EDUCATION OF YOUR CHILD (7)

Grey River Argus, 18 January 1940, Page 10

EDUCATION OF YOUR CHILD (7)

By

H. C. D. SOMERSET

Community Centre, Feilding.

THE INSTINCTS: 2. Curiosity.

“Curiosity killed the cat” —so parents say to their children while doing their best as usual to spoil the valuable equipment of the child mind. If curiosity did kill an odd cat; it has made it possible for millions of them to survive in sleek comfort on the hearthrugs of the world. Curiosity is an instinct and its feeling side is wonder. We are all naturally curious, just as we are all natur; ally fearful. The higher we go in the animal scale the stronger the instinct of curiosity appears to be. Cais have more curiosity and less fear than mice; that is why the schemes of the latter “gang aft agley.” And those men whom the poet bracketed with mice probably had all the curiosity knocked out of them as children anct fear put in its place.

Curiosity and Fear.

Curiosity and fear tend to counteract each other. Have you ever seen a wopdhen investigating the tent that has suddenly sprung up in its domain? It comes forward a few yards as perky as can be; then fear takes possession, and back it goes a yard or two only to come on once more. In the woodhen curiosity always wins in the end. Young animals show the curiosity-fear association very clearly, foals and calves more especially. They will investigate anything new, but induce fear suddenly by a noise, the investigation on their part ceases, and they seek safety in flight, whicn, as we have already‘seen, is the active side of fear. Thus fear kills curiosity.

An Originally Strong Instinct.

Man possesses curiosity as an extremely strong instinct, and you may observe its simple working in your children. The urge to investigate anything new leads them to find out all about their ever-widening world. Il leads them on to take chanced and to develop mind and body through tneir explorations. In this the normal child rarely comes to harm; caution, which is a blend of curiosity and fear, is always there to keep him from injury-

Foundation of Science.

Upon the instinct of curiosity, all the scientific progress of the world is bu It. It is the urge which sends explorers to the Poles, physicists to the heart of the atom,, divers to the depths of the sea. It makes men sigh for the moon and put a girdle round the stars. Those who go out into new realms are those who have it unimpaired by fears. The parent who continually checks his child’s adventures with a constant “Mind, you’ll fall” may really be robbing the world of a Rutherford or a Scott. When fear takes the , place of curiosity the power to wonder is lost—and then half the joy of life is gone.

Side-Tracking Questions.

In a lesser degree, curiosity is often discouraged by parents who fail to answer intelligently the questions or children. A child’s constant “Why?” though it may be irksome at times, should never be side-tracked. A great deal of the deadness and dullness experienced in the school-room can oe traced to a repression of the child’s natural, curiosity. Encourage this instinct and the child will leach himself; repress it and he will become almost unleachable. Get Rid of Fear, On this count also, fear must be banished from the lives of children. Fear destroys curiosity—the instinct by which we learn. The reason wny so few of us excel in our school, subjects in after life is that the keen razor-edge of curiosity was blunted for those subjects in the school-room itself. If you do not read over-much now, or write or sketch, cast your memory back and see. You can be wiser in vour day and win half the battle of your child’s education by. helping him to wonder in those early days before he goes to" school. Then see that his capacity for wonder dees not become blunted through some perfectly curable fear. 3. NUTRITION. Nutrition, or the instinct which urges us to seek our food, is one of the earliest to develop in children. Its feeling side is, of course, hunger, and the instinct aims at the curing of this unpleasant' feeling. The instinct is so simple, and so necessary in the, preservation of the individual that it hardly needs any explanation. It has 1 had far-reaching consequences for us,

however. Agriculture is an answer to this primitive need; so also are our systems of transport by sea and land, our banks, credit svstems. and all tne other paraphernalia of They take their origin from the carfj barter of foodstuffs. 4. PUGNACITY. Pugnacity, or the urge to fight, is an instinct which we all possess m some degree. Its feeling side is anger. Normal children all have their share of this instinct and parents should not be alarmed at its appearance. It is usually aroused in children by the thwarting of some other instinct —notably that of nutrition. An 'animal gives an exhibition of angei if its meal is interfered with so does your child—so does father. Note what he says the next time the telephone rings five or six times during dinner. Adults, you see, are only half-grown-up children half the time, so do not be alarmed if your child is pugnacious. He is a chip 01 a block as old as time.

Mass Displays of Pugnacity.

All the wars that have ever been fought are a mass display of pugnacity; early ones were fought over food supplies —nowadays, we light over trade routes and markets, Hie same thing in essence. This does not mean, of course, that because we have the instinct of pugnacity and xtxe emotion of anger we need to keep on fighting over the same Anger can be well diverted into other channels; this will foi’m the subject of a future articlft.

The Right To Be Primitive.

Children alone have the right to be primitive and to bark and bite on occasion. Aaults have no such excuse themselves, but they should not be unduly alarmed at the childisn squabb.es of their offspring. (To be Continued.)