patients to apply themselves to their studies as well and continuously as
formerly. Children who were previously of an obedient and mild disposition
become irritable, obstinate, and perverse. They become insubordinate,
lose their love of play, and are not as affectionate as was their wont.
These phenomena are naturally looked upon as indubitable evidences of
wilfulness, and are punished accordingly, thus frequently precipitating
and aggravating the course of the disease."
Happily, sulkiness, as an early symptom of chorea, or of other grave
nervous and mental disorders, is of comparatively infrequent occurrence.
The things the parents of a sulky child need more particularly to inquire
into are the amount and character of the food the child eats, the state
of his digestion, his habits of exercise, the ventilation of the rooms
in which he spends most of his time, the condition of his nose, mouth,
and teeth, and his ability to see and hear distinctly. But it must be
admitted that any or all of these common physical causes of sulkiness may
be present, and the afflicted child nevertheless contrive to get along
without sulking. And, on the opposite, when a child thus afflicted does
sulk, the correction of the physical trouble is not always followed by a
cessation of the sulkiness. For, precisely as in the case of the child
who remains mentally backward after the correction of bodily defects
responsible for his backwardness, it may be that a habit of sulking has
become established. What is much worse, it may also be that the sulky
child has a home environment that makes sulking almost inevitable.
Here we come to the central fact in the whole problem of sulkiness,
for, nine cases out of ten, it is the home environment--the training a
child receives, the parents' attitude towards him--that is primarily
responsible for his sulking. The healthiest child in the world will sulk
if his parents surround him with a sulk-breeding environment. He will sulk
because _it is child nature to react appropriately to the suggestions
received from the environment_. Every psychologist will bear out this
statement. It also finds confirmation in the everyday experiences of all
observant persons who have an opportunity to study children. It is all
very well to exhort a child to be cheerful, to speak of "developing his
will-power." But if the child's home surroundings are such as to fill his
mind with depressing, disturbing ideas, he is bound to be influenced in
his behaviour by these ideas. Parents are prone to forget this. They blame
the sulky child when, in all justice, they ought to blame themselves.
Recently a veteran New England school teacher, talking with me on this
question of sulkiness, said:
"There are times when I am tempted to believe that the home influence is
_everything_, and that conditions of physical ill health have virtually
nothing to do with sulkiness. Of course, I know that in reality physical
conditions have to be taken into account, but my experiences with sulky
children have been such that now, whenever I find a sulky child, I ask
myself the question, 'What is wrong in that child's home?' If I have
opportunity to investigate, I invariably find that something is wrong.
"My pupils are girls, eight and nine years old. Among them last year
was one bright, attractive-looking little girl, to whom I felt drawn
when she first appeared in the class. But I soon discovered that she was
a difficult child. She neglected her school work, did in a careless,
indifferent manner whatever she was obliged to do, and sulked at slight
provocation. She had been examined by the school physician, who gave her a
clean bill of health. My suspicion deepened that the child was the victim
of an unfavourable home influence, and one day I suggested this to the
principal of the school.
"'I am sure you are wrong,' said he. 'I happen to know the family. They
are first-rate people, in good circumstances.'
"A little later, after I had again spoken to him of the girl's misconduct
and sullenness, he told me:
"'You were right and I was wrong. Outwardly, everything seemed well with
that family. But I now find that the parents have for some time been on
the verge of seeking a divorce. They are bitter against each other and
dispute over the child, giving her contrary orders. The mother will tell
her to do something, the father will tell her not to do it. No wonder she
is sullen and hard to deal with. She is to be taken from them and put in a
good home.'
"This is an extreme instance, I have no doubt. But it is in line with
what I am observing all the time. Therefore, I insist that sulkiness in
children is, as a rule, a sure sign of unwise training in the home."
