games, and make believe with the best of them. They pity poor Johnny
when he screams with terror at the attack of the make-believe bear,
and take great joy in admiring the make-believe kitten. If we but
realized how all this make believe helps in the development of
character and in the gaining of knowledge, _all_ parents would
try to develop the child's imagination, and not only those who have
the gift intuitively. It is the child's natural way of learning
things, of getting acquainted with all living and inanimate objects
in his environment. It sharpens his observation. A child who tries
to "act a horse," for example, will be much more apt to notice all
the different activities and habits of the horse in his various
relations than a child who merely observes passively.
A child with imagination, when receiving directions or instructions,
can picture to himself what he is expected to do, and easily
translates his instructions into action. To the unimaginative child
the directions given will be so many words, and he cannot carry out
these instructions as effectively.
Again and again teachers find that pupils fail to carry out orders,
though able, when asked, to repeat word for word the instructions
given them.
The plaintive inquiry, "What shall I do now?" is much more
frequently heard from the child who is unimaginative or who has had
the play of his imagination curbed. For the child can _be_
whatever he wishes, and _have_ whatever he likes, his heart's
desire is at his finger's end, once his imagination is free. The
rocking-chair can be a great big ship, the carpet a rolling sea, and
at most a suggestion is needed from the busy mother. A few chairs
can be a train of cars and keep him occupied for hours. A wooden box
is transformed into a mighty locomotive--in fact, give an
imaginative child almost anything, a string of beads, or a piece of
colored glass, and out of it his imagination will construct great
happiness.
A normal child does not need elaborate toys. The only function of a
toy, as someone has well said, is "to serve as lay figures upon
which the child's imagination can weave and drape its fancy."
Although parents have not always understood what goes on in the
child's mind when he is so busy with his play, our poets and lovers
of children have had a deeper insight. Stevenson, in his poem "My
Kingdom," shows us how, with the touch of imagination, the child
transforms the commonplace objects of his surroundings into material
for rich romance:
Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
Some yellow and some red.
I called the little pool a sea:
The little hills were big to me;
For I am very small.
I made boat, I made a town,
I searched the caverns up and down,
And named them one and all.
And all about was mine, I said,
The little sparrows overhead,
The little minnows, too.
This was the world and I was king:
For me the bees came by to sing,
For me the swallows flew.
I played there were no deeper seas,
Nor any wilder plains than these,
Nor other kings than me.
At last I hear my mother call
Out from the house at evenfall,
To call me home to tea.
And I must rise and leave my dell,
And leave my dimpled water well,
And leave my heather blooms.
Alas! and as my home I neared,
How very big my nurse appeared,
How great and cool the rooms!
Some children do not even need _objects_ as a starting point
for their imaginative activity. They can just conjure up persons and
things to serve as material for their play. Many children, when
alone, have imaginary companions. One little boy, when taken out for
his airing, daily met an imaginary friend, whom he called "Buster."
As soon as he stepped out of the house he uttered a peculiar call,
to which Buster replied--though no one but he heard him--and he
would run to meet him and they would have a lovely time together,
sometimes for hours at a stretch.
Another little child received a daily visit from an imaginary cow.
There was a certain place in the living-room where this red cow with
white spots would appear. The child would go through the motions of
feeding her, patting her, and bringing her water.
In these two cases the "companionship" lasted but a few months, but
there are children whose imaginary companions grow up with them and
get older as they get older.
[Illustration: Imagination supplies this two-year-old a prancing
steed.]
In some instances there is a group of such imaginary companions, and
their activities constitute "a continued story," of which the child
is a living centre, although not necessarily the hero.
It seems to me that the power to create his own friends must be a
great boon to a child who is forced to be alone a great deal or has
no congenial companions.
There need be no fear--except perhaps in very extreme cases--that
such activity of the imagination is morbid. A little girl who plays
with her dolls is really doing the same thing, only that she has a
symbol for each of her imaginary companions.
But although an imaginative child is much easier to teach later on,
and although he does not trouble you with the incessant nagging
"What shall I do now?" the mother whose idea of good conduct is
"keeping quiet" will find the unimaginative child much easier to
care for. He is very much less active and therefore "less
troublesome." This explains why this priceless gift of imagination
has so often been discouraged by parents and teachers. But they did
not know that they were actually _harming_ the child by so
discouraging him, or, let us hope, they would not have chosen the
easier way. For, after all, we are not looking for the easiest way
of getting along with children, but for the best, and the best for
them will prove in the end to be the best for us.
It must certainly try your patience, when you are tired, at the end
of a day's work, to have Harry refuse to come to be put to bed
because you called him "Harry"; and he replies, perhaps somewhat
crossly: "I am not Harry, I told you. I am little Jack Horner, and I
have to sit in my corner." But no matter how hard it may seem, do
not get discouraged. Once you are fully aware of the importance of
what seems to be but silly play, you will add this one more to your
many sacrifices, and find that it will bring returns a hundredfold.
