OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18803, 4 July 1929, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

By HYGEIA. Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). «It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” THE SUPER-SENSITIVE CHILD. (Continued from Jast week.) “ Over-mothering ” “ There are certain pitfalls to t>e avoided which to a very large extent originate with the parent, as ; for example, “ over-mothering.” It is in the nature of things that a mother will be identified with her child, but it is not possible for the mother vicariously to live and suffer the difficulties and of life on the child’s behalf, and the temptation to pad all the corners of life, so to speak, must be resisted. It is neither wise nor kind; to do so is to present the child with false values and a wrong conception of life. One cannot hand on experience; it must come at first hand. Some of the most valuable lessons are learned from painful experience. By this I do not mean that the child is to be subjected to a too Spartan regime, nor is it to be allowed to run undue risks. Life and reality come hard to the child, and we must not make the lessons too difficult. “ An attitude of apprehension on the mother’s part often reacts disastrously on the child. He becomes timid and tearful. Even his physique reveals his lack of courage; his shoulders droop, his chest is sunken, and his stance witu poking chin and protruding abdomen is characteristic. An experienced child's physician has, in fact, cited the following test to distinguish the normal from the neurotic child:—Ask the child to put out his arms in front of him. The healthy child with good muscular tone sticks out his arms with hands extended and fingers up, whereas the neurotic child limply extends his flabby arms with the hands drooping at the wrist. It is a most instructive picture when one sees it. “The Child’s Sensitiveness to Atmosphere.” “ But almost worse than the physical timidity is the uncanny way in which the child of an over-anxious parent ‘senses’ the atmosphere of 4 fear and apprehension ’ around him. It so often means that he is denied the ordinary channels of self-expression and outlet, and he is in consequence restless, irritable and unoccupied. Frequently he is too dependent on the efforts of a misguided but devoted grown-up for his amusement, and incapable of self-suffi-ciency. He suffers from a sort of universal lack of tone; his resistance and vitality are correspondingly lowered; he catches every infection severely, or so it seems, and is always being ill. Later on he is liable to suffer from dyspepsia and a host of other maladies so often indicative of flabbiness. At all costs one must banish fear from one's outlook in the management of one’s children. Curiosity “ Children vary in respect of timidity and venturesomeness, but on the whole the trend is forward. Two factors, among others, emerge to make this possible—curiosity and the desire for achievement. Curiosity is a perfectly normal and valuable characteristic in the child’s make-up. It is one of the cardinal rules to provide means for the satisfaction of that curiosity and truthful answers to all questions it may ask. Usually one underestimates a child’s intelligence or capacity for acquiring knowledge by about six months or more, but it is quite certain that when a child asks a question it has the intelligence to understand a truthful reply, and such a reply is then necessary to his questions, particularly those relating to himself and his origin. Thwarted curiosity, unanswered or untruthfully answered questions, frequently breed in the child an irritability and restlessness which increase his irritability and make for super-sensitiveness. Sooner or later he finds he has been deceived ; that his parents have lied to him. This has a most disastrous effect upon his attitude to those around him, and may perniciously affect his future life. Provide the Child with Scope for Achievement. “ The lack of scope for achievement is responsible for a large amount of what passes for super-sensitiveness. It has been observed that some of the most troublesome disturbances of child life owe their origin to this lack of scope for achievement. It tends to throw the child back on himself, and the resulting preoccupation with himself frequently leads to the formation of such bad habits as masturbation, thumb-sucking and so on. It is interesting to note how often, when the opportunity for achievement appears too difficult for the temper of his small universe appears adverse to the child, if he is of the neurotic type, he is seen to ‘ fall back ’ upon himself. I have seen a thwarted five-year-old, when the game has not been to his liking, fling himself down on a sofa and seek consolation in thumb-sucking. The tragedy is that so often this kind of reaction to life’s difficulties is perpetrated, an' 4 a hopelessly neurotic individual resub .

“The child, therefore, si. Mbe given every opportunity for achievement—which, after all, is the most useful means of self-expression. The more a child can be trained to do things for himself the better, and one cannot begin too early. Let a child experiment for himself with his meals. He will very soon learn to handle a spoon and fork and drink out of a cup for himself—certainly by the time he is two years old. It takes longer to let a child accomplish part of his toilet and dressing for himself, but it is time well spent. The gain is dexterity and self-reliance and the sense of achievement thus obtained, especially if the grown-up in attendance maintains the right attitude of encouragement, is invaluable “ Freedom of action, too, is valuable. In so far as the spontaneous impulse in a child to play at a particular game or pursue a particular line of conduct is not fraught with consequences that are dangerous or anti-social, it should be allowed free play. (To be continued.)