On the Training of Parents

by Ernest Hamlin Abbott

"I think I'll be Michael bringing the wood to the wood-box for the fire."

In five minutes she calls: "Michael, I want all the wood put into the wood-box."

The builder is now transformed for the time being into Michael. He has seen the lusty Irishman carry great armfuls of wood, and his own frail arms assume new dignity. He gathers the blocks by the dozen, and as he lets them fall, kerplunk, into the box, he sees great logs falling into place. In a few moments his mother reappears.

"You have been working hard, Michael, haven't you? I think you will have the wood in its place in plenty of time. How much better the room looks without those logs of wood lying all about! You can carry a good many logs at once, can't you?"

Repeated every day, this process will inevitably develop into a habit of orderliness. The regularity of the process is not in the least impaired by the fact that one evening it assumes the form of stacking up firewood, another evening of bringing in bags of coal to the cellar, another evening of loading merchandise on to a vessel. It is the same will that directs Michael, and the coal man, and the stevedore, and it is the same brain that receives the repeated impression of promptness and good order. In each case, whether it is Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore, the workman is doing his task under orders; he is subject to authority. And if Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore fails to do his duty, it is not inappropriate that he should suffer a penalty. Of course it will be more effective if the penalty can be made suitable to the character. Whether it is made suitable or not will depend largely upon the imagination of the person in authority. As a rule, however, the spirit of such a process as that which I have illustrated is less that of discipline than of instruction, or perhaps more accurately, the spirit of discipline through instruction. It is, in fact, just because instruction plays so large a part in the government of children that those in authority need to have constant recourse to their imagination.

Deficiency in imagination is exhibited by parents not merely in their relation to their children, but quite as frequently in the relation between husband and wife. Criticism of the one by the other in the presence of the children can be accounted for, as a rule, only by a defective imagination. If the critic could be put for a moment in the place of the child who has heard the reproof, he would be amazed at discovering how he had weakened not only the mother's authority, but also his own. In a certain household, let us say, the mother is strongly of the opinion that it is injurious for the children to eat anything between meals; the father, however, scouts the idea, and actually keeps, in his pocket, sweetmeats for which he invites the children to search. If he had imagination enough to look into his own children's minds, he would be mortified at what he would see. Parents at cross-purposes are simply exhibiting their own stupidity. Without imagination, therefore, there can be only the most ineffective government in the family.

It is surprising, on the other hand, how the exercise of the imagination will clear away many perplexing difficulties in discipline; for in the light of the imagination many of these difficulties are seen to be problems in moral instruction. Let me illustrate.

The boys whom I have already described as militiamen were left by their parents, for a day, in charge of a competent nurse. When they were called upon to report in the customary military fashion concerning their behavior, they all confessed to certain offenses involving the marring of property.

"Would you have done that if mamma or I had been there?" their father asked.