EARLY INFLUENCES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6243, 17 June 1946, Page 3

EARLY INFLUENCES

EFFECT ON LATER LIFE OF CHILDREN VIEWS OF EDUCATIONIST “My hypothesis is that the adult emotional pattern and the capacity for self-discipline are very largely determined by natural influences in early childhood,” said Professor R. SAllan, president of the Canterbury branch of the New Education Fellowship. giving the concluding paper in a series on the development of discipline. “If there is harmonious development, without conflict, the adult will be emotionally stable and capable of self-discipline, with all that it implies. If natural influences inhibit emotional growth, then the reverse will hold.”

Self-discipline should result in a growth in judgement of social values, in increased self-confidence, self-re-spect, and in feeling a security, with ability to co-operate with harmony in personal relationship—.in short, emotional health, Dr. Allan said. The attitudes,, capacities and characteristics involved in the concept of selfdiscipline were potential in all and were derived and developed from innate tendencies which he would call dependent, sensuous and assertive. ■The first tendency occurred in the child’s total dependence on its mother, but faulty nurture might result in loss of confidence and conflicting anxieties. This confidence should be safeguarded for the child to pass through happy family relationship into the larger unity of social life. Sens(uousness was simply the joy of living. “Surely wc are meant to enjoy living, yet we live in an age where all sensuousness is suspect, and the result is calamitous.” Dr. Allan continued. Normal sensuousness existed from the baby’s feeding from its mother and progressed to a capacity for adult love and parenthood. The aggressiveness of early childhood served as essential biological function and was thorougly healthy. Normally, it would develop into courage, initiative and zest for life. These three tendencies interlocked and interacted in many ways, but emotional growth and the capacity for self-discipline depended on the harmonious development of all three. If this hypothesis was accepted, important conclusions followed. The function of the school in moulding personality and. character was of secondary importance to that of the home and the parent. If the community was really concerned with the growth of personality and character, far more attention should be paid to nurtural factors, which influenced the pre-school child. An educational campaign was needed to spread the principles of mental health.