And, after all, as in so many other problems, when you resolve to
make the sacrifice, it turns out to be no sacrifice. For, once you
approach the problem in an understanding spirit, the flights of the
child's imagination will give you untold pleasure.
Another reason why imagination has been suppressed by those who are
in charge of children is the fear that it will lead to the formation
of habits of untruthfulness. It is very hard to realize, unless you
understand the child's nature, that the child is not lying when he
says something that is manifestly not so to you and the other
adults. I have heard children reproved for lying when I was sure
that they had no idea of what a "lie" is. In one family an older boy
broke a plate and, when charged with the deed, denied it flatly. His
little brother, however, confessed and described just how he had
broken it. Now, the older boy was telling a falsehood consciously--
probably from fear of punishment. The little fellow, however, was
not telling an untruth--from his point of view. He really imagined
having broken that plate. He had heard the event discussed by the
family until all the incidents were vivid to him and he pictured
himself as the hero.
Up to a certain time it is impossible for the child to distinguish
between what we call _real_ and his make-believe. Both are
equally real to him, and the make-believe is ever so much more
interesting.
Until about the fifth year a child does not know that he is
imagining; between the ages of four and six the imaginative period
is at its height, and there begins to appear a sort of undercurrent
of consciousness that it is all make-believe, and this heightens the
pleasure of trying to make it seem real. Gradually the child learns
to distinguish between imaginary experiences and real ones, but
until you are quite certain that he _does_ distinguish, do not
attach any moral significance to his stories. Should an older child
be inclined to tell falsehoods, you may be sure that this is
_not_ because his imagination has been cultivated. There are
then other reasons and causes, and they must be studied on their own
account.
After you come to a clear appreciation of the value of imagination
in the child's development you will, instead of suppressing his
feelings, look around for ways of encouraging this activity of his
mind. You will see a new value in fairy tales and fables and a new
significance in every turn of his fancy.
IV.
THE LIES CHILDREN TELL
None of the petty vices of childhood appears to shock adults so much
as lying; and none is more widespread among children--and among
adults. As we are speaking of children, however, it is enough to say
that all children lie--constantly, persistently, universally.
Perhaps you will be less grieved by the lies of your children, and
less loath to admit that they do lie, if you realize that _all_
children lie. The mother who tells you that her child never lies is
either deceiving herself or trying to impress you with the
superiority of her off-spring. In her case the untruthfulness of
childhood has not been remedied.
However, although lying is so common, that is no reason for ignoring
the lies of children. They have to be taught to know the truth, and
to speak it and to act it. And they can be taught. The Psalmist
said, "All men are liars"; but he spoke hastily, as he afterward
learned. All of us are probably born with instincts that make it
easy for us to acquire the art of lying; but we have also the
instincts that make us love the truth and speak it. Indeed, a child
may acquire a hatred of untruth that is so keen as to be positively
distressing; and this condition is just as morbid and undesirable as
that of the other extreme, which accepts lies as the usual thing.
As in other problems connected with the bringing up of children, the
first and the last aim should be to understand the child, the
individual, particular child. Will your child become a habitual
liar, or will he simply "outgrow" the tendency toward untruthfulness,
as he will leave other childish things behind him? It is impossible to
tell; but for the vast majority of children a great deal depends upon
the kind of treatment given. If you do not treat the lies of your
children _understandingly_, there is the danger that you will
bring out other characteristics, perhaps even more undesirable
ones--such as cruelty, vindictiveness, or even _actual deceit_.
We must recognize that there is no general faculty of lying. It is
very easy for us to class as _lies_ every word and every act
that is not in complete harmony with the facts--as we understand
them. But there are many kinds of lies, as well as many degrees of
them. A child that is branded a liar has undoubtedly given abundant
occasion for mistrust, and has lied aplenty; but undoubtedly also he
has specialized in his lying, and would be incapable of certain
kinds of lies that are common enough with other children. As we are
the judges of our children in all of their misdeeds, we must
preserve not only a judicious attitude, but we must really be
_just_. And to this end it is essential that we take into
consideration all the circumstances that lead to a lie, including
the motives, as well as the special traits of the particular child.
The first thing that we should keep always in mind is that the moral
character of the child is still unformed, and that his standards of
truth, like his other standards, are not the same as those of the
adult. Indeed, this fact is at the same time the hope of childhood
and the source of its many tragedies. It is the hope because the
child is _growing_, and acquiring new vision and new powers;
the child of to-day is the adult of to-morrow, and most of the
children of to-day will be at least as developed, in time, as the
adults of to-day. The tragedy arises from the fact that as we grow
older we forget the outlook of the child, and misunderstandings
between the parents and the children are almost inevitable.
