TRAINING BRAVE CHILDREN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 6 (Supplement)

TRAINING BRAVE CHILDREN.

*. . ' We are inclined -.to thihk -of fear as necessarily an ', evil thing. That is not quite logical, because fear is the emotion which has the greatest survival value for,, any species." ■ « ' Dr. Crichton Miller made this statement in an address on -"The Influence of Fear on Character," at a recent International Conference on Day Nursery Work, in London. The young animal and the young htaman alike shared the fears of the unknown, said Dr. Miller. , The fear of the unknown to the child was particularly intense, because its : imagination was far keener than that of any other species. Therefore,' we should be particularly sympathetic (and careful . with children. When a child expressed fear of the dark, it was no use trying to make it brave by imposing on it our own confidence as to the safety of remaining in the dark. A child that did not want to be left in the nursery alone with the»«lof«* ; shut was merely doing what a rabbit did when it was put into 11 hatch. "We have to train children to fear in the right place, and not to fear: in the wrong," declared Dr. Miller.The first fear a child had of a social kind was fear of ridicule and ostracism from its own herd. Dr. Millet citecl the case of a professional man' whoso early life had been made, miserable because, his mother—a woman with unconventional Ideasinsisted upon his dressing, when a boy, in such a way that he was always laughed at.