SYMPATHY:--II. THE PARENT WITH THE CHILD.
I think there can be no doubt that the most effectual way of securing the
confidence and love of children, and of acquiring an ascendency over them,
is by sympathizing with them in their child-like hopes and fears, and joys
and sorrows--in their ideas, their fancies, and even in their caprices, in
all cases where duty is not concerned. Indeed, the more child-like, that
is, the more peculiar to the children themselves, the feelings are that we
enter into with them, the closer is the bond of kindness and affection that
is formed.
_An Example_.
If a gentleman coming to reside in a new town concludes that it is
desirable that he should be on good terms with the boys in the streets,
there are various ways by which he can seek to accomplish the end.
Fortunately for him, the simplest and easiest mode is the most effectual.
On going into the village one day, we will suppose he sees two small boys
playing horse. One boy is horse, and the other driver. As they draw near,
they check the play a little, to be more decorous in passing by the
stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of
countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much
seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell
him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance
and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good
care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and don't drive him hard when it is
hot weather. And if ever you conclude to sell him, I wish you would let me
know."
So saying, the gentleman walks on, and the horse, followed by his driver,
goes galloping forward in high glee.
Now, by simply manifesting thus a fellow-feeling with the boys in their
childish play, the stranger not only gives a fresh impulse to their
enjoyment at the time, but establishes a friendly relationship between them
and him which, without his doing any thing to strengthen or perpetuate it,
will of itself endure for a long time. If he does not speak to the boys
again for months, every time they meet him they will be ready to greet him
with a smile.
The incident will go much farther towards establishing friendly relations
between him and them than any presents that he could make them--except so
far as his presents were of such a kind, and were given in such a way, as
to be expressions of kindly feeling towards them--that is to say, such as
to constitute of themselves a manifestation of sympathy.
The uncle who gives his nephews and nieces presents, let them be ever so
costly or beautiful, and takes no interest in their affairs, never inspires
them with any feeling of personal affection. They like him as they like the
apple-tree which bears them sweet and juicy apples, or the cow that gives
them milk--which is on their part a very different sentiment from that
which they feel for the kitten that plays with them and shares their
joys--or even for their dolls, which are only pictured in their imagination
as sharing them.
_Sophronia and Aurelia_.
Miss Sophronia calls at a house to make a visit. A child of seven or eight
years of age is playing upon the floor. After a little time, at a pause
in the conversation, she calls the child--addressing her as "My little
girl"--to come to her. The child--a shade being cast over her mind by being
thus unnecessarily reminded of her littleness--hesitates to come. The
mother says, "Come and shake hands with the lady, my dear!" The child comes
reluctantly. Miss Sophronia asks what her name is, how old she is, whether
she goes to school, what she studies there, and whether she likes to go to
school, and at length releases her. The child, only too glad to be free
from such a tiresome visitor, goes back to her play, and afterwards the
only ideas she has associated with the person of her visitor are those
relating to her school and her lessons, which may or may not be of an
agreeable character.
Presently, after Miss Sophronia has gone, Miss Aurelia comes in. After some
conversation with the mother, she goes to see what the child is building
with her blocks. After looking on for a moment with an expression of
interest in her countenance, she asks her if she has a doll. The child says
she has four. Miss Aurelia then asks which she likes best, and expresses a
desire to see that one. The child, much pleased, runs away to bring it, and
presently comes back with all four. Miss Aurelia takes them in her hands,
examines them, talks about them, and talks to them; and when at last the
child goes back to her play, she goes with the feeling in her heart that
she has found a new friend.
Thus, to bring ourselves near to the hearts of children, we must go to them
by entering into _their world_. They can not come to us by entering ours.
They have no experience of it, and can not understand it. But we have had
experience of theirs, and can enter it if we choose; and in that way we
bring ourselves very near to them.
_Sympathy must be Sincere_.
But the sympathy which we thus express with children, in order to be
effectual, must be sincere and genuine, and not pretended. We must renew
our own childish ideas and imaginations, and become for the moment, in
feeling, one with them, so that the interest which we express in what they
are saying or doing may be real, and not merely assumed. They seem to have
a natural instinct to distinguish between an honest and actual sharing
of their thoughts and emotions, and all mere condescension and pretense,
however adroitly it may be disguised.
_Want of Time_.
Some mothers may perhaps say that they have not time thus to enter into
the ideas and occupations of their children. They are engrossed with the
serious cares of life, or busy with its various occupations. But it does
not require time. It is not a question of time, but of manner. The farmer's
wife, for example, is busy ironing, or sewing, or preparing breakfast for
her husband and sons, who are expected every moment to come in hungry from
their work. Her little daughter, ten years old, comes to show her a shawl
she has been making from a piece of calico for her doll. The busy
mother thinks she must say, "Yes; but run away now, Mary; I am very
busy!"--because that is the easiest and quickest thing to say; but it is
just as easy and just as quick to say, "What a pretty shawl! Play now that
you are going to take Minette out for a walk in it!" The one mode sends the
child away repulsed and a little disappointed; the other pleases her and
makes her happy, and tends, moreover, to form a new bond of union and
sympathy between her mother's heart and her own. A merchant, engrossed all
day in his business, comes home to his house at dinner-time, and meets his
boy of fifteen on the steps returning from his school. "Well, James," he
says, as they walk together up stairs, "I hope you have been a good boy at
school to-day." James, not knowing what to say, makes some inaudible or
unmeaning reply. His father then goes on to say that he hopes his boy will
be diligent and attentive to his studies, and improve his time well, as
his future success in life will depend upon the use which he makes of
his advantages while he is young; and then leaves him at the head of the
stairs, each to go to his room.
