SPOILING CHILDREN

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1927, Page 10

SPOILING CHILDREN

TOO MUCH ATTENTION. ■ i Angelo Patri, famous in America as a. child educator, in the following article written for the “New York Herald Tribune” ouilin.es what he considers faults in modern methods of bringing up children. The children oi to-day arc in danger of receiving too much attention in school and home rather than too little. Having become conscious of the child in our midst. we are smothering him with kindness. We are worrying too much about his problems. giving too much thought to his vagaries—the whimsies of a passing stage of grgowth. Every discovery we make regarding the growth or the characteristics of childhood we hasten to pour out on the child of our hearts. That. is not good. We cannot know too much about children. We cannot have too sincere a desire to serve them. Nor can we have too much discrimination in the use of our knowledge. The great body of child training lore is intended for teachers and parents. They are io ponder it well in their hearts and dip into it in lime of need — which is not us often nor ns deep as we are inclined to believe in our zeal. FumlHcs are smaller than Ijiey used io be. and household equipment is better than ever before. Laboursaving devices have freed the mother of household drudgery, and the time saved is largely devoted to the children. That is well. The only danger lies in pouring out this attention

directly upon the children when it should be used to get a better perspective on them. Distance is essential in the proper upbringing of children. Letting alone is as much a necessity as helping concretely. In an older day children had the advantage of being allowed to help themselves a great deal because their mothers were too busy to do things for them. Now they are getting less and less chance of self-help. If a child drops his toys, his first cry brings; help. The toy is handed him whether it lies within reach or not. If it lies within his roach and someone saves him the effort of reaching it. he is it cheated child. Only when he makps his own adjustments, only when he feels the thrill of success, docs he truly grow. Children ought to be loved and warmed in the glow of the family affection, but they ought not to be made the centre of interest of the group of adults so that he may neither sit nor stand, cry nor laugh, nor even sneeze, without an anxious gathering of adults. No human child can stand so much attention without, injury. The dynamic force of a group of adults is in itself a serious factor in a child’s life. It is more than likely to swamp him physically and mentally. It. is too much. Far better that his mother take care of him without the help of others. Let her be relieved only by father occasionally. Grandparents and aunts and uncles arc fine, but they must be only occasional influences, not habitual ones. They must bear gifts rarely.

Our children get too many gifts. A little child should have only one or two simple toys in use at once. If he has been deluged by a shower of gifts put most of them in the toy closet. Bring them out by ones and twoes, changing the toy as the child’s interests shift. Don’t if you value his vivid interest, his eager curiosity about life and its experiences, clutter his room and his crib with a shopful of toys. In trying to pay attention to all of them at once, he loses the value of all and, worse than all, loses the power of interesting himself in the .everyday things about him. A ball, a woolly animal a friendly doll are enough for a child at one time. They will last for weeks, sometimes for months. Then change the one that seems to be least loved and put something fresh in its stead. I Too much money is the bane of childhood. Money is something childhood cannot understand. It is purely an adult idea. To give children money beyond their ability to spend is as dangerous as handing them loaded guns. They are bound to injure themselves and others. They must learn to use money by experience in using it, so we give them an allowance and let them spend it as they wish. We begin just as soon as a child begins asking to spend money. We start him with a few pence a week, and we teach him to keep track of it on a large card with score marks. As ho grows in experience, we increase the allowance, so that by the time they enter college they arc ready to handle their own accounts. The money a boy gets should not be (more than he knows how to use. There should always be a problem of ways and means, so that he learns I the value of money. And as soon as | he can earn some ho should be put 1 in a position to do so. Better still, he should be allowed to place himself in the position to do so. Hunting for job, earning a salary, spending it, is in itself a big part of youth’s education. Don’t ask youth to be saving. If be saves it must be constructive saving for a well defined purpose, a bat or a wheel or a course in college, something useful or something silly, but for a purpose that will for ever prescribe hoarding. A hoarding child

is an unpleasant expression of thrift and of childhood. Of course there must be some supervision of the children as. they grow. We are inclined to begin that oversight at birth and continue it to the grave. Once a child always a child, seems to be the idea of many parents. That -idea makes I'oV more frustrated lives, for more estranged children and parents than any other half-dozen that afflict childhood. Children must grow up, and it is > the boundeii duty, the high privilege of teachers ami parents, to allow that natural process to proceed as swiftly and as thoroughly us possible, and to help it along. The first two or throe years the child must be wholly dependent upon his ciders for. direction and service. Along about the end of the second year and the first half of the third of their lives, little children begin to show signs of self help. From then on they are growing away from their parents and teachers, and education consists in helping them to grow happily and richly towards self-ex-pression. To do that, we withdraw gradually and surely from the children’s lives. We try to do nothing for them that they can do for themselves. We should try not. to sentimentalise about them, but to stand hack and let them struggle through to self-support and self-achievement. To do ] \ss each day should be our desire —to allow children to do more our duty—as wo make ready the way before them. Begin freeing the child in his early years. A child trained to self-help will he free from the fear of effort. Give him plenty of room and plenty of time and opportunity to try things out and make place for the mistakes. Mistakes that are seen and set right are great educational factors —not crimes. Do not help him out unless he is in danger. Too much of anything is not good for the children. ‘What they need is the old, old story—not too much, just enough to be right. That means nice adjustment, a balanced judgment, a keen discrimination in the mind and attitude, of the parent or teacher. Just enough care and no more; just enough money to teach him the use of it; just enough freedom to keep him from bruising his soul on life’s barriers. This is not easy, but nobody ever said that rearing a child was easy; but it will be easier if you do not do it too much.

ache Pills in, the house, and take: them every now and again as a pre ventive against any return of his ok complaint. His was not a serious case but he had a constant nagging acln in the small of the back, which was very worrying am. he was afraid o more advanced symptoms of kidnej trouble developing. However, Doan’; Backache Kidney Pills soon iixed bin up and he has been as right as a banl ever since. People who suffer Iron backache cannot do better than take Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills.” Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills art sold by all chemists and storekeepers Foster-McClellan Co., Proprietors, If Hamilton Street, Sydney. But, be sure you get DOAN’S. —D.