RESTLESS CHILDREN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17835, 1 May 1926, Page 18 (Supplement)

RESTLESS CHILDREN.

HOW MUCH IS IT DUE TO OURSELVES. By PHILLIPPA KENDRICK. Mothers are constantly lamenting the growing restlessness of modern children. Alas! Is it not merely the reflection of our own? -With our innumerable activities, sometimes forced upon us by fate, sometimes hectically sought after to dispel ennui, is it to be wondered at that the little ones are attacked by the same virus, even in their nursery days? Whether by economic fate or social folly, it is a fact that the children of what, for general purposes, are designated the middle classes” are increasingly deprived of their fair share of mother’s time and companionship. It is especially hard on both when economic necessity is the taskmaster. llow many a hard-working woman, looks enviously at her leisured sister who might be with her little ones so much more often than she is, but prefers the teadance, shopping, bridge—-anything rather than the nursery. \et even we who are denied this bond • of constant companionship are guilty, perhaps, of failure to do our best to dispel the bogev of restlessness. We are prone to give in too readily to the modern child's demand for excitement. It is less of a “fag” to sanction some form of entertainment for a child than to try and recapture some of the more innocuous delights of our own less well-off childhood, when homemade games had a savour to which the modern child is too often a stranger in these swift-spending days. Even such measure of companionship as we are able to accord them is freq.uently in unsatisfying activities. We fight shver and shver it would seem of any attempt at spiritual : rapprochement. Jn a word, it is more important that Peggy should have her new party-frock than, that she should be made to realise that party-frocks do not grow on bushes.

This is symptomatic of the age. Anything for peace: and to get on with the job m hand. But is it quite fair to the Peggys?