Whatever the prevailing morality of a community may demand, the fact
remains that practically all children up to a certain age consider
it perfectly legitimate to lie to their enemies if they but tell the
truth to their friends. Children may lie to the policeman, or to the
teacher, or to anyone with whom they are for the moment in conflict.
This is a relic of the time when our savage ancestors found it
necessary to practice deceit in order to save themselves from their
enemies. So ingrained is this instinct that many a child will stick
to a falsehood before the teacher or other inquisitors, only to
retract and "go to pieces" when obliged to answer his mother. It has
been shown over and over again that children even well along in the
teens consider it quite right to tell one story to a teacher or to
another child who is disliked, and a different story to one that is
liked. This attitude probably arises not so much from a desire to
deceive as an outcome of natural cunning and adaptability.
This is illustrated by the little girl who used to throw the crust
of her bread under the table, to get more soft bread. The child was
too young to deceive anyone; she could not possibly have the idea of
deceit or of lying. She had simply come to dispose of the crust in
this way because she had associated the arrival of more bread with
her empty-handedness; to throw the bread under the table was a
direct way to the getting of what she wanted. The question of truth
or untruth never entered the little mind. To treat this child as a
liar would not only be unjust, but would be apt to make the child
conscious of the idea of deceit. Later in his development the child
may still use the same kind of cunning in getting what he wants or
in escaping what he does not like, without the intention to deceive.
And a lie, to be a lie, must include that intention.
All students of child nature agree that a very young child--say
before the age of four or five--does not lie consciously. Later, the
child may say many things that are not so, but gradually he comes to
recognize the difference between what he says and what is really so;
he may need help in coming to see the difference, but this aid
should not be forced upon him too soon. A little boy of five who was
very imaginative became acquainted with some older children in a new
neighborhood who had little imagination and therefore were greatly
shocked by Herbert's "stories." They proceeded to inform him that he
was lying, and to explain to him what a lie was. The boy was very
much impressed. After he came home he discovered that there was a
great deal of lying going on. He asked his little brother, "Are you
older than me?"--to which the little one answered in the
affirmative. Herbert came running to his mother to report that the
baby had "told a lie!" For several weeks everything that was said
was subject to the child's severe scrutiny; every slightest mistake
was at once labelled by him as a "lie." Richard said _this_ is
my right hand, that is a lie; Helen said I may not play with the
hammer, mother said I may, so Helen lied; the maid said it was time
to go to bed, but it is only five minutes to seven, so the maid
lied. And he would delight especially in asking the baby brother
leading questions, to trap him into saying lies. This experience did
not result in making Herbert any more scrupulous in his own speech,
for his imagination created interesting and dramatic situations,
which he described with zeal and enthusiasm, for a long time after
he had discovered "lies."
The young child is really incapable of distinguishing between his
dreams and reality on the one hand, and between reality and his
day-dreams or imaginings on the other. A little boy came home from
kindergarten a few days after he had entered, and, when the experience
was still full of novelties to him, he described the workshop: each
little boy had a pair of overalls with the name across the bib in
black letters; there was a little locker for each child, with the name
on the outside; each had his set of tools and his place at the bench.
Day by day he narrated his doings in "school" and reported the
progress he was making with a little "hair-pin box" that he intended
for his aunt's birthday. On the birthday the mother came to the school
to see how the boy was getting on; and she asked about the hair-pin
box which he was now to bring home. It then appeared that there was no
shop, no overalls, no lockers, no tools. The whole story was a
creation of the child's imagination, and all the details he had
invented were real enough to him to be described repeatedly with such
vividness that no one suspected for a moment that it was all a
fabrication. To call such stories "lies" would be worse than useless.
If scolding or preaching could make a child merely stop _telling_ such
stories, there would be no gain; if they stopped a child _thinking_
such stories, there would be a decided loss.
Gradually the child may come to recognize the difference between the
make-believe and the reality, and he may be helped. When at a
certain age you think your child ought to distinguish more clearly
between his imagination and cold facts, it would be all right to
explain to him that, although there is no harm in his enjoying his
make-believe, still he must not tell his fancies as if they were
real, but must tell them as "make-believe stories." That will
achieve the desired result without making him feel hurt at your lack
of understanding in treating him like an ordinary liar whose prime
intention is to deceive. But it is not wise to force this
development, even at the risk of prolonging the age of dreams.
With some children lying is caused by their esthetic feelings. It is
much easier for them to describe a situation as they feel it should
have been than to describe it as it actually was. Many children
"embellish the facts" without any trace of intent to deceive.
