THE CHILD'S MENTAL TRAINING.
A healthy body is the child's first requirement. However, if the mental training is poor, giving wrong views of life, a good physique is of but little service.
It is quite generally agreed among observers that the first seven years of life leave the mental impressions which guide the whole life, and that after the age of fourteen the mental trend rarely changes. There are a few individuals with strength enough to make themselves over mentally after reaching adult life, but these are so few that they are almost negligible, and even they are largely influenced by their youth and infancy. It is as easy to form good mental habits as bad ones. It is within the power of all parents to give their children healthy bodies and healthy minds, and this is a duty, which should prove a pleasure. The reason such heritage is so rare is that it requires considerable self-control and most parents live chaotic lives.
Upon the mentality depends the success in life. "It is the mind that makes the body rich." No matter how great an individual's success may seem in the eyes of the public, if the person lacks the proper perspective, the proper vision and the right understanding, his success is an empty thing. Wealth and success are considered synonymous, but I have found more misery in the homes of the rich than among the poor. Physical wants can be supplied and the suffering is over, but mental wants can only be satisfied through understanding, which should be cultivated in childhood.
"All our problems go back to the child—corrupt politics, dishonesty and greed in commerce, war, anarchism, drunkenness, incompetence and criminality."—Moxom.
Given a healthy body and a good mind, every individual is able to become a useful member of society, and that is all that can be expected of the average individual. All can not be eminent, and it is not necessary.
Upon the child's mental impressions and the habits formed in infancy and youth depend the mental workings and the habits of later life. Therefore it is necessary to nurture the little people in the right kind of atmosphere. If the child is trained properly from infancy there will be no serious bad habits to overcome during later years, and, as all know, habits are the hardest of all bonds to break. To overcome the coffee and alcohol habits is hard, but to overcome bad mental habits is even more difficult.
First of all, let the infant alone most of the time. Some mothers are so full of love and nonsense that they take their babies up to cuddle and love them at short intervals, and then there are the admiring relatives who like to flatter the parents by telling them that the baby is the finest one they have seen; it is an exceptional baby. So the relatives have to bother the infant and kiss it. This should not be. The child should be kept in a quiet room and should not be disturbed. There are no exceptional babies. They are all much alike, except that some are a little healthier than others. If they are let alone, they have the best opportunity to develop into exceptional men and women.
Paying too much attention to babies makes them cross and irritable. They soon learn to like and then to demand attention. If they do not get it at once they become ill-tempered and cry until attention is given. Thus the foundation of bad temper is laid in the very cradle. They gain their ends in infancy by crying. Later on they develop the whining habit. When they grow older they fret and worry. Such dispositions are the faults of the parents.
It does not take long for children to learn how to get their way, and if they can do it by being disagreeable, you may be sure that they will develop the worst side of their nature. Let the child understand that being disagreeable buys nothing, and there will soon be an end of it. Children who are well and well cared for are happy. They cause their elders almost no trouble. To lavish an excessive amount of care on a baby may be agreeable to the mother at first, but it is different when it comes to caring for an ill-tempered, spoiled child of eight or nine years.
Many crimes are committed in the name of love. Many babies are killed by love. Unless love is tempered by understanding it is as lethal as poison. Many parents think they are showing love when they indulge their children, but instead they are putting them onto the road that leads to physical and mental decay. True love is helpful, kind and patient. The spurious kind is noisy, demonstrative and impatient.
Do what is necessary for children, but do not allow them to cause unnecessary work. What they can do for themselves they should do. They can be taught to be helpful very early. They should be taught to be neat and tidy. They should learn to dress themselves and how to keep their rooms and personal effects in good order early in life, no matter how many servants there may be. These little things are reflected in their later lives. They help to form the individual's character. It is what we do that largely make us what we are, and every little act and every thought has a little influence in shaping our lives. An orderly body helps to make an orderly mind and vice versa.
Many of the rich children are unfortunate indeed. Some times poor parents have so many children that each one gets scant attention, but the children of many of the rich get no parental attention. The parents are too busy accumulating or preserving a fortune and climbing a social ladder to bother with their children. Their raising is delegated to servants. At times the little ones are put on display for a few minutes and then the parents are as proud of them as they are of the expensive paintings that adorn the walls or the blooded dogs and horses in kennels and stables. No amount of paid service can compensate for the lack of parental love.
The ideal today, especially for female children, seems to be to make ornaments of them, to train them to be useless. Girls, as well as boys, should be taught to be useful. They should be taught that those who do not labor are parasites. If some do not work, others have to work too hard. The story is told of Mark Twain that he dined with an English nobleman who boasted that he was an earl and did not labor. "In our country," said Mark Twain, "we do not call people of your class earls; we call them hoboes."