Many parents, though wholly unappreciative of the fact, inspire sulkiness
in their children by setting them an example of sulkiness. A striking
instance has lately come under my personal observation, in the experience
of a mother who is continually being annoyed by the whining, sulky ways
of her four-year-old daughter. She scolds the girl, she spanks her, but
all to no good. Not once does it seem to occur to the mother that possibly
her own habit of sulking when things do not go right may be blamed for the
sulkiness of her child. She is precisely the kind of woman to whom the
learned Professor Paul Dubois addresses these scathing words:
"You, madam, who complain of the irritability of your little girl, could
you not suppress your own?... Remember the proverb, 'The fruit does not
fall far from the tree.'"
This factor of example in the causing of sulkiness is something that
parents frequently ignore. In a general way they realise that their
children are likely to imitate them, but they do not appreciate the subtle
force which imitation exercises in forming the mental states and moral
attitudes of the young. Time and again we see parents talking and acting
as though children had no eyes or ears or memories; as though, indeed,
they were beings quite insensitive to the sights and sounds of their
surroundings.
Yet normal children are the most sensitive and the most "suggestible" of
beings. Let father snarl and mother sulk, and little Johnny or Mary may
be pretty confidently counted on to snarl and sulk likewise--unless by
a happy chance Johnny and Mary have playmates or relatives whose lives
radiate sufficiently strong suggestions of cheerfulness to offset the
parents' unhappy influence. Instruction is much, but example is more. Or,
as wise Pastor Witte puts it, "Instruction begins, example accomplishes."
But, if the parental example is good, if the child's physical condition
is excellent, and if he nevertheless is a sulker--what then? Again, it
must be insisted that the trouble rests with some fault in his upbringing,
some error in the parental policy. If there is more than one child in
the family, it may be that the sulkiness is a symptom of jealousy. The
parents should ask themselves in all seriousness whether they have given
this particular child any reason to sulk, by showing greater favour,
or seeming to show greater favour, to his brothers and sisters. Or,
possibly, the sulkiness is indicative, not of jealousy, but of a feeling
of inferiority due to the child's fear that he is not quite so bright
as other children. In that case the parents may be sure that in some
way, however unwittingly, they have failed to bring into their child's
life enough happiness and joy to prevent the feeling of inferiority from
becoming dominant in his mind. Perhaps, for the matter of that, they have
themselves been instrumental in forcing on the child recognition of his
inferior mental status.
There are parents whose behaviour when dealing with a mentally retarded
child is--often quite unconsciously--that of a censorious judge upbraiding
a criminal. They nag, they harass, they urge the child to greater effort,
never questioning that he can of his own accord improve his ability to
learn. Perhaps he is mentally deficient, perhaps he is suffering from
some remediable physical cause of retardation, perhaps the method by
which he is being taught is not suited to his type of mind. To all these
possibilities the parents do not give a moment's thought. The child is
stupid; it must be his fault; he should be forced to mend his ways. So
they pester the little unfortunate. And when to retardation he gradually
adds sullenness, they are more incensed than before. But, in point of cold
fact, whose is the fault? Not the child's, surely. Perpetual nagging is
a first-class means of producing sulkiness in any child, whether he be
mentally retarded, unusually bright, or just a plain "average" child.
Another almost equally efficacious means is untruthfulness on the part of
parents in their relations with the child. There are some parents who
think it not at all amiss to deceive their children. They make promises to
them which they do not intend to keep. They threaten them with punishments
that never materialise. They make untruthful replies to questions the
children put to them. The children are not imbeciles. They note these
broken promises, these empty threats, these untruthful replies. They lose
faith in their parents, and sometimes it happens that their loss of faith
manifests itself in a gloomy brooding, a sullen resentment against the
parents. The parents, on their side, regard the sulky child as maliciously
naughty and evil-minded. Not an inkling do they have of their own share in
the making of the condition of which they complain. They blame only the
child.
Even the practice, common among parents, of telling their children
"white lies" with regard to delicate matters is at times productive of
sulkiness _as a symptom of nervousness due to inner mental conflict_.
