WHY CHILDREN “RUN AWAY.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19876, 18 February 1920, Page 9

WHY CHILDREN “RUN AWAY.”

(By A PSYCHOLOGIST.) The impulse to roam, travel, and explore is deep-rooted in human nature, and the- English love of wandering to remote quarters of the globe is in many cases an irresistible compulsion. Like all primal longings, the roaming instinct often tends to become abnormal or pathological. The desire to see the world is perfectly normal in the instance of those imaginative and adventurous lads who, after listening to the wondrous stories of the road related by the American hobo, or professional vagrant, run away from comfortable homes and willingly encounter the hardships of the tramp’s life.

Rut the psychological study of juvenile nomadism, or wander-passion, reveals the curious fact that many boys and a fair number of girls are unable to give a clear reason for their errant tendencies. In these cases of running away there is no craving to explore oi to gaze upon vistas of mountains and valleys, but a powerful yearning to escape from emotional conflicts of a more or less vague character. These conflicts have been analysed in many children. Travel and change of scene are often recommended to overworked and neurasthenic persons with good results. Movement is frequently craved instinctively as a sound, natural, remedy for a mood of depression or bad temper, and, under this condition, a long walk is seductive and restorative. But. the pathological wanderers do not start on a peregrination with any impelled, conscious intent. They are simply impelled to flight or escape, and they have no goal or destination in view. The boy who repeatedly spent long, cold nights in stolen rides in tramwaycars had no hygienic reason for his behaviour, nor did he appear to enjoy these adventured. He just had to obey an obsessional longing which he could not explain. In such examples of morbid roaming the unconscious mind seems to play the chief part, and the roamer’s actions have some resemblance to the unconscious motion of the sleep-walker. An inveterate habit of running away provides the parents and teachers of nervously constituted children with a difficult problem. The cases reported in the newspapers of juvenile purposeless wandering are probably not a tithe of the total number. Whippings and other drastic punishments do not cure the psychopathic impulse to rove. liven the normal instinct to wander may resist all endeavour to suppress it. The habitual truant is often a potential explorer, and his passion for roving may be as strong as the migratory instinct of the salmon or the swallow. He is the heir of uncountable generations of primitive nomads. The wealthy subject of the wander-passion becomes an Arctic traveller, a mineral prospector or a big-game shooter. The travelloving pauper chooses tho career of a perambulating casual labourer, or a mendicant, to appease his impulse. The roving instinct in hoys should he understood and properly satisfied. By harshly curbing the nomadic impulse, the parent may damage a bow's character and morals. Tho native'bent for wandering can be trained to useful account, ami the right vocation, let it be soldiering, sailoring. or commercial travelling, should be selected hv the natural rovers.—“ The Daily Mail.”