PHANTASIES OF CHILDHOOD.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17700, 28 February 1923, Page 2

PHANTASIES OF CHILDHOOD.

CRUELTY IN BOYS.

SELF-TORTURE IN GIRLS,

fFBOH OCE OWTT CORRESPONDEKT.I LONDON, January 4. A* the Institute of Hygiene yesterday, Dr. David Forsyth delivered the first of three lectures designed to give an elementary knowledge of psychology. The particular interest of the series is not so much the substance of the lectures as the fact that they are being delivered to an audience of boys and girls. The question arises whether it is wise to worry children with the explanation of their own mental processes. Dr. Forsyth maintained that more harm came to children from not understanding' themselves than from giving them a knowledge of the workings of their own mind. In any case, a child would understand just as much as he was capable of and no more. If mental hygiene was to become a practical question it was essential that every child should know something of the processes of its own thoughts and feelings.

The central point in the psychology of every boy and girl was that he or she was exceedingly selfish. At no age in life are we so selfish as when we are young. That might seem an unkind statement; but it had to be remembered that what the child was at five or six years old was the outcome of what it was at five or six months old. The new-born child had no interest outside itself. It did not know its mother as such until perhaps it was a year or so old. Its outlook was entirely self-centred. Ab the small infant grew it began to enlarge its interests, but the extreme selfishness persisited all through childhood. Cult of Narcissus. The children would remember the Greek myth of a youth called Narcissus, who was exceedingly beautiful, and who fell in love with a maid called Echo. Unfortunately, one day Narcissus saw the reflection of his own image in a pool, and fell so much in love with himself that he could think of nothing else, and so pined and withered away. This Narcissus was really very typical of young people. There were many young men of 17 or so who had a very good opinion of themselves. They showed it in having socks and ties to match. Young maidens, too, were very fond of themselves and of their dress.

" Children delighted in their games in pretending that they were important people; princes and kings and generals, and such like. This was due to their being convinced of many excellences in themselves. These phantasies were soldom spoken of to adults. Children seemed to sense the lack of sympathy in grown-up people. When alone they delighted in giving free rein to their sense of their own importance. As an instance, the lecturer quoted the case of two boys during the war whom he saw running round a certain lawn, raising thoir legs as though they were horses. He stooped as though to catch one of-"the boys by the" legs. The little fellow stopped and looked grieved and deeply offended. "Don't do that," he said, "I'm Kitchener." And the other boy was the King of the Belgians—generals and kings, nothing less would serve. Love and Hate. Feelings of affection in children were generally commended, and consequently demonstration of affection was seen more often by adults. But like adults, children also experienced the emotion of hate which included all degrees from mere dislike to' strong hatred. Anyone who would not do what a child wanted stirred the child's first emotion of dislike, or hate. ■ Hence, the situation was not one of constant love for a mother or father. It ! was at one time a matter of much love and at another much hate. "Those of y6u who are children," said the lecturer, "know how when you are behaving yourselves very nicely you are encouraged. When the time comes for you to feel hate and anger and sulkiness, you are told: 'You-ought not to have these feelings, you are not a really nice child, and no really nice child ever feels like that.' That starts an average child thinking that there is something lacking in him, ,that he is not as good as other children, and ,may have a beneficial, result. But it is not always wise to'cause the child to think he is an outcast." Jealousy and Fear. Children experienced jealousy, and sometimes very keenly. No set of brothers or sisters could get on for very long without having differences; nor would it be altogether good if they could. There were hours of love and affection; there were also, and should be, other hours when there were friction, and even fighting. Dr. Forsyth did not suppose there was a healthy nursery in the kingdom where this did not go on. Fear, too, was an important emotion —fear of dogs, schoolmasters, being in the darlg> And a child unquestionably suffered a great deal of unhappiness from this sense of fear. Often with this fear went a dislike to showing it, sometimes with serious results. Dr. Forsyth quoted the case of a young friend who, with other schoolboys, was sitting on a fence over a river bank. The other boys dared him to jump to the bank, which was some twelve or fifteen feet below him. His fear was intense, but his fear of showing that he was afraid was still more intense, and he jumped, with the result that he broke his arm. Later on the emotions which centred round the family became centred round the school. The .boy became convinced that his was the finest school there was. His way of thinking was: "This school is superlatively good because I am a superlative scholar in it." The university or college also became the finest college in the world. Even the idea that one's country was the greatest in the world was all harking back to the idea that: "I am the centre of the universe, and everything centring about me is of the utmost importance." As we grew older, experience and disappointment taught us to modify our Belfish views of life and our ideas of our own importance. The simplest and probably the best way for children to deal with their feelings was simply to relieve them. Small boys who pulled their sisters' hair and made them cry because they had taken toys which did not belong to them were relieving their feelings in a natural way. But there were other ways in which these feelings when suppressed by parents found relief. These were in dreams and day-dreams. Dreams of young children always took the form of the satisfaction of what had been denied them during the day before, the repairing of-- disappointments. Curious Daydreams. Daydreams were much more interesting. Children did not speak of them to grown-up people very much, perhaps because adults imagined they were morbid. There was nothing morbid in them. Daydreams even persisted in adults, though they tended to form an impracticable character. Phantasies of youth always had as the hero the dreamer himself. Number one invariably came out top and rivals were ousted. The two commonest forms of daydreams were for the relief to the feeling of ambition in boys, and the feeling of love in some form in girls. In the boy, too, there waa the curious

daydream in which the dreamer delighted in cruelty. These impulses were not altogether to be deplored, for they were developing certain characteristics which would be useful to them when the boy grew up —self assertiveness, determination, and grief. In the girl similar curious daydreams were prevalent. But the cruelty was inflicted on themselves. The lecturer said he knew of one little girl who persistently imagined herself seized by enemies and tied to a tree, and riddled with arrows. Others imagined themselves in some particularly difficult situation for the sake of a mother or a beloved schoolmistress. It was based on the desire to excite love and admiration in some object who was loved. Many such dreams might seem horrible, but they were helping to develop certain feminine characteristics, and were very natural in most children.