Importance Of Early Months Of Life

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31385, 2 June 1967, Page 10

Importance Of Early Months Of Life

The first few months and years of a person’s life were of prime importance in forming the pattern of his future relationships, capacities, and physical and mental health, Sister M. Oliver, of the Calvary Hospital psychiatric clinic, told a meeting of the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Emotionally Disturbed Children’s Society last night. A person brought to each situation in life the equipment of his past experiences, and each event in life was affected by earlier ones back to the first day of his life, she said. When early experience had been, on the whole, pleasurable, satisying and not too frightening and overwhelming, the person was able to feel love, concern, fear, sadness within himself and also

for other people, would be reasonably easy to live with and capable of adjusting to new situations without undue stress.

If, however, earlier experiences had not been satisfactory, the person was unable to make satisfactory relationships, and his life took on an abnormal pattern. Much of the difficult behaviour of problem children was a reaction to mothers who were too frightened of them, or too impatient with them, Sister 1 Oliver said.

These mothers might have been the victims of old wives* tales about pregnancy, have experienced stormy childhoods themselves or have retained their own childhood fears and fantasies which had been revived by pregnancy and childbirth. One of the most .important factors in the development of any child was what mother he had, and how she handled him, Sister Oliver said. Unstable parents tended to have unstable children but the instability was more often acquired than inborn. Initial contacts between mother and child were the beginnings of the child’s capacity to form human relationships, and it was largely her handling which directed him into the kind of person he would become. The mother must make the child realise that there were others in the world besides himself and that he must learn to wait, to accept frustration and to comply with the wishes of others. She had to convey to him that these demands and deprivations were not a punishment and that he was still loved.