All this is very well. Advice given under such circumstances and in such a
way produces, undoubtedly, a certain good effect, but it does not tend at
all to bring the father and son together. But if, instead of giving this
common-place advice, the father asks--supposing it to be winter at the
time--"Which kind of skates are the most popular among the boys nowadays,
James?" Then, after hearing his reply, he asks him what _his_ opinion is,
and whether any great improvement has been made within a short time, and
whether the patent inventions are any of them of much consequence. The
tendency of such a conversation as this, equally brief with the other, will
be to draw the father and son more together. Even in a moral point of view,
the influence would be, indirectly, very salutary; for although no moral
counsel or instruction was given at the time, the effect of such a
participation in the thoughts with which the boy's mind is occupied is to
strengthen the bond of union between the heart of the boy and that of his
father, and thus to make the boy far more ready to receive and be guided by
the advice or admonitions of his father on other occasions.
Let no one suppose, from these illustrations, that they are intended to
inculcate the idea that a father is to lay aside the parental counsels
and instructions that he has been accustomed to give to his children, and
replace them by talks about skates! They are only intended to show
one aspect of the difference of effect produced by the two kinds of
conversation, and that the father, if he wishes to gain and retain an
influence over the hearts of his boys, must descend sometimes into the
world in which they live, and with which their thoughts are occupied,
and must enter it, not merely as a spectator, or a fault-finder, or a
counsellor, but as a sharer, to some extent, in the ideas and feelings
which are appropriate to it.
_Ascendency over the Minds of Children_.
Sympathizing with children in their own pleasures and enjoyments, however
childish they may seem to us when we do not regard them, as it were, with
children's eyes, is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the means at our
command for gaining a powerful ascendency over them. This will lead us not
to interfere with their own plans and ideas, but to be willing that they
should be happy in their own way. In respect to their duties, those
connected, for example, with their studies, their serious employments,
and their compliance with directions of any kind emanating from superior
authority, of course their will must be under absolute subjection to that
of those who are older and wiser than they. In all such things they must
bring their thoughts and actions into accord with ours. In these things
they must come to us, not we to them. But in every thing that relates
to their child-like pleasures and joys, their modes of recreation and
amusement, their playful explorations of the mysteries of things, and the
various novelties around them in the strange world into which they find
themselves ushered--in all these things we must not attempt to bring them
to us, but must go to them. In this, their own sphere, the more perfectly
they are at liberty, the better; and if we join them in it at all, we must
do so by bringing our ideas and wishes into accord with theirs.
_Foolish Fears_.
The effect of our sympathy with children in winning their confidence and
love, is all the more powerful when it is exercised in cases where they are
naturally inclined not to expect sympathy--that is, in relation to feelings
which they would suppose that older persons would be inclined to condemn.
Perhaps the most striking example of this is in what is commonly called
foolish fears. Now a fear is foolish or otherwise, not according to the
absolute facts involving the supposed danger, but according to the means
which the person in question has of knowing the facts. A lady, for example,
in passing along the sidewalk of a great city comes to a place where
workmen are raising an immense and ponderous iron safe, which, slowly
rising, hangs suspended twenty feet above the walk. She is afraid to pass
under it. The foreman, however, who is engaged in directing the operation,
passing freely to and fro under the impending weight, as he has occasion,
and without the least concern, smiles, perhaps, at the lady's "foolish
fears." But the fears which might, perhaps, be foolish in him, are not so
in her, since he _knows_ the nature and the strength of the machinery
and securities above, and she does not. She only knows that accidents do
sometimes happen from want of due precaution in raising heavy weights, and
she does not know, and has no means of knowing, whether or not the due
precautions have been taken in this case. So she manifests good sense, and
not folly, in going out of her way to avoid all possibility of danger.
This is really the proper explanation of a large class of what are usually
termed foolish fears. Viewed in the light of the individual's knowledge of
the facts in the case, they are sensible fears, and not foolish ones at
all.
A girl of twelve, from the city, spending the summer in the country, wishes
to go down to the river to join her brothers there, but is stopped by
observing a cow in a field which she has to cross. She comes back to the
house, and is there laughed at for her foolishness in being; "afraid of a
cow!"
But why should she not be afraid of a cow? She has heard stories of people
being gored by bulls, and sometimes by cows, and she has no means whatever
of estimating the reality or the extent of the danger in any particular
case. The farmer's daughters, however, who laugh at her, know the cow in
question perfectly well. They have milked her, and fed her, and tied her up
to her manger a hundred times; so, while it would be a very foolish thing
for them to be afraid to cross a field where the cow was feeding, it is a
very sensible thing for the stranger-girl from the city to be so.
