The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

—
18 The Health Bulletin October, 1927
up with enough innate ability to meet
all the demands of a simple community
life. But for the diflicult and intricate
tasks of adjustment in modern life it
is necessary to supplement with a
formal training what the child gets
from informal association with his fellows.
It is here that we often go wrong
and by unwise management complicate
our jobs still more. The training process
thus becomes an alternation of
helps and hindrances. There is probalthj
no more important consideration in
child training than the fact that we
fail to distinguish heticeen ichat is
good for the child and what is comfortable
for us. All methods resulting
in "spoiled children" can ie referred
hack to this selfish motive. An attempt
is here made to point out some specific
types of misguided effort in child rearing
and in dealing with childhood
problems.
Dictum 1
When we protect a child from all
^inpleasant e-rperience or do anything
for him that he can safely do for himself
we hinder his development.
Why Experience is the food upon
which i)ersonalities thrive. Good or constructive
experience is as necessary for
the proper growth of a personality as
good food is for a well-developed body.
Such exi>erience is sometimes denied
the child because we think it is unpleasant
for him. Almost every change
of habit is unpleasant yet we must
realize that good personality development
is a process of forming useful
habits in the beginning or changing useless
habits to useful ones later on. Experiences
considered constructive are
often quite the opposite, they may be
beyond hiy ability, or they are so involved
or complicated that the child
gets nowhere.
Example : John was five years old
and wanted a scooter but he was given
an electric train instead. He could
play with it when supervised and then
his Dad did most of the playing. John
knew how to make the scooter go himself
but he soon lost interest in the
train because after his father had
turned on the switch all he could do
was to look on. What his parents
thought was useful experience for the
lad was really useless. They treated
him similarly when he went to school.
Mother tfiok him there every day till
he reached the fourth grade. His school
mates called him a "sissy." Even then
he could have "proved his stuff" had he
been given a chance, but his mother
was afraid a good fist fight would kill
him so she continued to slaughter his
chances for development instead. When
John was twelve and wanted to go
camping he was not permitted to. "Why
he is a mere child" was the reason
given and he continued to depend on
his mother. At eighteen he was sent to
college with hardly an idea from previous
experience of how to meet his
new responsibilities, and as a consequence
he "went wild."
Dictum 2
Whenever in dealing tcith a child's
problems tee apply corrective measures
which ignore or evade the real, basic
trouble, ire hinder his growth.
Why We fail to remove the irritating
causes with the natural effect
they continue to make trouble. We introduce
into the situation ways of
handling it that do not help the child
to understand himself and which would
require him to change his behavior
without understanding why. This irrelevant
discipline only confuses him, and
prevents him from working things out
for himself, and makes things worse.
Such acts on our part tend to distort
his whole behavior and to interfere
with his proper mental development.
It is like finding a button and buying
a suit to match it to expect him to
reorganize his whole make-up to fit his
parents' erratic requirements.
Example : When warned not to do
something he should not do John seldom
paid attention to his mother. She
found it necessary one day when company
was coming to give him a quarter
to be good. She bribed him to be good
and it paid him to be bad ! It would
have been more effective and less demoralizing
had she excluded him from
the party until he could be pleasant,
thereby showing him how disagreeable
behavior makes a person disliked. Then,
after the party, she could look to herself,
and revise her own tendency to
nag and to make threats which she
did not intend to carry out. Why did