RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29459, 10 March 1961, Page 29

RANDOM REMINDER

PATENT PENDING

Every mother, father, grandparent, uncle, aunt, cousin, brother or sister has his or her own method, and sometimes a variety of them, for preventing small children from crying or soothing them when they do. Most mothers these days have read all the handbooks on the subject and most of them recommend that the child be picked up, snuggled and otherwise comforted. Conscientious fathers do the same, but one or two achieve the same result with a peremptory demand to the child to shut up; grandparents and uncles and aunts dandle the youngster and are usually pretty effective mainly because they try hard since. with the advancing ''"sars. they just

cannot bear the noise. There are some mothers who resort, particularly in public, to nothing more than bribery for fear of the child upsetting others and cunning children can live a life of sugary, sticky ease if they travel much with their mothers on the bus—a factor, no doubt, in the juvenile dental casualty rate. At the other end of the scale is the mother who becomes so rattled at the noise her child can make that she threatens: “Be quiet or I’ll give you something to cry for.” This causes the child to redouble its decibel output, either to show its contempt for such an empty threat or in fear at what is coming. But a Redcliffs housewife with five young children has

hit on, quite by accident, a formula never dreamed up by Plunket Society experts or Benjamin Spock, M.D. She had been attempting to instruct all the children at lunch about closing their mouths while eating when a dispute erupted and rapidly involved all five In pinching. punching, scratching, and the like. Tears flowed i from 10 eyes and five! mouths opened in a siren ! wail. But the mother, a 1 little absent-mindediyj perhaps, was equal to the! occasion. “Shut your' mouths when you cry."! she commanded. It! worked; and she is won-! dering now whether there, would be any money in such a miraculous invention.