It does not matter how wealthy parents are, they should teach their children how to earn a living, and they should instill into them the ideal of service, for a life of idleness is a failure. The shirkers and wasters are not happy. The greatest contentment in life comes from the performance of good work. Ecstatic love and riotous pleasure can not last. Work with love and pleasure is good. But love and pleasure without work are corroding.
Children who are waited upon much become selfish. They soon become grafters, expecting and taking everything and giving nothing. This is immoral, for life is a matter of compensation, and consists in giving as well as in taking. Children should be taught consideration for others, and should not be allowed to order the servants around; not that it harms the servants, but it has a bad effect on the children.
Because the child's period of development is so long, it is important to have a proper adjustment in the home between parents and the children. Lack of adjustment wears out the parents, especially the mother, and gives false impressions to the young people. To prevent friction and get good results, children should be taught obedience. Obedience is one of the stepping stones to ability to command.
In those homes where the words of the parents are law there is but little friction. Obedience should be taught from the very start. As soon as the child realizes that the parents mean what they say and that it is useless to fret and complain about a command, that is the end of the matter. How different it is with disobedient children! The parents have to tell them what to do several times and then the bidding often remains undone.
Begin to teach obedience and promptness as soon as the children understand, for it is more difficult later. The older the children the harder it is. Children know so little and are so conceited that they do not realize that because of lack of experience, observation and reflection they can not safely guide themselves at all times. When they are allowed to act so that they are a nuisance to others and harmful to themselves, they do not give up this license with good grace. There are times to be firm and then firmness should be used. It is necessary for the parents to cooperate.
Various parents have different ways of correcting their children, and it is not difficult to make them realize that obedience is a part of the plan of early life. To illustrate: If the children are called for a meal, they should come promptly. If there is a tendency to lag, tell them that if they do not come when called they will get nothing to eat until next mealtime, and act accordingly. This is no cruelty, for no one is harmed by missing a meal. It generally proves very effective.
At the table, serve the children what your experience has told you they can take with benefit, without saying anything about it. If they ask for anything else, give it if you think proper. If not, say no. If they start to beg and whine, tell them that such conduct will result in their being sent away from the table, and if they still continue, do as you have said, and let there be no weakening. This may cause a few very disagreeable experiences at first, but it is much better to have a few of them and be through, than to continue year after year to have such trouble. Some children can eat everything with apparent impunity and their parents usually pay no attention to what they eat. But there are others who become ill if they are improperly fed. Children who are often feverish and take all the diseases peculiar to the young, are maltreated. They are not properly fed. Those who are prone to convulsions must be fed with great care, or there is danger of their becoming epileptics. Firmness in such cases generally means the difference between health and disease or even death.
By all means be firm in such matters. Indulging the children to excess is invariably harmful. When your children become ill and die, you can truly say, "Behold my handiwork."
In the same way teach the children to do promptly whatever they are told to do. If they are told to go to bed, it should be done without delay or protest. All the little duties that fall to their lot should likewise be accomplished promptly. However, the parents should be reasonable and they should avoid bombarding their children with commands to do or not to do a thousand and one things that do not matter at all. Let the children alone except when it is really necessary to direct them.
Unfortunately, most of the parents are blind to their own faults, but see very clearly those of others. The mistakes they make in their own families open their eyes to those of others, and then they are often very impatient. I know one gentleman who has excellent knowledge of the proper training of the young, but as a parent he is a total failure. He is so explosive and lacking in patience and firmness, perhaps also in love, that his knowledge has not helped him. It is not what we know, but what we apply, that makes or mars.
Obedience reduces friction and trains the children into habits of efficiency. It is not only valuable in preserving the health of the parents, but in increasing the child's earning capacity when the time comes to labor in earnest.
Plato said that democracies are governed as well as they deserve to be. Likewise, parents get as much obedience, respect, affection and love as they deserve, and the three latter are largely dependent upon the former. It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of obedience.
In nature we find that the animals teach their young how to live independently as soon as they have the strength to care for themselves. This is what parents should teach their children. This may cause the mother pain, for many mothers like to keep their children helpless, dependent and away from contact with the world as long as possible. Wise mothers do not handicap their children thus. The best parents are those who teach their children early how to make their own way.
Doubtless the greatest happiness is to be found in a congenial family, where the parents understand and love each other and their children. Those parents who are so busy that they lack the time to become acquainted with their infants and keep up this intimacy, are losing a part of life that neither money nor social position can give them. Many wait until too late to get on intimate terms with their children. When young, the children are naturally loving and then the beautiful ties which neither time nor misfortune can sunder are formed. When the children are grown it is too late to establish such a relation. Then they look at their parents with as critical eyes as they use toward other people, and though they may become very good friends, the tender love is lacking. Love between man and woman is unstable, but the beautiful love that springs from companionship of children and parents lasts until the end.