Nor would it certainly change the case much for the child, if the farmer's
girls were to assure her that the cow was perfectly peaceable, and that
there was no danger; for she does not know the girls any better than she
does the cow, and can not judge how far their statements or opinions are to
be relied upon. It may possibly not be the cow they think it is. They are
very positive, it is true; but very positive people are often mistaken.
Besides, the cow may be peaceable with them, and yet be disposed to attack
a stranger. What a child requires in such a case is sympathy and help, not
ridicule.
[Illustration: AFRAID OF THE COW.]
This, in the case supposed, she meets in the form of the farmer's son, a
young man browned in face and plain in attire, who comes along while she
stands loitering at the fence looking at the cow, and not daring after all,
notwithstanding the assurances she has received at the house, to cross
the field. His name is Joseph, and he is a natural gentleman--a class of
persons of whom a much larger number is found in this humble guise, and a
much smaller number in proportion among the fashionables in elegant life,
than is often supposed. "Yes," says Joseph, after hearing the child's
statement of the case, "you are right. Cows are sometimes vicious, I know;
and you are perfectly right to be on your guard against such as you do not
know when you meet them in the country. This one, as it happens, is very
kind; but still, I will go through the field with you."
So he goes with her through the field, stopping on the way to talk a little
to the cow, and to feed her with an apple which he has in his pocket.
It is in this spirit that the fears, and antipathies, and false
imaginations of children are generally to be dealt with; though, of course,
there may be many exceptions to the general rule.
_When Children are in the Wrong_.
There is a certain sense in which we should feel a sympathy with children
in the wrong that they do. It would seem paradoxical to say that in any
sense there should be sympathy with sin, and yet there is a sense in which
this is true, though perhaps, strictly speaking, it is sympathy with the
trial and temptation which led to the sin, rather than with the act of
transgression itself. In whatever light a nice metaphysical analysis would
lead us to regard it, it is certain that the most successful efforts that
have been made by philanthropists for reaching the hearts and reforming the
conduct of criminals and malefactors have been prompted by a feeling of
compassion for them, not merely for the sorrows and sufferings which they
have brought upon themselves by their wrongdoing, but for the mental
conflicts which they endured, the fierce impulses of appetite and passion,
more or less connected with and dependent upon the material condition of
the bodily organs, under the onset of which their feeble moral sense, never
really brought into a condition of health and vigor, was over-borne. These
merciful views of the diseased condition and action of the soul in the
commission of crime are not only in themselves right views for man to take
of the crimes and sins of his fellow-man, but they lie at the foundation of
all effort that can afford any serious hope of promoting reformation.
This principle is eminently true in its application to children. They need
the influence of a kind and considerate sympathy when they have done wrong,
more, perhaps, than at any other time; and the effects of the proper
manifestation of this sympathy on the part of the mother will, perhaps, be
greater and more salutary in this case than in any other. Of course the
sympathy must be of the right kind, and must be expressed in the right way,
so as not to allow the tenderness or compassion for the wrong-doer to be
mistaken for approval or justification of the wrong.
_Case supposed_.
A boy, for instance, comes home from school in a state of great distress,
and perhaps of indignation and resentment, on account of having been
punished. Mothers sometimes say at once, in such a case, "I don't pity you
at all. I have no doubt you deserved it." This only increases the tumult of
commotion in the boy's mind, without at all tending to help him to feel a
sense of his guilt. His mind, still imperfectly developed, can not take
cognizance simultaneously of all the parts and all the aspects of a
complicated transaction. The sense of his wrong-doing, which forms in his
teacher's and in his mother's mind so essential a part of the transaction,
is not present in his conceptions at all. There is no room for it, so
totally engrossed are all his faculties with the stinging recollections of
suffering, the tumultuous emotions of anger and resentment, and now with
the additional thought that even his mother has taken part against him. The
mother's conception of the transaction is equally limited and imperfect,
though in a different way. She thinks only that if she were to treat the
child with kindness and sympathy, she would be taking the part of a bad boy
against his teacher; whereas, in reality, she might do it in such a way as
only to be taking the part of a suffering boy against his pain.
It would seem that the true and proper course for a mother to take with
a child in such a case would be to soothe and calm his agitation, and to
listen, if need be, to his account of the affair, without questioning
or controverting it at all, however plainly she may see that, under the
blinding and distorting influence of his excitement, he is misrepresenting
the facts. Let him tell his story. Listen to it patiently to the end. It is
not necessary to express or even to form an opinion on the merits of it.
The ready and willing hearing of one side of a case does not commit the
tribunal to a decision in favor of that side. On the other hand, it is the
only way to give weight and a sense of impartiality to a decision against
it.
Thus the mother may sympathize with her boy in his troubles, appreciate
fully the force of the circumstances which led him into the wrong, and help
to soothe and calm his agitation, and thus take his part, and place herself
closely to him in respect to his suffering, without committing herself at
all in regard to the original cause of it; and then, at a subsequent time,
when the tumult of his soul has subsided, she can, if she thinks best, far
more easily and effectually lead him to see wherein he was wrong.