A CHILD'S DREAM WORLD

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1640, 12 May 1925, Page 7

A CHILD'S DREAM WORLD

(By a Psychologist, in the Daily Chronicle.) .

•Children live in a land of " make believe." How few grown-ups know what reality and wonder it has for small people. How rarely parents realise the vital effect it exerts in the development of their children's character.

In that magical land dolls and toys are able to speak and understand. Every adventure builds up the character for good. A boy who has just slain a particularly poisonous giant with a tin excalibur will think twice before showing fear of a dog.

The imagination of a child is virile and potent. So strong is it that parents sometimes mistake it for untruthfulness. It is a grievous error to do so.

Let the children have their wonderful dream world. Remember our part in it is to be oblivious of it. One word of ridicule or one contemptuous glance can turn its palaces to heaps of stone and its gardens to a barren wilderness.

Think, .too, how we grown-ups strive to re-enter it by novels, the drama, and the screen.

As time goes on and the child grows up matter will triumph over mind. "Wise parents will await this day with .patience.

To attract the child from its makebelieve world is to retard its mental development. To suppress its imagination is to make the child a stranger to its parents. Only too often such measures sow the seed of deceit. There are occasions when the imagination invents terrors. Such cases call for immediate care. Frequently the trouble is as traceable to the stomach as to the head ,and may be a sign that the health is below par.

There are prolific sources of childish distress in some of the old fairy tales. Many of these so-called "children's stories" are harmful to the sensitive minVl. ; Only the resiliency of thje childish faculties prevents them from being definitely dangerous.

A wolf that devours a grandmother, giants who eat children, witches who change them into loathsome form are bound to depress the bouyant feelings of childhood.

Homely stories from everyday life are quite as exciting, and, being more easily understood, are much more interesting.

It is a welcome sign of the times that children's books dealing with the commonplace things are finding favour with parents.