The Nervous Child

by Hector Charles Cameron

Mental training enables the child to retain facts in his memory, to obtain information from as many sources as possible, to understand and piece them together, and finally to reach fresh conclusions from previously acquired data. So far as is possible the teacher must satisfy the natural desire to know the reason of things. It must be his endeavour to prevent the child from accepting any argument which he has not fully understood, and which, as a result, he is able not to reconstruct but only to repeat. Mental work which is slovenly and perfunctory is as harmful to the child's education as mechanical work which is bungled and ineffective. Taking advantage of his natural aptitudes, his interest should be developed and extended in every way possible. Tasks which are accomplished without enthusiasm are labour expended in vain, because the knowledge so acquired is not assimilated and adds nothing to the child's mental growth. There should be no sharp differentiation between work and play.

Moral Training

Moral training depends upon the force of example rather than of precept. Parents must be scrupulously just and truthful to the child, for his quick perception will detect the slightest deceit, and the evil impression made on his mind may be lasting. They must confidently expect conduct from him of a high moral standard, and be careful at this early age to avoid the common fault of giving a dog a bad name. If it is said on all sides that a child has an uncontrollable temper, is an inveterate grumbler, is lacking in all power of concentration, or has a tendency to deceit, it is likely that the child will act up to his reputation. He comes in time to regard this failing of his as part of himself just as much as is the colour of his hair or the length of his legs. It may be said of a schoolboy that he shows no aptitude for his work. Term by term the same report is brought home from school, and each serves only to confirm the boy in his belief that this failing is part of his nature, and that no effort of his own can correct it. If one subject only has escaped the condemnation of his master, then it may be to that study alone that he returns with zest and enjoyment. Spendthrift sons are manufactured by those fathers who many times a day proclaim that the boy has no notion of the value of money.

And so with children! Parents must take it for granted that they will display all the virtues they desire in them. They must trust to their honour always to speak the truth, and always to do their best in work or play whether they are with them or not. Again and again the children will fail and their patience will be tried to the utmost. They must explain how serious is the fault, and for the time being their trust may have to be removed; but with the promise of amendment it must again be fully restored and the lapse completely forgotten. If the child feels he is not trusted he ceases to make any effort, and lapse will succeed lapse with increasing frequency.

In efforts at moral training there is often too great an emphasis laid upon negative virtues. It is wrong to do this: to do that is forbidden. Children cannot progress by merely avoiding faults any more than a man may claim to be an agreeable companion at table because he does not eat peas with a knife or drink with his mouth full. There must be a constant effort to achieve some positive good, to acquire knowledge, to do service, to take thought for others, to discipline self, and the parent will get the best result who is comparatively blind to failure but quick to encourage effort and to appreciate success. When the child knows well that he is doing wrong, exhortation and expostulation are usually of little avail if repeated too often, and serious talks should only take place at long intervals.

We know how effective the so-called "therapeutic conversation" may be in helping some overwrought and nervously exhausted man or woman to regain peace of mind and self-control. After an intimate conversation with a medical man who knows how to draw from the patient a free expression of the doubts, anxieties, and fears which are obsessing him, many a patient feels as though he had awakened in that instant from a nightmare, and passes from the consulting-room to find his troubles become of little account. Not a few patients return to be reassured once more, and derive new strength on each occasion. Yet visits such as these must be infrequent or they will lose their power. Now, just as the physician is well aware that his intervention if too frequently repeated will lose its effect, so the parent must be chary of too frequent an appeal to the moral sense of the child. At long intervals opportunity may be taken with all seriousness to set before the child ideals of conduct, to-speak to him of the meaning of character and of self-discipline, and of the standards by which we judge a man or woman to be weak and despicable, or strong and to be admired. The effect of such an intimate conversation, never repeated, may persist throughout life. Constantly reiterated appeals, on the other hand, do more harm than good. To tell a child daily that he is "breaking mother's heart," or that he is "disappointing his father," is to debase the moral appeal and deprive it of its strength.

For everyday use it is best to cultivate a manner which can indicate to the child that he is for the moment unpopular, but which at the same time denies to the small sinner the interest of attempting his own defence. On the other hand, should the child be reasonably in doubt as to the nature of his offence we must spare no trouble in explaining it to him. Punishment will be most effective when the child is convinced that he is rightly convicted. If it is to act as a real deterrent, he must agree to be punished—a frame of mind which, if it can be produced, may be welcomed as a sure sign that training is proceeding along the right lines.

