Your boy and his training

by Edwin Seward Puller

The boy hails as a friend and companion the adult who understands his needs and who points out to him the clean activities which he loves and for which he is blindly groping. No one is more “open to suggestion” than the boy.

One winter’s day a gentleman encountered a lot gang who had captured a stray cur, bound him to a post, and were bombarding him with snow balls and chunks of ice as an expression of their desire for mental and physical excitement. The yelps of pain which told that the missiles had found their mark were greeted with shouts of exultation. Instead of reproving them for their cruelty, he incited their curiosity by tactfully inquiring if they had a mascot. On receiving a negative answer, he suggested that every crowd of boys ought to have a mascot and then began to discuss the fine points of the cur—more or less hidden from the non-expert eye—and finally suggested that the dog would make an ideal mascot, provided the boys knew how to take proper care of an animal occupying such an exalted station. Spontaneous yells of assent elected the dog to this honor and then the crowd, at the suggestion of the adult, spent the remainder of the day bringing him food and building a kennel which was copiously furnished with discarded bed coverings, after which, on their own initiative, they combed his hair and manicured his claws until he presented the well-groomed appearance of a lady of fashion. Many subsequent hours were spent in earning pennies with which they purchased a license and a collar on which was a plate engraved with the name “Rags” which had been unanimously conferred on him. The quarrels and disputes which arose over their respective rights to the possession of the dog were settled, at the suggestion of this same gentleman, by the organization of the gang into a club which elected officers and adopted by-laws, the president of which awarded the custody of the dog daily in turn to each member—beginning with himself. The necessity for more pets to occupy their attention resulted in the addition of a rabbit, two chickens, a guinea pig and a goat to their embryonic menagerie. Their next step was the giving of a “show” (admission one cent) in which the menagerie was the chief attraction, closely followed in popular favor by “Rags” doing tricks which the gang had taught him. Then they added more fowls to their collection which proved to be the forerunner of a successful poultry yard from which they made a profit by selling eggs and chickens.

A boy in an Iowa city, rejoicing in a superior physique but lacking the brains to use it wisely, had bullied, beaten, and terrorized the smaller boys of his acquaintance in spite of parental commands, reproof, and repeated chastisements. A continuation of his brutality finally landed him in the Juvenile Court, the judge of which was sufficiently versed in boy-psychology to attempt the experiment of making him a “boy-policeman” decorated with a tin star, authorizing him to preserve order among the boys of his neighborhood and especially charging him with the duty of protecting the smaller boys from the assaults of the larger. From that time forward, the bully was prepared to “punch the head off’n any feller wot licked a kid.” It is needless to say that there were no more assaults on small boys in that locality. Suggestion had diverted the exercise of his physical prowess from unlawful into lawful channels.

James ——, age 15, was changed from a prodigal to a thrifty boy through a plan for saving suggested and encouraged by his father who opened a bank account in his son’s name and offered to add a dollar for every dollar earned by his son. It proved to be a tremendous incentive to industry as well as to thrift.

The foregoing incidents furnish typical illustrations of the application of the suggestive method of training as distinguished from the repressive method; and it may be applied either to the individual or to the group with equally good results. The mental and physical energy ordinarily expended in various forms of lawlessness can be directed, unconsciously, into fields of economic and ethical value by the application of suitable suggestions.

Negation arouses the spirit of combat; and obedience under these conditions tends to inspire a feeling of surrender and defeat whose influence on character is obviously prejudicial.

A father once said, “I have never commanded my son not to do a thing. Instead, I have suggested that I would prefer him to do the other.” In this way, conflict of wills was avoided and the youth was required to make a voluntary choice between two courses in which the father’s preference invariably turned the balance in the desired direction. On one such occasion the boy replied, “Dad, I wish you would tell me I cannot do it and then I would go and do it to show you I can; but when you tell me that it would hurt you, I just can’t do it.”

The prohibition of a proposed action arouses all the resentment of thwarted desire and unfulfilled attainment. Such consequences may be avoided by the suggestion of better plans, methods, or acts, concurrent with the reasons why such change is desirable or necessary. The substitution of other activities or another course of conduct fills the void made by denial and satisfies his psychological requirement of being kept busy. Every normal boy is a safety-valveless steam boiler, stored full of dynamic energy which expends itself in constant action—usually physical—and failure to provide for the utilization and consumption of this energy will result in an explosion in some form of delinquency.

Cheerful, helpful, informative, intelligent, and inspirational suggestion is the boy’s greatest need and he will accept it willingly from a father who is joined to him by ties of sympathetic comradeship which are long enough to encompass his needs within their bonds.

If a father’s influence is to count for much, he should be both a chum and a big brother to his son.