OUR BABIES

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16073, 7 April 1924, Page 6

OUR BABIES

THE NERVOUS CHILD

Dr. Hector Cameron says under the heading:

—Negativism in the Child—- “ The nervous, irritated, dominating child is prone to kick against the pricks. Many of the functional y rrvous symptoms for which advi :e is sought may be explained as due to ‘negativism,’ to the opposition set up by the child against the constant and too obvious traction (or anxious, fussy, meddlesome over-direction). “Negativism grows and flourishes with a fault of management to which we are all prone. It does not occur

in the children of parents who are self-confident and masterful, who habitually expect and receive impli- ' cit obedience. Nor does it occur when the mother is one of those placid, light-hearted people who never bother and to whom punctuality and tidiness and the state of the drawing room furniture seem matters of very little importance. The negativistic attitude in children is aroused only when there are frequent and repeated attempts at control and a constant failure to achieve it.”

“It is especially, I think, when parI ents are tired and .overwrought that they fail to get the unquestioning obedience which seems so desirable and so unattainable. It is not so much what is said as the tone in which it is said that matter?. It is the mother’s emotional state which is at fault. She is conscious that she has lost ,or has never had the power of controlling her child. In the struggle her strength is weakened by

the fear that she will fail or the consciousness that she is failing. “Children have no knowledge of the moods of their parents, though they may respond to them with almost uncanny certainty. With many • women, when domestic life proceeds

smoothly, control in the nursery may be effective enough, it is only when the mother has lost her peace of mind that refusal of sleep or refusal of food or refusal to go to school becomes a formidable difficulty. If reproofs and appeals and unheeded expostulations are constantly passing from the mother, the child responds by developing what we call negativism. The common refusal of food is very often the response of the restless and irritated child to the excessive urging of mother and nurse.

—Effect of Stinting the Child — “It is instructive to note that among the poor under similar conditions we often encounter the opposite fault. In these poor homes th => price of food is not a negligible consideration. The child dr-mands what the mother has not got. In response to h’s constant clamour the food is doled out grudgingly, with many comments on the vastness of his appetTe. The child develops a habit of scavenging in the debris left by the other children. The neighbours come in to behold so prodigious an eater. “Similarly, of eight cases which have been brought to me 'complaining of insatiable thirst only one had diabetes. In the other seven the demand for fluid grew only as a result of the obvious :eluctance with which i, was conceded and the obvious precautions which were taken to prevent him getting it for himself. Two of these children had drunk dirty water from pails used in washing the stairs.

—Nervous Food-Refusal — “I quote these experiences been. ,se I think they throw 'light upon the origin of the common nervous refusal of food among the children of the better-to-do. The child is urged and entreated to eat, while his refusal gives rise to clearly expressed distress and alarm. Often only those articles of diet are taken with relish which are doled out sparingly, because they are considered indigestible or unsuitable. If a strong minded woman with uplifted spoon attempt forcibly to administer the amount decided upon, retelling and vomiting commonly result. I have known a child who would pause in his play and vomit as soon as his nurse produced the white tablecloth for the nursery table, a signal of the coming struggle.

“Nervous food-refusal of this sort is peculiarly prone to develop during the time when attempts are made to substitute a mixed diet given by spoon for the milk diet from the bottle. More than one mother has painted for me the following picture. To her infinite distress she found that she could n,ot induce the child to take food, in spite of blandishments and many struggles. A trained nurse, a grandmother, even that arch-autho-rity, a hospital sister, coming into the house, each in turn proved unsuccessful, Finally the child more often than not, would refuse even the bottle. Only when asleep was it possible to feed him. Armed with the bottle of food, the mother would creep to the side of the cot and awake him just sufficiently to induce suction. If she overdid it, if consciousness completely

returned, instantly the bottle was pushed away and the cry ‘Xo No!’ broke out.” MEMO BY “HYGEIA.” A most striking and interesting case

J of prolonged feeding of a child during unconsciousness was brought by the mother for treatment.at the Karitane Hospital, iLondon. She wanted the baby, who had reached 10 months of age without ever having been fed except during sleep, taught how to feed in a natural, conscious way. It took the nurses •some weeks to teach and train this child to take his food when awake. At first he vomited at every attempt to get him to swallow anything in the daytime. Only gradually was he enabled to take even a teaspoonful of milk, but infinite patience and perseverance proved eventually successful in overcoming the mother’s amazingfailure to establish normal habits at the start.

At first there was positive inability to swallow when awake. This gradually gave place to mere dislike of .the process, fighting against it, and vomiting after getting down a few teaspoonsful. Success in all such cases calls for the exercise of gteat firmness combined with gentleness on the part of the nurse. A mother who has become the foolish, emotional slave of her child’s weakness is rarely if ever capable of curing the condition she has created, though she may do quite well after a capable, sensible nurse has got the baby on to the right track.