higher qualities in the mother than simple steadiness of purpose,
will make the work far more easy and agreeable, where these qualities are
possessed.
Some further consideration of the subject of punishment, with special
reference to the light in which it is to be regarded in respect to its
nature and its true mode of action, will occupy the next chapter.