By physical training, mental training, and moral training the child's character is formed and self-discipline is developed. With the child of neuropathic disposition and inheritance matters may not proceed so smoothly. Reasoning and conduct may be alike faulty, and the nervous disturbances may even cause detriment to the physical health. Not that the nervous child requires an environment different from that of the normal child. The difficulties which the parents will encounter and the problems which must be solved differ not in kind but in degree. An error of environment which is without effect in the normal child may be sufficient to produce disastrous results in the neuropathic.

It must be granted that there are some unfortunate children in whom the moral sense remains absent and cannot be developed—children who steal and lie, who seem destitute of natural affection, or who appear to delight in acts of cruelty. These moral degenerates need not be considered here. Serious errors of conduct, however, in children who are not degenerate or imbecile, frequently arise directly from faults of management and can be controlled by correcting these faults. Suppose, for example, that a child is found to have taken money not his own. The action of the parents faced with this difficulty and disappointment will determine to a great extent whether the incident is productive of permanent damage to the child's character. The peculiar circumstances of each case must be considered. For example, the parent must bear in mind the relation in which children stand to all property. The child possesses nothing of his own; everything belongs in reality to his father and mother, but of all things necessary for him he has the free and unquestioned use. Unless his attention has been specially directed to the conception of ownership and the nature of theft, he may not have reasoned very closely on the matter at all. Very probably he knows that it is wrong to take what is not given him, but he does not regard helping himself to some dainty from a cupboard as more than an act of disobedience to authority. He may have imbibed no ideas which place the abstraction of money from a purse belonging to his parents on a different plane, and which have taught him to regard such an action as especially dishonourable and criminal. Finally, a child who, undetected, has more than once taken money belonging to his father and mother, may pass without much thought to steal from a visitor or a servant. To deal with such a case effectively, to ensure that it shall never happen again, requires much insight. If the father, shocked beyond measure to find his son an incipient criminal, differing in his guilt in no way from boys who are sent to reformatories as bad characters, convinces the child that although he did not realise it, he has shown himself unworthy of any further trust, untold harm will be done. Almost certainly the child will act in the future according to the suggestions which are thus implanted in his mind. If the household eyes him askance as a thief, if confidence is withdrawn from him, he sees himself as others see him and will react to the suggestions by repeating the offence. The seriousness of what he has done should be explained to him, and after due punishment he must be restored completely and ostentatiously to absolute trust. Only by showing confidence in him can we hope to do away with the dangers of the whole incident. To inculcate good habits and encourage good behaviour we must let the child build up his own reputation for these virtues. It need not make him priggish or self-satisfied if parents let him understand that they take pride in seeing him practise and develop the virtue they aim at. For example, it is desired above all that he should always speak the truth. Then they must ostentatiously attach to him the reputation of truthfulness and show their pride in his possessing it. If he falls from grace they must remember that he is still a child, and that if that reputation is lightly taken from him and he is accused of a permanent tendency towards untruthfulness, he is left hopeless and resigned to evil. Let any mother make the experiment of presenting to her child in this way a reputation for some particular virtue. For example, if an older child shows too great a tendency to tease and interfere with the younger children, let the mother seize the first opportunity which presents itself to applaud some action in which he has shown consideration for the others. Let her comment more than once in the next few days on how careful and gentle the older child is becoming in his behaviour to the little ones, and in a little the suggestion will begin to act until the transformation is complete. If, on the other hand, the mother adopts the opposite course and rebukes the child for habitual unkindness, she will be apt to find unkindness persisted in. The criminal records of the nation show too often the truth of the saying that "Once a thief always a thief." Deprived of his good repute, man loses his chief protection against evil and his incentive to good.

The inability of a child—and especially of a nervous and sensitive child—to form conceptions of his own individuality except from ideas derived from the suggestions of others, gives us the key to our management of him and to our control of his conduct. He has, as a rule, a marvellously quick perception of our own estimate of him, and unconsciously is influenced by it in his conception of his own personality, and in all his actions. Parents must believe in his inherent virtue in spite of all lapses. If they despair it cannot be hid from the child. He knows it intuitively and despairs also. It is then that they call him incorrigible. If it happens that one parent becomes estranged from the child, despairs of all improvement, and sees in all his conduct the natural result of an inborn disposition to evil, while the other parent holds to the opinion that the child's nature is good, and to the belief that all will come right, then often enough the child's conduct shows the effect of these opposite influences. In contact with the first he steadily deteriorates, affording proof after proof that judgment against him has been rightly pronounced. In contact with the other, though his character and conduct are bound to suffer from such an unhappy experience, he yet shows the best side of his nature and keeps alive the conviction that he is not all bad.