BOGIES OF CHILDHOOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19382, 17 July 1926, Page 6 (Supplement)

BOGIES OF CHILDHOOD.

DANGEROUS FEARS. There are few parents of the present generation who have not a vivid recollection of some of the bogies that were paraded to terrorise their childhood in order to frighten them from doing that which they should not do or into doing that which they should. We have advanced —thank heaven! — and to-day it is fairly generally recognised that deliberately to awaken fear in a little child is dangerous, if not criminal. Fear, once roused, is difficult to quell, and unusual, fears, such as result from stories of horrors lurking in the dark, can haunt all a child's days and so influence his adolescent and adult years as to make hazardous the path of achievement. Mere babies will develop fear from careless handling. An infant a week old will gasp and clutch his little fists when roughly handled, and so is born in him the first 'fear of falling. Gentle, expert handling, on the other hand, can instil a sense of safety and security. It is»not contended that a child should be entirely devoid of fear, for, after all, it is an emotion which can be directed into useful channels. It makes us do some thing as urgently as it keeps us from doing others, and it really tends to protect us more from danger than to hurl us into it. The aim, therefore, should be to direct the fears of the child s.o that they will be a protection and not a hindrance to him.

Parents are too often wont to laugh at childish fears, and to look upon them as unreasonable and foolish, instead of trying to ascertain the causes and carefully explain them away. Fears of things that can be seen and heard are easiest to deal with, such as fear of policemen, animals, lightning, high altitudes, lonely, unusual-looking places, or the sea. All these can be simply explained away—in fact, the child can be brought round to loving most of them. Not so easy to cope with and infinitely more dangerous are the fears of intangible things which a child works up in his imagination from something he hears and broods upon without daring to express himself about it. These hidden fears are usually implanted by threats of punishment for disobedience, by the thoughtless remarks of a parent or by a mother expressing her opinion of some evil locality or situation and by the discussion of death, sickness or some unpleasant adventure within the hearing of the child. Mothers in talking of fears or aversions which beset them when they were young can implant these same fears in their children in an aggravated degree —in fact many terrors of childhood which are regarded as having been inherited have had their origin in just such illadvised talk. ' And not from talk alone can harmful fears be bred. The mother who is nervous or who shows fear in any situation can communicate similar emotions to her child. Such a mother can be of no assistance in developing in him a normally fearless character. t The child, however, is experiencing fear, of the right kind when he recognises danger and the justiqe of punishment for wrong-doing, for such fears as these act as correctives, and do not make him nervour nor sleepless nor interfere with his playing nor working happily.