THE CLEVER CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 25, 30 January 1930, Page 21

THE CLEVER CHILD

&VERAGE LIFE TOO EPISODIC

The suggestion that the average child's life is too " episodic'J and not a complete life was put forward by Dr. E. H. Crowley, senior medical officer, Board of Education, at the Conference on Mental Hygiene at the Central Hall, "Westminster, reports the "Sunday Times," London.

Dr. Crowley, who was presiding at a discussion on "The problem child at home and in school," said they must' get the whole life of tho child so integrated that there would be sound mental development and some chance of a really sound mental adult life.

Miss A. M, Nevill, psychologist to the Children's Home, Bow, said that the problem child deviated from the normal. It was either a disturber of the peace, a reality shirker, or a moral offender. The cure was to get to the root of children's difficulties and to extend sympathy.

"I want to put in a plea for the brilliant child,'' Miss Nevill a dded. '' We have done very much for the dull child, and so little for the very clever. The child who finds work too easy to tackle, ■who finds the talk of other children really childish, it is that child.

"If only parents and teachers could get together and discuss these problems frankly and freely we shall find that many of them will disappear as the years go by."

A system which produces "pleasureloving children" was criticised by Dr. E. A. Hamilton-Pearson, of the Tavistock-square Clinic. ,

"The average child of to-day," he said, "partakes of the same amusements as adults, and has relatively greater freedom than the average adult. In the way of pleasure, the child has experienced, either personally, or— largely as a result of the mechanical' fantasy of the cinema—vicariously, practically all that will ever be possible 'or it.

"Adulthood has few additional pleasures to offer in compensation for the greater responsibilities it brings."