OUR BABIES

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18897, 23 October 1929, Page 12

OUR BABIES

Published under th* auspices of the Royal New Zealand. Society for the Stealth 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 PRE SCHOOL CHILD. HINTS ON MANAGEMENT. Quotations from Dr Alice Hutchinson’s book, “The Child and His Prob lems,” continued from last week:— “A child of three, for instance, does not feel regret at wrong-doing, whether it be trifling or serious, but merely at the interruption of his pleasure and the ensuing reproof or punishment. Consequently, to compel a toddler of this age to lisp ‘ I’m sorry ’ seems to be not a training in morality, but in hypocrisy. Still more is this' the case with an older child, who is in a position to understand that he has been forced to repeat a grown-up shibboleth which in no way expresses his real feelings. An apology is surely valueless unless it is dictated by a change of outlook and genuine regret. “While at work one day in a clinic a delightful illustration of this point was culled. A child of eighteen months arrived in his mother’s arms, and entertained himself by continuously repeating two words which sounded like ‘ No-bo.’ Now ‘No-bo * stood for ‘Naughty boy,’ but through constant use of these words by his parents they had lost all meaning for the little chap, and so were utilised as a cheerful refrain. The writer is also acquainted with two little girls who have become so familiarised with the phrase ‘ I’m sorry ’ that they repeat it with parrotlike precision many times throughout the day, but give no evidence of attaching any meaning to it by a change of conduct. “The impulse to imitate is extraordinarily keen in every child, and, as we shall see later, it is this very keenness, combined with our human fallibility, which introduces a most disconcerting factor into all attempts at moral and religious teaching. The course of action which we desire the child to follow, and earnestly impress upon him the necessity for following, he will respond to only in such measure as he. sees us put our precepts into practice. Any failure on our part to achieve this rouses in him a very definite feeling of contempt for us, which will sometimes find expression in words, but frequently remains buried in the innermost recesses c?f his mind and colours his whole life. “Every small child loves himseli only, and lives in order to gratify all his senses. The love he appears to have for his parents is purely selfish, and he turns to them only when he has need of them, either to supply his wants, amuse him, or comfort him in his trouble. All that is done for him he takes for granted, and has not the faintest desire to repay it. This we accept as a perfectly normal and natural stage of his development. Instead of criticising him, we delight in his dependence on us. But if we are wise, we begin as early as possible to break it, little by little, but steadily and consistently. In order to do this we make use of two impulses in him—one which has already been mentioned, imitation, and the other which will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, his love of self-display and self-assertion, which amounts at this age to a keen desire for wielding power. “We know well that if no such attempt is made the child will pass through adolescence and manhood with that same desire for self-indulgence which decided every action in babyhood. Some parents first refrain from making the attempt, and then blame the child for the consequences. “Let me now illustrate the way in which numbers of mothers succeed in avoiding this regrettable development : “The bedtime hour is the chosen time, as the rush and hurry of the day are over and leisureliness is more permissible. The beginnings are small, as he has just found his feet, but they make a tremendous appeal to the child,

because they afford him an opportunity of showing what he can do and earning praise for it.

“He perhaps carries sponge and soap to the bathroom or undoes a shoe button. From this he advances by slow degrees to a larger share in dressing and undressing himself and in doing easy messages for his mother. “That in the beginning he should be actuated by no unselfish motive is only what we would expect and wish at his age, but that motive will gradually mingle with the other and rise into consciousness. “In a home where a child sees help mutually rendered by his parents his progress will be much quicker, through his aptitude for imitation. “I know a little boy of three in a good working-class home who daily: washes down a flight of twelve lino-leum-covered steps for his mother, and does all her messages, handing a paper up to the counter in each shop. At first sight this seems like pushing a theory to an extreme, but in his case there is no doubt whatever that these duties are carried out with pride and pleasure, and that he would resent being deprived of them ”