MANAGEMENT IN LATER CHILDHOOD
In the early days in the nursery the actions of the infant, for the
most part, follow passively the traction exercised by nurses and
mothers, sometimes consciously, but more often unconsciously. We have
now to consider a period when the child becomes possessed of a driving
force of his own, and moves in this direction or that of his own
volition. In this new intellectual movement through life he will not
avoid tumbles. He will feel the restraints of his environment pressing
upon him on all sides, and he will often come violently in contact
with rigid rules and conventions to which he must learn to yield. From
time to time we read in the papers of some terrible accident in a
picture-palace, or in a theatre. Although there has been no fire,
there has been a cry of fire, and in the panic which ensues lives are
lost from the crowding and crushing. Yet all the time the doors have
stood wide open, and through them an orderly exit might have been
conducted had reason not given place to unreason. It is the task of
those responsible for the children's education to guide them without
wild struggling along the paths of well-regulated conduct towards the
desired goal, influenced not by the emotions of the moment, but only
by reason and a sense of right; not ignorant of the difficulties to be
met, but practised and equipped to overcome them.
It is easy thus to state in general terms the objects of education,
and the need for discipline. To apply these principles to the
individual is a task, the immeasurable difficulty of which we are only
beginning to appreciate with the failure of thirty years of compulsory
education before us. A recent writer[2] gives it as his opinion that
the aim of education is to equip a child with ideals, and that this
task should not be difficult, because the lower savages successfully
subject all the members of their tribe to the most ruthless
discipline. Their lives, he says, "are lived in fear, in restraint, in
submission, in suffering, subject to galling, unreasoning,
unnecessary, arbitrary prohibitions and taboos, and to customary
duties equally galling, unreasoning, unnecessary, and arbitrary. They
endure painful mutilations, they submit to painful sacrifices.... How
are these wild, unstable, wayward, impulsive, passionate natures
brought to submit to such a rigorous and cruel discipline? By
education; by the inculcation from infancy of these ideals. In these
ideals they have been brought up, and to them they cling with the
utmost tenacity." One might as well contend that it was easy to teach
all men to live the self-denying life of earnest Christians because
some savage tribe was successful in maintaining among its members a
universal and orthodox worship of idols. The ideals set before the
child are too high and too complex to be inculcated by physical force,
or even by force of public opinion. A rigid discipline, with many
stripes and with terrible threats of a still worse punishment in the
world to come, was the almost invariable lot of children until the
last century was well advanced. Yet has this drastic treatment of
young children fulfilled its purpose? Were the men of fifty years ago
better conducted and more controlled than the men of to-day? In any
one family did a greater proportion turn out well? Is it not true that
at least among the educated classes the relaxation of nursery and
schoolroom discipline which the last fifty years has seen has been
justified by its results? Is it not true that the childhood of our
grandmothers was often lived "in fear, in restraint, in submission, in
suffering subject to galling, unreasoning, unnecessary, arbitrary
prohibitions and taboos, and to customary duties equally galling,
unreasoning, unnecessary, and arbitrary." And though perhaps the
grandmothers of most of us may not have been much the worse for all
this discipline, is it not true that of the little brothers who shared
the nursery with them a surprising number broke straightway into
dissipation when the parental restraints were removed? If we are to
teach a child to be gentle to the weak it is not wise to beat him. The
qualities which we wish him to possess are not more subtle than the
means by which we must aid him to their possession.
[Footnote 2: _The Principles of Rational Education_, by Dr. C.A.
Mercier.]
Education comprises physical, mental, and moral training. In earlier
times physical strength and the power to fight well, alone were prized
and were the chief objects to be gained in the education of youth.
