NURSERY EPISODES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1652, 21 July 1883, Page 26

NURSERY EPISODES.

Nearly all mothers must meet sooner or later, the problem of how to rebuke or punish a sensitive child without wounding or destroying his self-respect. (The term of self-respect here includes that mild form of self-esteem which often fortifies a child against discreditable acts). With different temperaments entirely different methods are necessary. Two childieu in the same family often need opposite modes of treatment. I therefore attempt to lay down no general rule, but venture to give my own successful solution in one difficult case, hoping that it may prove at least suggestive in other and similar ones.

I early found self-respect to be the basis of alt good manifestations in my little daughter— the corner-stone upon which alone I could build firmly. If I made the mistake of correcting her fault in such a way as to lessen her self-respect, everything seemed to give way beneath us -I had nothing left to build upon. When she was three years old, I was startled into deep consideration of this matter. Up to this time she had been so habitually and cheerfully obedient that I rarely corrected her, and she lived in a joyous atmosphere of approval very sweet to her soul. From the height of conscious rectitude she obeyed with the air of noblesse oblige, and her prompt and loving acquiescence led us to believe that no difficulty lay in the path of her development. But one day, in a sudden freak of temper, she did wrong, very wrong, and I, amazed and shocked, rebuked her quickly, little thinking how wrong it was for me to say, " You naughty girl ! Mamma does not love you when you do so !" Instantly my loving little daughter was transformed. She Bcreamed, pushed me away, snd sobbed herself into quiet at last in af ar corner. Even after comparative cheerfulness was restored she repelled all my advances, and carried a strange, hard look in hei face while she played with her dollies, ignoring my presence. Within a few hours she disobeyed me again, and, in reply to a gentle rebuke, said sullenly : "I do not care — mamma not love!" From that time, for two days, she showed a dogged, hateful spirit, wilfully disobeying me, and always saying, " I not care ; I not want to be good !" or, " 1 not good girl ; mamma not love me !"

I saw, too late, that by calling her naughty, and making her think my love withdrawn, I had brought the sensitive little little soul to despair. Self-respect and public respect were lost. She had no motivu for good behaviour. The three-year-old desperado was equal to any villainy. She despised the blandishments of the mother who did not loye her. Her lips were unresponsive to my kiss. She was absolutely cold and unapproachable, yet with a most pathetic look of misery haunting her eyes. Finally, I knelt on the floor be&ide her, and very tenderly explained that, however naughty she might be, mamma loved her just the same ; that nothing she could ever do would stop mamma's loving her. An incredulous, hesitant look was her only response. I then dilated on my theme, saying always that I should love her "just the same." "Just de same?' she repeated wonderingly. So, at last, I won my rebel. She clung to me convulsively, and kept asking in a soft, delighted voice such questions as these : "If I strike, does o'o love me "just de same ?" And when I said that it would make me sad that I might be compelled to punish her, but that I should love her just the same, she would hug and kiss me in an ecstacy. For the next twenty-four hours she continued to propound, with wistful look, new conundrums of childish infancy, always ending with, " and oo'd love me just de same)"

At last she was fully reasssured, and ever since, through all vicissitudes of discipline, she has had perfect confidence in my unshaken love.

Out of the exigencies of this occasion was evolved the scapegoat, which has ever since proved a brilliant success in our family. I saw that so long as she felt herself a " good girl " she was loth to do anything unworthy of her lofty ideal of herself, and that I must discover some way of correcting faults without discouraging: her and lowering her self-iespect. _ Knowing that children enjoy personification, 1 vividly personified her cross, naughty, impulses as a naughty spirit who delighted in making trouble. " When ,he sees a dear, good little girl like you he thinks, 'Now 1*1 1 get her into trouble ;' so, when mamma tell q you to do something he whispers, ' Don't do it ' and if you listen to him all sorts of bad thing s begin." This struck her imagination forcibly ; the "Naughty Cross," as &he named him, became a foe to resist on every occasion. "I won't be cross, I mill mind my mamma," were often her audible answers to secret impulses. I always looked tenderly at her when she inclined to disobedience, and said: "You good, &weet little girl, the Naughty Cross is trying to make you do wrong." Often I would apostrophise the Naughty Gro&s, saying sternly : "Go away ! leave this good girl !" This spirited address frequently served as a diversion and ended all trouble. Sometimes she would join with me in exorcising the tempter, even giving herself a rousing s-lap in moments of righteous wrath, saying, "Go away ! I won't be naughty/ Under cover of rebuking the Naughty Cross I was able to be far more severe and make more telling points than would have been possible in addressing her, yet she herself— the very core of her — never was wounded or dedressed by it. It was always in her mind, a struggle between an upright little girl and a tempter. Her sense of honour and rectitude grew and blossomed, in spite of fraquenfc episodes of discipline. Gradually she took the matter more and more into her own hands, and often came out triumphant from severe personal struggles. One day she turned away with a sullen frown in response to a maternal suggestion, and went to the window. I watched and waited. In a few minutes she came back with sweet, upturned face : "Is dis a pleasant 'ittla face, mamma?" And when I kissed her she explained : "De Naughty Cross tried to come in, but I went to de winner and asked Jesus to send him off." She felt that she had a strong ally in Jesus

and appealed to Him for help with perfect confidence. Before she was five years old self dicipline was established ; she wrestled and subdued her own bad impulses, and who shall say that her prayer of faith was not directly answered ? Of course, this refers to her interior condition. Outwaraly she was no paragon. She was robust, noisy, liable to mistakes of all sorts, full of social atrocities, and altogether childlike.

The best and sweetest phase of this development was that we never antagonized each other : even in our most tragic moments all my energies seemed directed against the Naughty Cross, and she felt that we were comrades in warfare with a mutual enemy. She has_ a tremendous will, but she has never found it out, because it has never been opposed to mine. She has a capacity for obstinate defiance that would have been a dreadful element in family discipline, but she ha a had no chance to develop it. Now, her will and obstinacy, if developed, will be used against the_ temptations of life, never, I believe, in opposition to her mother. I found that to forewarn her often averted trouble. If she came hot, tired and dirty from play, I would|exclaim, " The Cross will be here in a minute ! He sees you are hot and tired, and he knows you hate to be washed ; he thinks, ' Now I'll catch her ! Now I'll make her naughty !' " "He won't !" would be her heroic response, as she patiently underwent the penance of she wash-bowl.— Maby H. Bueton.