Although we recognize that what they say is not strictly the truth,
we must further recognize that it is their love of the beautiful or
their sense of the fitness of things that leads them to these
"exaggerations." It is the same sort of instinct as shows itself in
our love of certain kinds of fiction. We know that some of the happy
endings in the plays and in the novels are often far-fetched; but we
like to have the happy endings, or the "poetic justice" endings, or
the "irony of fate" endings, just the same. When the child makes up
his endings to fit his sense of justice or beauty, we must not
condemn him, as we are often tempted to do, by calling his
fabrication a "lie," for that at once puts it in the same class as
deliberate deceit for a selfish purpose. There is really no harm in
this class of lies, unless, as the child grows older, it becomes
apparent that he lets his wishes and preferences interfere with his
vision of what is actually going on. In such cases the remedy is not
to be found in the denunciation of lying, but in giving the child
opportunity to experience realities that cannot be treated
untruthfully. To this end various kinds of hand work and scientific
study have been useful. It is impossible for the child to cheat the
tools of the workshop or his instruments of precision; it is
impossible to make a spool of thread do the work of two or three; or
one cannot make the paint go farther by applying the brush faster.
It is concrete reality that can teach the imaginative child reality;
in the things he learns from books there is no check upon the
imagined and the desired--one kind of outcome is as likely and as
true as another. But in the experience of the workaday world causes
and consequences cannot be so easily altered by a trick of words.
Investigation has shown that the sentimental or heroic element is
one that appeals to children so strongly that it may often lead to
what we adults would call lies, or it would seem to the child to
justify lying. The confession to a deed that he has not committed,
for the purpose of saving a weaker companion from punishment or
injury, seems to be a type of lie that appeals strongly to most
children. Again and again have boys--and girls, too--declared
stoically that they were guilty of some dereliction of which they
were quite innocent, to shield a friend. And most children not only
admire such acts, but will seek to defend them on moral grounds,
even when they are old enough to know what a _lie_ is. The
explanation for this is to be found in the fact that the child sees
every situation or problem as a whole; he has not yet learned to
separate problems into their component parts. A situation is to him
all wrong or all right; he cannot see that a part may be wrong,
while another part is right. Now in the case of the self-confessed
culprits, the magnanimity and heroism of the act stand out so
prominently that they quite overshadow the trifling circumstance
that the hero did _not_ do the wicked deed.
An excellent illustration of this trait of child nature came out in
an inquiry that was made a number of years ago. A child replied, in
answer to the question "When would a lie be justified?" that if the
mother's life depended upon it one would have the moral duty of
saying that she "was out, although she was really in." That is, it
would be one's duty to make the great moral _sacrifice_ of
speaking an untruth for the sake of saving the mother. Any child
will tell you, as did this one, that it would be wicked to tell a
lie to save his own life!
This suggests another type of lie that is quite common. Most
children feel their personal loyalties so keenly that they would do
many things that they themselves consider wrong for a person they
love or admire. A little girl was so much impressed with the moral
teachings of her Sunday-school teacher that she was determined to
get her a suitable Christmas present. Now, the family had not the
means to supply such a present, and Mary knew it, and was greatly
distressed by the fact. However, where there is a will there is a
way; and Mary found the way by cunningly stealing a moustache cup
from a store with the inspiring legend "To dear Father" and
beautiful red and blue roses and gilt leaves. Mary had learned that
it was wicked to steal and to lie, etc., but her heart was set on
getting something for the teacher, not for herself, and she very
unselfishly risked her moral salvation for the person she loved and
admired.
It is probably better for the child if we do not push the analysis
of acts and motives too early, for there is more danger at a certain
age from morbid self-consciousness than from acquiring vicious
habits. If we recognize that many of the lapses from the paths of
truth arise from really worthy motives, we must make sure that these
ideals become fixed before we attempt to separate the unworthy act
from the commendable purpose.
The cases so far given show how important it is to retain not only
the affection but also the confidence of our children; and how
important it is to have right teachers and associates. The child
will do what he can to please those he really likes or admires; but
the kind of thing he will do will depend a great deal upon what
those he admires themselves like to see done.
There are some lies that are due to faulty observation. We do not
often realize to what extent we supplement our sense perceptions in
relating our experiences. Lawyers tell us that it is very difficult
to have a witness relate _exactly_ what he saw; he is always
adding details for completing the story in accordance with his
_interpretation_ of what he saw. This is not lying in any
sense, but it is relating as alleged facts what are in reality
conclusions from facts. One may be an unreliable witness without
being a liar; and so may the child tell us things that we know are
not so because, in trying to tell a complete story, he has to
supplement what he actually saw with what he feels _must_ have
been a part of the incident. Defects of judgment as well as
delusions of the senses or lapses of memory may lead to
misstatements that are not really lies. Some delusions of the
senses, especially of sight and of hearing, undoubtedly have a
physical cause.