Later, under the stress of intellectual competition for success in
life, mental acquirements have come to occupy the first place. We are
only now learning to lay emphasis upon the supreme need for moral
training. Not that it is possible to separate the sum of education
into its constituent parts, and to regard each as distinct from the
others. That many men of great intellectual activity, and many men
pre-eminent for their moral qualities have harboured a great brain or
a noble character in a weakly or deformed body, forms no argument to
disprove the general rule that a healthy, vigorous physique is the
only sure foundation upon which to build a highly developed intellect
and a stable temperament. In childhood the intimate connection between
vigour of mind and vigour of body is almost always clearly shown. A
child with rickets, unable to exercise his body in free play, as a
rule shows a flabbiness of mind in keeping with his useless muscles
and yielding bones. Such children talk late, are infantile in their
habits and ways of thought, and are more emotional and unstable than
healthy children of the same age. The connection between bodily
ailments and instability of nervous control is even more clearly seen
in the frequent combination of rheumatism and chorea. A very high
proportion of older children suffering from the graver neuroses, such
as chorea, syncopal attacks, phobias, tics, and so forth, show
defective physical development. Scoliosis, lordosis, knock-knee, flat
foot, pigeon chest, albuminuria, cold and cyanosed extremities, are
the rule rather than the exception. If the body of the child is
developed to the greatest perfection of which it is capable we shall
not often find a too sensitive nervous system. The boy of fine
physique may have many faults. He may be bad-tempered or untruthful or
selfish, but such faults as he has are as a rule more primitive in
type, more readily traced to their causes, and more easy to eradicate
than the faults which spring from that timidity, instability, and
moral flabbiness which has so often developed in the lax delicate
child reared softly in mind and body.
PHYSICAL TRAINING
Children thrive best in the healthy open-air life of the country, and
if there is any tendency to nervous disturbances the need for this
becomes insistent. Physical training, further, includes the manual
education of the child. The system of child-training advocated by Dr.
Montessori is based upon the cultivation of tactile sensations and the
development of manual dexterity. Exercises such as she has devised
have an immediate effect in calming the nervous system and in changing
the restless or irritable child into a self-restrained and eager
worker. Lord Macaulay, whose phenomenal memory as a child has become
proverbial, was so extraordinarily unhandy that throughout life he had
considerable difficulty in putting on his gloves, while he had such
trouble with shaving that on his return from India there were found in
his luggage some fifty razors, none of which retained any edge, and
nearly as many strops which had been cut to pieces in his irritated
and ineffectual efforts. If we teach a child manual dexterity it is an
advantage to him, because manual dexterity is seldom associated with
restlessness and irritability of mind. To excel in some handicraft not
only bespeaks the possession of self-control, it helps directly to
cultivate it. The teaching of Froebel and Montessori holds good after
nursery days are over.
MENTAL TRAINING
Mental training enables the child to retain facts in his memory, to
obtain information from as many sources as possible, to understand and
piece them together, and finally to reach fresh conclusions from
previously acquired data. So far as is possible the teacher must
satisfy the natural desire to know the reason of things. It must be
his endeavour to prevent the child from accepting any argument which
he has not fully understood, and which, as a result, he is able not to
reconstruct but only to repeat. Mental work which is slovenly and
perfunctory is as harmful to the child's education as mechanical work
which is bungled and ineffective. Taking advantage of his natural
aptitudes, his interest should be developed and extended in every way
possible. Tasks which are accomplished without enthusiasm are labour
expended in vain, because the knowledge so acquired is not
assimilated and adds nothing to the child's mental growth. There
should be no sharp differentiation between work and play.
MORAL TRAINING
Moral training depends upon the force of example rather than of
precept. Parents must be scrupulously just and truthful to the child,
for his quick perception will detect the slightest deceit, and the
evil impression made on his mind may be lasting. They must confidently
expect conduct from him of a high moral standard, and be careful at
this early age to avoid the common fault of giving a dog a bad name.
If it is said on all sides that a child has an uncontrollable temper,
is an inveterate grumbler, is lacking in all power of concentration,
or has a tendency to deceit, it is likely that the child will act up
to his reputation. He comes in time to regard this failing of his as
part of himself just as much as is the colour of his hair or the
length of his legs. It may be said of a schoolboy that he shows no
aptitude for his work. Term by term the same report is brought home
from school, and each serves only to confirm the boy in his belief
that this failing is part of his nature, and that no effort of his own
can correct it. If one subject only has escaped the condemnation of
his master, then it may be to that study alone that he returns with
zest and enjoyment. Spendthrift sons are manufactured by those fathers
who many times a day proclaim that the boy has no notion of the value
of money.