Almost every child is at an early age inquisitive about his origin
and the manner of his coming into the world. If his questions on these
subjects are evaded or answered in a fantastic way, the child's curiosity
is likely to be increased rather than satisfied. In exceptional cases
there may result an obsessional pondering of the evaded topic, intensified
when the child discovers that his parents have deceived him. Extreme
nervousness, accompanied with sullenness, is then a likely result. But,
apart altogether from the possibility that nervousness and sulkiness
may be caused by parental deception of this sort, the danger of losing
control over their children is itself serious enough to warn parents to
be straightforward in answering their children's queries regarding sex
subjects.
Havelock Ellis, the foremost authority on the psychology of sex, does not
exaggerate when he assures us:
"Even if there were no other reasons against telling children fairy tales
of sex instead of the real facts, there is one reason which ought to be
decisive with every mother who values her influence over her child.
He will very quickly discover, either by information from others or by
his own natural intelligence, that the fairy tale that was told him in
reply to a question about a simple matter of fact was a lie. With that
discovery, his mother's influence over him in all such matters vanishes
forever, for not only has a child a horror of being duped, but he is
extremely sensitive about a rebuff of this kind, and never repeats what he
has been made to feel was a mistake to be ashamed of. He will not trouble
his mother with any more questions on this matter; he will not confide
in her; he will himself learn the art of telling 'fairy tales' about sex
matters. He had turned to his mother in trust, she had not responded with
equal trust, and she must suffer the punishment, as Henriette Fürth puts
it, of seeing 'the love and trust of her son stolen from her by the first
boy he makes friends with in the street.'"[5]
Joy is a natural consequence of a child's affection for, and faith
in, his parents. Resentfulness, bitterness, sullenness, are natural
consequences of loss of affection and faith. The parents of a sullen child
must always ask themselves if, through deception of any sort, they have
forfeited the child's esteem for them. They must further ask themselves
if, by intentional or unintentional unkindness of a persistent sort, they
have embittered the child. They must also put to themselves the question:
"Have I in some way erred so as to make my child sullen by the force of a
bad example?" And, lastly, they must not forget to probe, through the aid
of a skilled physician, for possible physical causes of mental and nervous
stress.
If they do not adopt this course, if they allow the child to go on
sulking, or if they increase his sulkiness by mishandling him, let me
again warn them that they may be hopelessly limiting his chances for
success and happiness in manhood. Character distortions of some sort are
certain to result; even his bodily health itself may be affected. For,
just as sulkiness often is a product of some physical disorder, so may
it, in turn, become a _cause_ of physical disorder. To sulk is essentially
to be in a disturbed emotional state, and recent scientific research has
established that such states, particularly if intense or long continued,
have a highly unfavourable influence on the bodily organism. This has been
most clearly shown in the case of anger and worry, the former of which
always is, while the latter often is, basic in sulkiness.
All parents, indeed, ought to familiarise themselves with the physiology
of anger and worry. Once really appreciative of the possible bodily
effects of these emotional states, they would, on the one hand, be more
careful to train their children early in emotional control, and, on the
other, would be more chary about subjecting them to conditions involving
emotional stress. Anger--and, equally, worry--is liable, for one thing, to
derange profoundly the workings of the digestive organs. How profoundly
it may derange them has recently been demonstrated conclusively by some
remarkable scientific observations on animals and human beings.
A prime requisite to good digestion is a free flow of saliva and gastric
juice when food is chewed. There must literally be a preparatory automatic
"watering" of the mouth and stomach. Ordinarily, this begins as soon as
food is taken into the mouth--if one is hungry, it begins at the mere
sight of food. But it has been proved that, no matter how appetising the
food, the digestive flow stops almost altogether under the influence of
anger.
This was first demonstrated by a Russian physiologist, Pawlow,
experimenting with dogs so conditioned that he could see into their
throats and stomachs. When a dog was irritated--as by showing it a cat
which it was prevented from attacking--the flow of saliva and gastric
juice instantly stopped, and did not begin again for some time after the
dog had been calmed. Even a slight degree of irritability in the animal
was sufficient to stop gastric secretion.