While some mothers neglect their children, many become too absorbed in them. The children become all of the mother's life. As the young people become older, their horizon naturally widens. During infancy the parents can fill the child's whole life, but soon other interests crave attention. There is always a tragedy in store for the mother who refuses to see that her children, as they grow older, will demand the human experience necessary for individual growth and development. If the mother has no other interest than her children she will one day be left with a heart as empty as the home from which the children are gone. There are so many interesting things in this world, and every mother should have her hobby. She should have at least one hour each day sacred to herself, in which she can relax and cultivate the mind. This will help to fill the coming years, which too often prove barren. Loving parents get all the reward they should expect from the beautiful intimacy that exists between them and their growing children. So-called ungrateful children have incompetent parents. Parents have no right to demand gratitude. They do no more for their children than was done for themselves in the morning of their lives. The right kind of parents never want for rewards. They are repaid every day so long as they live. Children grow under the care of their parents, but the parents also grow and expand in understanding, sympathy and love through association with their children.
Today society does not treat the mothers with the proper consideration. The mothers deserve well, for they have to give many of their best years to the children. These are the productive years, and generally unfit the women to go into economic competition with the rest of the world afterwards. Society owes it to the mothers of the race to see that they are not made to suffer for fulfilling their destiny. Motherhood today is as dangerous as the soldier's life, though it ought not to be, and it is more difficult to raise children than to conduct a successful business. However, the financial rewards for motherhood are generally nil. The least society can do is to see that these women do not want for the necessities of life.
Most children are interrogation points. This is well, for they learn through curiosity. The questions should be answered honestly, or not at all. It is common to give untrue answers. This is poor policy, for the answers are a part of the child's education and untruths make the young people ignorant and superstitious. It takes considerable patience to raise a child and he who is unwilling to exercise a little patience has no right to become a parent.
Whether to use corporeal punishment or not is a question that the parents must decide for themselves. Many parents are in the habit of nagging their children. It is, "Don't do this," and "Don't do that," until the little ones feel as exasperated as the Americans in Berlin, where everything that one has an impulse to do is "Verboten." The children have not yet acquired caution, nor are they able to think of more than one or two things at a time. Consequently they forget what they are not to do, and then parental wrath descends upon them. Parents can well afford to be deaf and blind to many things that happen. Those mothers who are ever shouting prohibitions soon cultivate a fretful, irritable tone that is bad for all concerned, and which does not breed respect and obedience. Make it a rule not to interfere with the children except when it is necessary, and tell them to do but one thing at a time.
If too many commands and prohibitions are issued, the children are prone to forget them all. If they are talked to less, what is said is more deeply impressed on their minds, and the chances are that they will remember. Boisterousness is not badness, but indicates a state of well-being, which results in bodily activity, including the use of the vocal cords. It is common to all young animals, and the human animal is the only one that is severely punished for manifesting happiness.
If the parents decide that corporeal punishment is necessary, they should be sure that it has been deserved, for a child resents being punished unjustly, and undeserved punishment is always harmful. Many parents become so angry that they inflict physical punishment to relieve their own feelings, and this is very wrong. If a parent calmly decides that his child needs punishment, perhaps this is the case. The punishment should be given calmly. Nothing can be more cowardly and disgusting than the brutal assault of an angry parent upon a defenseless child, and such parents always regret their actions if they have any conscience, but they are generally of such poor moral fibre and so full of false pride that they fail to apologize to the children for the injustice done. These parents inflict suffering upon their children, but they punish themselves most of all, for they kill filial regard and love. Children have a very keen sense of fair play.
If it is decided to administer corporeal punishment, it should have enough sting to it so that it will be remembered. Parents who temper their justice with patience and love are not compelled to resort to corporeal punishment often.
Children should never be hit on the head. Pulling or boxing the ears should not be recognized as civilized warfare. Blows on the head may partly destroy the hearings and affect the brain.
Another thing that may not come under the head of punishment in the strictest sense, is lifting children by one of the arms. Women are prone to do this. Often it partly dislocates the elbow joint. The children whine and no one knows exactly what is the matter. If one arm is occupied and the child has to be lifted from curb to street or over a puddle, stoop and pass the unoccupied arm about the child's body and no harm will be done.
No one should suggest to the child that it is bad. It is better to dwell upon goodness. If a child is often told that it is bad, it will soon begin to live up to its name and reputation, just as adults often do.