And so with children! Parents must take it for granted that they will
display all the virtues they desire in them. They must trust to their
honour always to speak the truth, and always to do their best in work
or play whether they are with them or not. Again and again the
children will fail and their patience will be tried to the utmost.
They must explain how serious is the fault, and for the time being
their trust may have to be removed; but with the promise of amendment
it must again be fully restored and the lapse completely forgotten. If
the child feels he is not trusted he ceases to make any effort, and
lapse will succeed lapse with increasing frequency.
In efforts at moral training there is often too great an emphasis laid
upon negative virtues. It is wrong to do this: to do that is
forbidden. Children cannot progress by merely avoiding faults any more
than a man may claim to be an agreeable companion at table because he
does not eat peas with a knife or drink with his mouth full. There
must be a constant effort to achieve some positive good, to acquire
knowledge, to do service, to take thought for others, to discipline
self, and the parent will get the best result who is comparatively
blind to failure but quick to encourage effort and to appreciate
success. When the child knows well that he is doing wrong, exhortation
and expostulation are usually of little avail if repeated too often,
and serious talks should only take place at long intervals.
We know how effective the so-called "therapeutic conversation" may be
in helping some overwrought and nervously exhausted man or woman to
regain peace of mind and self-control. After an intimate conversation
with a medical man who knows how to draw from the patient a free
expression of the doubts, anxieties, and fears which are obsessing
him, many a patient feels as though he had awakened in that instant
from a nightmare, and passes from the consulting-room to find his
troubles become of little account. Not a few patients return to be
reassured once more, and derive new strength on each occasion. Yet
visits such as these must be infrequent or they will lose their power.
Now, just as the physician is well aware that his intervention if too
frequently repeated will lose its effect, so the parent must be chary
of too frequent an appeal to the moral sense of the child. At long
intervals opportunity may be taken with all seriousness to set before
the child ideals of conduct, to-speak to him of the meaning of
character and of self-discipline, and of the standards by which we
judge a man or woman to be weak and despicable, or strong and to be
admired. The effect of such an intimate conversation, never repeated,
may persist throughout life. Constantly reiterated appeals, on the
other hand, do more harm than good. To tell a child daily that he is
"breaking mother's heart," or that he is "disappointing his father,"
is to debase the moral appeal and deprive it of its strength.
For everyday use it is best to cultivate a manner which can indicate
to the child that he is for the moment unpopular, but which at the
same time denies to the small sinner the interest of attempting his
own defence. On the other hand, should the child be reasonably in
doubt as to the nature of his offence we must spare no trouble in
explaining it to him. Punishment will be most effective when the child
is convinced that he is rightly convicted. If it is to act as a real
deterrent, he must agree to be punished--a frame of mind which, if it
can be produced, may be welcomed as a sure sign that training is
proceeding along the right lines.
By physical training, mental training, and moral training the child's
character is formed and self-discipline is developed. With the child
of neuropathic disposition and inheritance matters may not proceed so
smoothly. Reasoning and conduct may be alike faulty, and the nervous
disturbances may even cause detriment to the physical health. Not that
the nervous child requires an environment different from that of the
normal child. The difficulties which the parents will encounter and
the problems which must be solved differ not in kind but in degree. An
error of environment which is without effect in the normal child may
be sufficient to produce disastrous results in the neuropathic.
It must be granted that there are some unfortunate children in whom
the moral sense remains absent and cannot be developed--children who
steal and lie, who seem destitute of natural affection, or who appear
to delight in acts of cruelty. These moral degenerates need not be
considered here. Serious errors of conduct, however, in children who
are not degenerate or imbecile, frequently arise directly from faults
of management and can be controlled by correcting these faults.
