CRIMINALS MADE IN NURSERIES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3133, 4 September 1922, Page 7

CRIMINALS MADE IN NURSERIES.

(By C". Gasquoine Hartley.)

Every child suffers sometimes from a feeling of inferiority. He is so much smaller and weaker than the grown-ups who control his pay and his work that he feels uncomfortably helpless against their authority, which to him seems often to be exercised in an arbitrary and unkind way. There are times when this consciousness of being little and weak is so overwhelming that the child is bound to do somethiug to convince himself of Ins own powcrfulness. It is then that he becomes naughty. For the very easiest way to command the attention of his mother, and the other adults who are with him. is by, being naughty. Good, he is left alone, the grown-ups go on with their own occupations. He feels neglected. At most he is mildly praised. "Johnny is a nice quiet boy to-day." But this is very different from the. attention he command's when he is naughty. He defies authority. For a short time be becomes a despot, ruling the grown-ups who usually rule him. His sensation of power is intensely enjoyable. And the more disturbance he makes in the nursery life the deeper is his satisfaction. Of course, he is sorrv afterwards. But his sorrow is not really for the first period of successful rebellion, but for the afterwards when his power fails. Now it is very important for mothers to understand this. The real problem is to minimise as much as can be the child's enjoyment of naughtiness. Any unwisdom on the mother's part, such'as her being too emotionally concerned, indulging in nagging or violent auger, may have very serious results. Inevitablv the child feels, as he sees his mother's "tears and want ot control, I have caused this." Instead ot being weak, he is the master of the nursery. That is why usually he is good after he has been naughty. . But this kind of behavior is disastrous to the child's character. Let me tell you a rather striking story to illustrate this. A young boy, very naughty, was sent to bed. His mother, greatly troubled, went some hours later to his room. He was kneeling praying. She thought he was asking' Gocf to forgive him. But this was what sho heard: "Please, dear God, forgive my bad Mummy for being so unkind to'poor little Freddy." The boy grew up in the most unfortunate way. I cannot give the details and there were, of course, several causes. Yet certainly his character suffered the first wrong in the nursery from an unwise emphasising by his mother of his own importance. The naughty child is always the child over-occupied with thoughts of himself. And his feelings are unhealthily important to him just because he finds himself for some cause at a disadvantage. Parents, unconsciously, but very foolishly, emphasise their children's inferiority; they speak of their weaknesses, . tell them they are too little to do this or that, never realising the danger of what they are doing. Children must not be subjected to conditions of emotional stress which increases unnecessarily their inevitable consciousness of inferiority in an adult world. If the parents do not find out and remedy the cause of these feelings (which they ought to know are invariably present whenever a child is naughty), let me warn, them that they are dangerously limiting their children's chance of successful and happy life. It is for them to provide an expression by which the desired relief is gained in 'a right way. By connecting the pleasurable power-feeling with bad conduct, they are certainly, though they may not know it, making the way easy for every kind of future bad conduct. The fate of all children is decided in tile nursery; criminals are made there as well as saints and heroes.