Many parents are in the habit of scaring their children. If the little ones cry or disobey, they are told that the boogy-man is coming after them, or they are threatened with being put out into the dark, or perhaps some animal or bad person is coming to get them. Fear is injurious to everybody, being ruinous to both the body and the mind, and it is especially bad for growing children. The fear instilled in them during childhood remains with some people to the end of life. It is not uncommon to find people who dare not go out alone after dark because they were scared in childhood. Children like exciting stories that would naturally inspire fear, but it is not difficult for the reader or story teller to inform the little ones that there are no big black bears or bold robbers in the neighborhood, and that now there is nothing to fear in the darkness.
Many teach the children to be ashamed of their bodies. Every part of the body has its use and whatever is useful is good. Those who do not abuse their bodies have nothing of which to be ashamed.
The education of children in the past has been along wrong lines. It has been the aim to cram them full of isolated facts, many of them untrue. We are slowly outgrowing this tendency, but too much remains. Thanks largely to Froebel and Doctor Montessori, our methods are growing more natural. The adult learns by doing and so does the child. Doctor Montessori teaches the children to use all their senses. She gives them fabrics of various textures and objects of different shapes and colors. Thus they learn colors, forms, smoothness, roughness, etc. She teaches them how to dress and undress and how to take their baths. She lets them go about the schoolroom instead of compelling them to sit still at their desks in cramped positions. In this way they get knowledge that they never forget. They learn to read and write and figure in playful ways through the proper direction of their curiosity. Little tots of four, or even younger, are often able to read, and there has been no forcing. All has come about through utilizing the child's curiosity.
If children are delicate, they should not be put into a schoolroom with thirty or forty other children. Keep such children outdoors when the weather permits and allow them to become strong. The education will take care of itself later. There is nothing to be gained by overtaxing a delicate child in the schoolroom, which too often is poorly ventilated, and having a funeral a little later.
Children should be taught the few simple fundamental rules of nutrition until they are second nature. A thorough knowledge of the fact that it is very injurious to eat when there is bodily or mental discomfort is worth ten thousand times as much to a child as the ability to extract cube root or glibly recite, "Arma virumque cano Trojae," etc. The realization that underchewing and overeating will cause mental and physical degeneration is much more valuable than the ability to demonstrate that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. This knowledge can be given so unobtrusively that the child does not realize that it is learning, for there are many opportunities.
When a child gets sick and is old enough to understand, instead of sympathizing with it explain how the illness came about, and please remember that in explaining you can leave the germs out of the question, for diseases of childhood are almost entirely due to improper feeding. The value of education like that is beyond any price, for it is a form of health insurance. Reforming the race, means that we must begin with the children.
In parts of Europe cultured people have a working knowledge of two or three languages. This is certainly convenient. Those who wish their children to know one or two tongues beside English should remember that in infancy two tongues are learned as readily as one, if they are spoken. Those who can use three languages when they are four years old are not infant prodigies. They have had the opportunity to learn, and languages are simply absorbed. The language teaching in the public schools is a joke. After taking several years of French or German the school children can not speak about the common things of life in those tongues, though they may know more about the grammar than the natives. In other words, they know the science of the language, but not the language itself.
A time comes when the child wants to know about the origin of life. If the parents have been companions, they can impart this knowledge better than anyone else. If they are unable to explain, the family doctor should be able to impart the knowledge with delicacy. I do not believe that such knowledge should be imparted to mixed classes in the public schools, as advocated by some. If the parents do their duty, there will be no need of public education in sex hygiene.
The doctor should be an educator, so he merits consideration here. Nearly all families have their medical advisers, and these professional people have it in their power to bring more sunshine into the homes than their fees will pay for. On the other hand, they can, and too often do, give both advice and remedies that are harmful They should sow seeds of truth. If the infant is properly cared for, it is never ill. Inasmuch as there are but few families with sufficient knowledge to keep their babies healthy at all times, there are many calls for the doctor. Parents are generally unduly alarmed about their infants. Nearly always the trouble is primarily in the alimentary tract, due to improper feeding, and the doctor with his wide experience can relieve the parental anxiety, and at the same time tell them where they have made their mistakes and how they have brought suffering upon their little ones.
Of course, there should be no dosing with medicine and no injections of foreign matter into the blood stream. Rest, quiet, cleanliness and warmth are what the children need to restore them to health. The right kind of physician when acting as adviser to intelligent parents who wish to do the best by their children will see to it that there is little or no disease.
If the parents do not know what to do, the most economical procedure is to consult a physician who has understanding of and confidence in nature. Pay no attention to the women of many words who give advice "because they have had many children and have buried them all."
It is not as difficult to raise healthy children as sickly ones. It is so simple that it takes many pages to explain it.