Young Children "Want Limits On Behaviour"

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30762, 28 May 1965, Page 2

Young Children "Want Limits On Behaviour"

Unlimited self-expression did not make a child happy and the belief that it should be allowed for a child’s good was “quite out of date,” Mrs B. Morris, lecturer in human development for the Adult Education Department of Victoria University, said in Christchurch yesterday.

A child given no limits of behaviour became uneasy. “They want limits when young,” Mrs Morris said. Otherwise children would try’ to see how far they would be allowed to push things.

The same attitude later caused so-called juvenile deliquents to commit acts of vandalism, she said.

Mrs Morris will be one of the speakers at a supervisors’ refresher course to be held by the Canterbury Play Centres Association in Christchurch today and tomorrow.

The theme of the course is ••towards self-discipline”, and Mrs Morris will give one lecture on self-discipline and what it really means. “IMPORTANT YEARS”

The early years were very important formative ones for a child, and for relationships between children and parents, Mrs Morris said. From dominant discipline parents had to guide their children to self-discipline and thence to independence, she said.

The principles on which a child had to base his selfdiscipline depended mainly on what parents had implanted in the child, through their opinions, actions, and their handling of him. “WAY OF LIFE”

Self-discipline was a positive thing—way of life”— which enabled a person to act in a responsible way. The proper beginning of discipline was In a loving relationship between parents and child. It was particularly based on the parents’ acceptance of a child as he was, Mrs Morris said.

"Too many parents expect too much too soon.”

Discipline had to be different for different age levels, and depended on a child’s developmental age, she said.

Parents should give a child few responsibilities, accord-

ing to his age. and increase these until he had true independence, she said.

FATHERS’ ROLE She always stressed that fathers had to “be in from babyhood, to have a warm relationship with their children.” Some fathers said “Oh, Johnny and I will be real pals when he is older.” It was too late then, she said.

At play-centres, a child began to learn to be “disciplined by himself.” He learned that he had to discipline himself to be accepted by the other children, and to be able to make full use of the materials available, such as jig-saw puzzles, Mrs Morris said. Mrs Morris, the mother of four children, lectures in many districts. For nine yeans she has been training playcentre supervisors in the Hutt Valley and Wanganui.