The same result has been repeatedly recorded by other scientists
experimenting with cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, children, and full-grown
men and women. One observer, a medical man named Hornborg, had as a
patient a small boy in whom disease had caused an external opening large
enough to allow a view of the workings of the stomach. Doctor Hornborg
found that if he gave this boy food, after first angering him, his eating
of the food was not accompanied by a flow of the gastric juice, which
ordinarily flowed promptly and freely.
And, besides stopping the secretory processes of the stomach, anger stops
its muscular movements as well, and also the movements of almost all the
alimentary tract. Hence, food eaten during or soon after an outburst
of anger or petulance is not properly taken up by the alimentary canal
for final digestion, absorption, and elimination. Which means, it need
scarcely be pointed out, that every part of the body suffers in some
degree through diminished nutrition. And certain specific discomforts are
likely to be experienced--sour stomach, gastric pains, headache, and so
forth.
Equally striking is the effect of anger on the liver. One most important
function of the liver is to store glycogen, or "animal starch," which is
a source of energy when liberated from the liver into the blood in the
form of sugar. Under normal conditions, an exceedingly small amount of
sugar--all the body requires--is liberated. The liberation of a greater
amount is a waste; and, if long continued, its excessive liberation has a
fatally weakening effect on the system, constituting the serious disease
known as diabetes.
Now, as has lately been proved by an American investigator, Doctor W. B.
Cannon, of Harvard University, anger, or strong emotional excitement of
any sort, immediately causes the liver to liberate sugar in excess. Doctor
Cannon found this to be true in the case of both animals and human beings.
Almost always a man examined after he had been angry or excited showed
clear indications in the liquids of his body of glycosuria, or excessive
sugar. Here is Doctor Cannon's summary of one of his most interesting
observations:
"C. H. Fiske and I examined twenty-five members of the Harvard University
football squad immediately after the final and most exciting contest of
1913, and found sugar in twelve cases. Five of these positive cases were
among substitutes not called upon to enter the game. The only excited
spectator of the Harvard victory who was examined also had a marked
glycosuria, which on the following day had disappeared."[6]
Further than this, on testing the blood of excited and angry animals and
people, Doctor Cannon discovered that it held in excess another substance
which, like sugar, is usually present in the circulation in exceedingly
minute quantities.
This substance, called adrenin, has some extraordinary properties. It
is secreted by two small glands back of the kidneys. If artificially
extracted and injected into the blood of a human being in any appreciable
amount, it instantly has the effect of creating a sharp rise in blood
pressure, the blood vessels being constricted and the heart beat
appreciably increased. It also alters the distribution of the blood,
driving it from the abdomen to the head and limbs. And for the time being
it enormously increases muscular power and abolishes all feeling of
fatigue.
Exactly similar effects, scientific research has proved, are brought about
by the quantity of adrenin set free in the blood during periods of anger
or other emotional stress. That is to say, not only does anger temporarily
stop stomach action and abnormally stimulate the sugar-releasing function
of the liver: it also imposes an unusual strain on the heart and the blood
vessels.
Likewise with worry. It affects the heart, blood vessels, liver, and
digestive organs as anger does. Even in the lower animals, and when
occurring in comparatively slight degree, worry puts a stop to stomach
movements and digestive secretions. Thus, in discussing with me the
physiology of worry, Doctor Cannon stated:
"To give a significant illustration of how worry affects animals, as well
as people, I might mention the case of a young male cat, the movements of
whose stomach I studied by the aid of the Röntgen rays.
"For observation purposes, it was necessary to attach the cat to a holder.
He made no resistance when this was done, but kept up a slight twitching
of his tail from side to side, indicating that he was at least somewhat
anxious as to what was going to happen to him.
"For more than an hour I watched his stomach by means of the rays, and
during that time there was not the slightest beginning of peristaltic
activity, the waves of muscular contraction being entirely absent.