Suppose, for example, that a child is found to have taken money not
his own. The action of the parents faced with this difficulty and
disappointment will determine to a great extent whether the incident
is productive of permanent damage to the child's character. The
peculiar circumstances of each case must be considered. For example,
the parent must bear in mind the relation in which children stand to
all property. The child possesses nothing of his own; everything
belongs in reality to his father and mother, but of all things
necessary for him he has the free and unquestioned use. Unless his
attention has been specially directed to the conception of ownership
and the nature of theft, he may not have reasoned very closely on the
matter at all. Very probably he knows that it is wrong to take what is
not given him, but he does not regard helping himself to some dainty
from a cupboard as more than an act of disobedience to authority. He
may have imbibed no ideas which place the abstraction of money from a
purse belonging to his parents on a different plane, and which have
taught him to regard such an action as especially dishonourable and
criminal. Finally, a child who, undetected, has more than once taken
money belonging to his father and mother, may pass without much
thought to steal from a visitor or a servant. To deal with such a case
effectively, to ensure that it shall never happen again, requires much
insight. If the father, shocked beyond measure to find his son an
incipient criminal, differing in his guilt in no way from boys who are
sent to reformatories as bad characters, convinces the child that
although he did not realise it, he has shown himself unworthy of any
further trust, untold harm will be done. Almost certainly the child
will act in the future according to the suggestions which are thus
implanted in his mind. If the household eyes him askance as a thief,
if confidence is withdrawn from him, he sees himself as others see him
and will react to the suggestions by repeating the offence. The
seriousness of what he has done should be explained to him, and after
due punishment he must be restored completely and ostentatiously to
absolute trust. Only by showing confidence in him can we hope to do
away with the dangers of the whole incident. To inculcate good habits
and encourage good behaviour we must let the child build up his own
reputation for these virtues. It need not make him priggish or
self-satisfied if parents let him understand that they take pride in
seeing him practise and develop the virtue they aim at. For example,
it is desired above all that he should always speak the truth. Then
they must ostentatiously attach to him the reputation of truthfulness
and show their pride in his possessing it. If he falls from grace they
must remember that he is still a child, and that if that reputation is
lightly taken from him and he is accused of a permanent tendency
towards untruthfulness, he is left hopeless and resigned to evil. Let
any mother make the experiment of presenting to her child in this way
a reputation for some particular virtue. For example, if an older
child shows too great a tendency to tease and interfere with the
younger children, let the mother seize the first opportunity which
presents itself to applaud some action in which he has shown
consideration for the others. Let her comment more than once in the
next few days on how careful and gentle the older child is becoming in
his behaviour to the little ones, and in a little the suggestion will
begin to act until the transformation is complete. If, on the other
hand, the mother adopts the opposite course and rebukes the child for
habitual unkindness, she will be apt to find unkindness persisted in.
The criminal records of the nation show too often the truth of the
saying that "Once a thief always a thief." Deprived of his good
repute, man loses his chief protection against evil and his incentive
to good.
The inability of a child--and especially of a nervous and sensitive
child--to form conceptions of his own individuality except from ideas
derived from the suggestions of others, gives us the key to our
management of him and to our control of his conduct. He has, as a
rule, a marvellously quick perception of our own estimate of him, and
unconsciously is influenced by it in his conception of his own
personality, and in all his actions. Parents must believe in his
inherent virtue in spite of all lapses. If they despair it cannot be
hid from the child. He knows it intuitively and despairs also. It is
then that they call him incorrigible. If it happens that one parent
becomes estranged from the child, despairs of all improvement, and
sees in all his conduct the natural result of an inborn disposition to
evil, while the other parent holds to the opinion that the child's
nature is good, and to the belief that all will come right, then often
enough the child's conduct shows the effect of these opposite
influences. In contact with the first he steadily deteriorates,
affording proof after proof that judgment against him has been rightly
pronounced. In contact with the other, though his character and
conduct are bound to suffer from such an unhappy experience, he yet
shows the best side of his nature and keeps alive the conviction that
he is not all bad.
The force of suggestion is still powerful to control conduct and
determine character in later childhood. The impetus given by the
parents in this way is only gradually replaced by the driving power of
his own self-respect--a self-respect based upon self-analysis in the
light of the greater experience he has acquired.