As soon as a child is able to understand what is said to him, he ought to be taught and trained to control his impulse to cry and writhe under the pressure of physical pain. When a child has fallen and hurt himself, or has cut his finger, or has burned his hand, or has been hit by an ill-directed missile, it is natural for him to shriek with pain and fright, and it is natural for his tender-hearted mother to shrink from blaming him just then for indulging in this display of grief. But even at such a time as this, a mother has an unmistakable duty of helping her child to gain a measure of control over himself, so as to repress his cries and to moderate his exhibit of disturbed feeling.
A child can come to exercise self-control under such circumstances as these. His mother can enable him to do this. It is better for both child and mother that he should have her help accordingly. Because of the lack of help just here, many a child is a sufferer through life in his inability to control himself under physical pain. And because of this inability many a person has actually lost his life, at a time when calmness of mind was essential to that endurance of physical suffering which was the only hope of prolonged existence. Because he was not trained to control his nerves, he is hopelessly controlled by his nerves.
Coaxing and rewarding a child into quiet at such a time is not what is needed; but it is the encouraging a child into an intelligent control of himself, that is to be aimed at by the wise parent. It is only a choice between evils that substitutes a candy-paid silence for a noisy indulgence of feeling on a child’s part. A good illustration of the unwise way of inducing children to seem to have control of themselves, is given in the familiar story of the little fellow throwing himself on the floor and kicking and yelling, and then crying out, “Grandma, grandma, I want to be pacified. Where are your sugar-plums?”
Dr. Bushnell, protesting against this method of coaxing a child out of a state of irritation, in a fit of ill-nature, by “dainties that please the taste,” says forcefully, “It must be a very dull child that will not cry and fret a great deal, when it is so pleasantly rewarded. Trained, in this manner, to play ill-nature for sensation’s sake, it will go on rapidly, in the course of double attainment, and will be very soon perfected in the double character of an ill-natured, morbid sensualist, and a feigning cheat besides. By what methods, or means, can the great themes of God and religion get hold of a soul that has learned to be governed only by rewards of sensation, paid to affectations of grief and deliberate actings of ill-nature?”
That control of himself which is secured by a child in his intelligent repression of an impulse to cry and writhe in physical pain, is of advantage to the child in all his life-long struggle with himself; and he should be trained in the habit of making his self-control available to him in this struggle. “I buffet my body [or give it a black eye] and bring it into bondage; lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected,” says the Apostle Paul; as if in recognition of the fact that a man’s battle with his body is a vital conflict, all his life through. Every child needs the help of his parents in gaining control over his body, instead of allowing his body to gain the control of him. The appetites and passions and impellings of the outer man are continually striving for the mastery over the inner man; and unless one is trained to master these instead of being mastered by them, he is sure to fail in his life-struggle.
A parent ought to help his child to refrain from laughing when he ought not to laugh; from crying when he ought not to cry; from speaking when he ought not to speak; from eating that which he ought not to eat, even though the food be immediately before him; from running about when it is better for him to remain quiet; and to be ready to say and to do just that which it is best for him to say and do, at the time when it needs to be said and done. Self-control in all these things is possible to a child. Wise training on the parent’s part can secure it. The principle which is operative here, is operative in every sphere of human existence. By means of self-control a child is made happier, and is fitted for his duties, while a child and ever after, as otherwise he could not be. Many a man’s life-course is saddened through his hopeless lack of that self-control to which he could easily have been helped in childhood, if only his parents had understood his needs and been faithful accordingly.
XI.
TRAINING A CHILD NOT TO TEASE.
A child who never “teases” is a rarity; yet no child ought to tease. If a child does tease, the blame of his teasing properly rests on his parents, rather than on himself. The parent who realizes this fact, will have an added stimulus to the work of training his child not to tease; and no phase of the work of child-training is simpler, or surer of its result, than this one.