The boy is intensely human, although we may not at all times treat him like a human being. As our own best efforts are inspired by commendation or reward, so the boy is quickened to highest endeavor by praise and not by blame. Rewards are more effective incentives to excellence than demerits or punishments. The constant repression of a child’s actions by prohibition is a cruel form of punishment which drives him farther and farther out of the range of the parent’s influence for suggestive helpfulness.
“Do this!” is more effective than “Don’t do that!”
CHAPTER VIII
THE SUGGESTIVE METHOD OF TRAINING
EVERY parent of a son should formulate some definite, determinate plan for his training, and this can be done even though original research and the formation of plans deduced therefrom are not always possible to the parent whose life is bulging with other activities necessitated by our hurrying civilization. Any definite plan of training is better than no plan, inasmuch as it will cause us to think and to use our best judgment on this important topic and so tend to a clarification of preformed vague or inchoate opinions.
Would it were possible to state a simple golden rule for boy-training! Unfortunately such a complex subject cannot be reduced to fixed rules or mechanical formulas. The complexity of the problem is grounded in the complexity of life; its solution is found in methods as variant as the diverse needs of mind, soul, and body. The author has stressed parental responsibility and the need of parental training as a basic preliminary to solving the boy-problem. The far-flung necessity for parental instruction is made imperative by the racial habit, of Americans especially, of drifting out of touch with their children during adolescence. In the preadolescent period—when our children are childish—we preserve the closest intimacy and companionship by unbending our mature dignity, at least in the privacy of home, to a degree which puts us in perfect accord with their natures. Under such conditions we are the recipients of their confidences and intimacies which they give freely, naïvely and trustfully. In return for the gift of our love, our own lives are rejuvenated by association with the light, joy, and laughter of youth.
But the arrival of puberty marks a change in our attitude toward our children of which we are not wholly conscious. At this age the boy is neither man nor child, but part of both, and we become impatient with the idiosyncrasies of his nature and conduct which constantly assert themselves at this period of life. Our annoyance at the manifestations of his psychic changes, which is caused by our failure to understand them, arouses in him the suspicion that he is neither loved nor appreciated and he drifts farther and farther out of the range of our influence until he reaches the hinterland from which little tidings of his inner self ever reach us. The realization of this fact comes to the boy much earlier and with more poignant force than to the parent. The consciousness of his isolation is evidenced by his secretiveness, his opinion that he is not understood and his belief in parental lack of sympathy. The former relationship of chum and comrade has been superseded by an attitude of unresponsiveness or even hostility. The secretiveness of the boy toward those who do not have his confidence is only equalled by his frankness toward the adult with whom he is on terms of intimate companionship.
How many fathers take the time to tell a story to their sons after puberty? Or to explain the phenomena of the business, banking, industrial, or mechanical world? The busy parent usually esteems himself fortunate if he can escape the importunate inquiries of his offspring concerning the facts of the man’s world; and the boy, seeking the companionship of men for which he yearns during adolescence, is led to the society of the drunken hostler who is ever ready to regale him with a collection of stories replete with profanity and obscenity.
American children, during adolescence, are reputed to be the most ill-bred children in the world. The apparently lax methods of the French and the Japanese as well as the severe discipline of English and German parents are both attended by a greater degree of filial respect, obedience, and reverence for their elders than is exhibited by our own children. Americans have been characterized as bringing up their children by a series of fits and starts, which accounts for much of the disrespect shown them by their children. At any rate, it must be admitted that we have no settled, definite philosophy to guide us in this important function, and the lack of a determinate system may justly be assigned as a cause for such indeterminate results. The delightful camaraderie between the French youth and his father is conspicuous in this country by its relatively infrequent occurrence. Our slap-bang, haphazard plans of boy-culture produce results in conformity with the methods employed. But whatever may be the system used, any definite, thoughtful, continuous policy is better than no policy at all. The author is of the opinion that intimate companionship continued through adolescence, combined with a median course between French laxity and English strictness, will conduce to virile character and manhood, and love and respect for parents.
Happy is the man for whom time has not rung down the curtain of oblivion on the scenes of youth; for only in this state of mental attunement is he able to retain the boy’s point of view which is an indispensable requisite to chumship and comradeship with his son. A delightful state of intimacy and confidence with his son makes it possible for the father to guide his conduct by suggestion and counsel which carry a weight and potency unattainable under other conditions; and that counsel is most productive of results, which is positive—not negative—for the reason that it is founded on sound psychology. The evils of the repressive method of training find their antithesis in the happy results of the suggestive method which is constructive in principle. Suggestion is informative, optimistic, and inspirational, and finds quick lodgment in the inquiring and acquisitive mind. As negative commands are unwelcome because they produce mental hostility and will combat, so constructive suggestions are welcomed because of their friendly helpfulness.
Witness how enthusiastically a group of boys will accept the suggestion of an adult who proposes a new game, sport, manual activity, or work along the lines of social or civil service! A patrol of Boy Scouts, under the suggestion of their Master, provided food, fuel, and clothing for three destitute families during a winter of unusual severity, until the heads of these families had recovered from sickness and resumed their places as breadwinners. The intensity of their boyish enthusiasm for this work of charity drove from their minds all thought of the peccadillos which, to a greater or lesser degree, occupy the minds of idle youths. The idle brain is still the devil’s workshop.