ABNORMALITIES

Dunstan Times, Issue 3513, 16 March 1931, Page 6

ABNORMALITIES

ORIGINS IN CHILDHOOD Dr.). A. Hadfield, of London, discussed before members oi tlie Lducational Section of the British Association the infantile origin ol abnormalities in adults. “ Those who have to investigate those abnormalities,” he said. “ are forced to the conclusion that they go hack ultimately to false attitudes to life in the pre-school period. Von will find that every form of psycho-neurotic condition can be observed in a nursery of a dozen children. “ In cases of hysteria, nervous breakdown, and sexual perversion, abnormalities of character and personality—though they may have been immediately precipitated by momentary stress —invariably have their origin in false attitudes towards lilo and lack of adaptation in the pre-school period. “ Adult fears of life and death, of travelling, fears of the future and the past, are simply a revival in iniantile fears. Sexual perversions, which cause so much unhappiness to the individual and disturbance to social lite, are due to infantile sensuous tendencies which, because they have not been properly dealt with, 'have tended to persist instead of developing into adult sexualitv. A child who feels that he is being left out will go to bis mother and | sa v he is not feeling well in order to gel sympathy. That child is a potential case oi hysteria. A Ii K A 1.1 11 V-.M I\ I )i; I) CHILI). Or iladlield discussed what was really meant by a healthy-minded child. ,M()sl parents, he said, laid down certain objective ideals, such .'is obedience, consideration for others, truthfulness, but these ideals bad their drawbacks. Met ween (he ages of four and six a child was developing its own personality. It was not natural for It to be considerate to other people, and to try and force consideration upon it was liable to do violence to its character. A child at one age was quite different from the same child six months later j There was in children a natural tendeucy to si■ 11 -assert iveness. partieii-i larly at the ages of one and a-half and two. A child of two was generally a self-willed character. That self-will was the raw material of its character. If it: was rightly developed it would grow into a strongwilled adult. Hut to crush that will at the age of two was apt to lead to disaster. The child Would develop into a perfectly good, but al-o a perfectly I futile adult.