"In another instance, that of a female cat with kittens, something
happened to create an anxious mood while the cat was attached to the
holder. Until that moment the cat had been contented, and the work of
digestion was proceeding normally. But now the movements of the stomach
entirely ceased, and the gastric wall became relaxed. Only after the cat
had been petted and began to purr did the stomach movements start again.
"I have observed the same thing in dogs and guinea pigs. A very slight
emotional disturbance is enough to affect their digestion unfavourably."
Affecting specifically the brain, heart, arteries, stomach, intestines,
liver, and glands of internal secretion, worry also has a general adverse
effect on the nervous system.
This adverse effect is unmistakably expressed by the haggard, drawn, gaunt
aspect of the man who habitually worries, and by his persistent sensations
of fatigue. What has happened is that his nerve cells are being deprived
of the nutrition they need in order to energise him properly. When, on
the contrary, the worrier succeeds in changing his mental state--when
he contrives to look at things confidently and contentedly--then, in the
words of Professor George Van Ness Dearborn, there is a resultant and most
beneficial increase in "the operative enthusiasm of the nervous system and
of its affectors, the muscles and the glands."
The moral to parents is obvious. Keep children as joyous and happy as
possible. By instruction and example, start them early in the path of
emotional control. Protect them from needless causes of fear, worry, and
anger. And make special efforts to prevent the development or continuance
of that curious and most injurious mental attitude--the attitude of
sulkiness--grounded in anger and frequently grounded also in sentiments of
worry, envy, hatred, and even despair.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: Further discussion of this important subject will be found in
the chapter on "Night Terrors."]
[Footnote 6: "The Bodily Effects of Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage," pp.
75-76.]
JEALOUSY
IV
JEALOUSY
In the preceding chapter reference was made to jealousy as a cause of
sulkiness in children. Jealousy is itself a woeful handicap of childhood,
and may be followed by disastrous consequences of many kinds. It has
even been known to prompt children to acts as tragic as any committed by
jealousy-driven adults. To cite a single instance:
In a small country town there lived a family of three persons--father,
mother, and young son. Comfortably circumstanced, the parents testified
their affection for their only child by loving care and gifts innumerable.
Their great aim in life seemed to be to bring joy and pleasure into his
life. The boy, for his part, reciprocated their love, and, though of a
somewhat nervous temperament, was bright, vivacious, and amiable. There
was nothing to mar the happiness of the family circle, which, to the
delight of both parents, was one day enlarged by the addition of a little
daughter.
They had taken it for granted that the coming of this baby sister would
be equally pleasing to their boy, then nearly twelve years old. But his
attitude towards her was indifferent, even cold; and, as time passed, he
showed a dislike for the child as inexplicable as it was disappointing
to his father and mother. Also, his disposition gradually changed. He
was no longer high-spirited, but became moody and depressed. He would
sit by himself for hours, lost in mournful reverie. His parents, rightly
suspecting that something was preying on his mind, tried to get his
confidence. He put them off with evasive answers, or brusquely asserted
that he was "all right."
The true explanation came to them in startling and gruesome fashion. Late
one afternoon, his father being absent from the house and his mother
occupied downstairs, the boy made his way to the room, where his tiny
sister was peacefully asleep in her crib. Only a short time passed before
his mother's return upstairs, but in the interval the little one had been
smothered to death by her jealous brother.
Such an instance of juvenile crime incited by the demon of jealousy is
fortunately rare. But it by no means stands alone, and while the hand of
reason usually restrains even jealous children, in no individual case is
it possible to say with assurance that tragedy will not result if jealousy
gets firm lodgment in the child's mind. If for this reason only, parents
should regard with concern any repeated manifestations of jealousy, in
no matter how mild and seemingly harmless a form. As a matter of fact,
however, many parents are not in the least disturbed when their children
give evidence of being jealous. Some parents seem to be positively pleased
at signs of jealousy in their children, interpreting them as proofs of
the ardour of the children's love. One thoughtless mother put it thus: