I have still my Eye on Children in the first Septenary, and with Concern view the Majority of them humour’d, and therefore humoursome; Boys audacious and impudent under the Name of courageous; and Girls pert and vain under the name of witty. It is my Opinion the Parents need not trouble themselves much to reason with their Children in this Stage; first let them consider what is proper for them to do, or avoid; then enforce their Compliance in soft and winning Terms; or, if not with a smiling Countenance, at least with a smooth Brow and without harshness: but whenever they attempt to disobey, let them shew by a Word or a Look that they are absolute: which Method I think should be seriously adhered to. Though I have already observed that Children have Knowledge much earlier than is commonly imagined, they have yet no Judgment to guide their Actions. What they chiefly discover to us at this Age is Cunning; therefore if Parents neglect Reproof when necessary, they will soon get the better of them. For Example, a Child cries because it is to go to School; shall Parents fondly to quiet it keep it at Home? by no means. A Dose of Physic is to be taken; shall they, because it is unpleasant, humour the Child, and throw it away? no surely. There is no other Method here but being serious; you must go, you must take it; when Children thus see their Parents in earnest, Obedience very soon becomes familiar and easy.
Nor is an unreasonable Compliance with the Humours of Children what Parents take it for; they falsely think it Tenderness and Love; but far from it; it is Love degenerated into Weakness and Folly. But it is easy to soften this seeming Rigour in the Behaviour of Parents, by their addressing the Understandings of Children at other Intervals, supposing it to be open. What more natural and reasonable than to say to a Child, You know, my Dear, all good Children do as they are bid; all Children to become wise must go to School; you would not surely be rank’d among bad Children by being disobedient? You would not, I hope, be a Blockhead? yet if you do not apply to your Learning you must be one. Thus too with Regard to Medicines: You know, my Love, Physic is to make you well; I am sorry you have occasion to take it; I am sorry it is unpleasant; but since it is necessary for you, prove yourself a good Child, and take it at once. Here I must beg leave to expostulate with Parents on the Errors usually run into in this last Particular. How comes it that there is such an universal Difficulty in getting Medicines down a sick Child’s Throat? How comes it that the most sprightly talkative Child cannot be prevailed on to shew its Tongue to the Doctor, yet the Moment his Back is turn’d he will loll it out twenty times? The Reason is plain; Parents do not teach their Children to obey. Instead of Compulsion or Reason, they use Flattery, Bribes and Deceit: but I am practically convinced that all this, however common, is wrong: and indeed where Obedience is not insisted on, and made a first Rule of Action, few things can be right. As Medicines are generally nauseous, a Repugnance to take them is as natural as shrinking at Pain; notwithstanding this, where they are really necessary, and unless they are so, nobody ought to be troubled with them, a Child at any Age, from the very Day it is born, till it is a Man or Woman, may, and ought to be made to take them. But to do this Parents must set out right; they must have the Child under Command. That every Parent is actuated by a Principle of preserving the Life of their Child, I will take for granted; but this is not enough: they must go on to the Execution of the Means. The Infant of a Day shews its Repugnance to swallow a few Grains of Rhubarb; the Child of a Year will twist it’s Head about every Way it can, that the Spoon or Cup which contains the Dose may not reach it’s Mouth; and by the time it is three or four Years old, it will probably dash the Cup out of the Hand of those who offer the Potion, or tell them in plain Terms it won’t take it. Now, without mentioning the Consequence this may be of to it’s Health or Life, there is another of great Importance; namely, that a Child thus used to get the better of all about it, and convinced it can conquer it’s Parents, is seldom disposed to conquer itself; so that where Self-will is very strong, Reason will doubtless be weak; and only serve to aggravate the Fault by fixing an Error, perhaps for Life. Yet great as all these Difficulties appear, they vanish at the Entrance of Reflection and Resolution. If Parents consider that they are bound by every Tye to make their Children obey, and then resolve to fulfil this Obligation, the Business is done: therefore with regard to Medicines, what have they more to do? Nothing but the Execution, which may be effected with Ease. For Example, take a Child from it’s Birth to the Age of twenty-one, and divide this Time into three, not equal parts, but States; call the first the unresisting State; the second the State of Cunning; and the third the State of Reason. The first is extremely short, we cannot count it by Years, and scarcely by Months; nor is there any Trouble here with Medicines, but putting a Spoon or Cup to it’s Mouth, and holding the Head back ’till the Dose is swallowed. The second State lasts long; and tho’ soft and winning Words are always to be preferred, yet they seldom succeed here; a serious Countenance and a resolute Air are the surest Means to conquer; and these maintained, there is nothing to fear. The Difficulties of the third State, that of Reason, are greatly lessened by the Success of the preceding; for a Child habituated to obey, looks back with Pleasure on it’s Compliance with every reasonable Command; and tho’ it before obey’d and took Medicines, because it must, it now takes them because it ought.
I cannot but be of Opinion, that every Method in the Management of sick Children contrary to this is erroneous; I think I have seen all tried that is in the Power of human Invention; and many who read this cannot but be convinced that their own Endeavours have often been fruitless. The first Rule Parents are to lay down to themselves is, never to deceive their Children; for surely those who are to teach them never to be deceitful, cannot but be very unfit Persons to deceive them themselves: nor does this square with the Practice of quibbling down a Dose of Physic, under a thousand Shifts and Turns, and even manifest Falshoods. The next Rule is, to avoid the Practice of Bribes. Children should be taught to know, that their greatest Happiness is their Parents Love; therefore the Custom of giving them Sugar-Plumbs, Cakes, Toys, or Money for every thing they take, is grievously wrong: it gives them a Fondness for improper things; it gives them a restless Desire for every new Bauble; and above all, it gives them an early Mean-spiritedness; an odious Selfishness; a Desire of being paid for every thing they do.
At the same time that I recommend to Parents never to call things by wrong Names, never to attempt imposing on a Child’s Senses or Understanding, or to force down Medicines with Bribes; so I also recommend, that they avoid Harshness and Violence, unless pressed to it by great Necessity; but this Caution is almost needless after what has been said: for with the Method proposed, it requires no more than to approach the sick Bed with, Come, my Dear, take your Dose; if the Child says, it is nauseous, grant it: but at the same time say, We do not take Medicines for Pleasure, but to make us well: if it declines it, urge how wrong it is to dwell on what would be gone in a Minute; and if any Difficulty still remains, inform it, that it is not for your Sake you urge it, but it’s own; and that while you are doing all you can to restore it to Health, you must, and will be obeyed. At intermediate times, let Parents, by a fond, engaging Behaviour, convince their Children how tenderly they love them; let them frequently mingle with them in their little Plays and Sports; and let them sometimes overlook Trifles, that they may have more Influence in Matters of Moment.
Lord Hallifax observes, that the first Impressions Children receive are in the Nursery; whence he infers, that Mothers have not only the earliest, but the most lasting Influence over them.
That the first Care of Children, and many of the most tender Offices they require, are the Mother’s Province, is an undoubted Truth; but when the forming their Manners is under Consideration, the Influence of both Father and Mother should, if possible, be equal; at least it is necessary that Parents go hand in hand, and not counteract one another in the Government of them.
Parents should make it a Rule to themselves, never to shew to their Children, both at once, the Marks of extreme Anger, or excessive Fondness; but when a Child has done such a Fault as demands of the Father to affect great Severity, let the Mother put on an equal Share of Lenity and Compassion mixed with Grief: and so on the reverse. Thus too on other Occasions, when the Mother prudently exposes all the motherly Fondness of her Heart, let the Father as prudently conceal a Part of his, and, with an Air of Steadiness, insinuate, that the Conduct which is approved is no more than Duty. But Parents will never be able to act with due Moderation in the Government of their Children, without first resolving to govern, with the utmost Prudence, their own Passions and Tempers. And how will they be able to do this, unless they look inwardly, and study to find them out? If the Man be of a choleric or morose Disposition, and the Woman of a phlegmatic, mild, and affable Temper, the Contrast may prove sovereignly beneficial to their Children, if the Parties, conscious of it in themselves, resolve mutually to apply it under the Direction of Prudence; and found the Government of their young Family’s Passions on that of their own. Whereas, if ignorant of their respective Foibles, or heedless to turn them to Advantage, they give a full Loose to them, and agree in nothing but an unbridled Exertion of them as Occasion or Accident offers, the Contrast will probably prove fatal both to themselves and their Children: they will for the most part be pleased and displeased alike out of Time and out of Measure; their Severities and Lenities will often jar, and rob each other of their due Effect; their Punishments and Rewards, by being never, or but seldom, and that by mere Chance, proportioned to the Failings they mean to correct, or the Merit they Wish to encourage, will prove fruitless, if not destructive: and what is still worse, they will seldom fail, in the midst of Correction, to strengthen the Misconduct they aim at reforming, by the Example they give of it in their own Persons; and as seldom miss, in the Extravagance of their false Fondnesses, of perverting the Minds of their Children from the noble Love of Virtue, to the reptil Hankerings after Rewards, Praises, and Caresses. If a Child is to be reformed of any peevish or passionate Behaviour, what Effect can Correction have on him, if given by a Parent delivered over by his own Passions to all the Fierceness of a Brute? It may make him hate the Correction, but can never make him hate Faults, the opposite Virtues to which he sees not the least Example of in his Corrector. If another is to be encouraged in some commendable Action, what Benefit will he receive from an Excess of Fondness, while the being humour’d in other Actions, perhaps highly discommendable, only teaches him to exchange Vice for Vice, or one Folly for another? Or finally, what Advantage can be produced to Children from Reprehension or Approbation, from Punishments or Rewards, however well proportioned, timed or placed, if there appear to them in the Parents a Dissention in the bestowing them; and that they are the Overflowings of Passion or Partiality, rather than the Result of Reason and Equity? Parents then should seriously acquaint themselves with their own Tempers, and mutually consent and agree on the Methods of regulating their Children; never to reward or punish, seem angry or pleas’d, but by Concert; and above all, never to correct while in a Passion, nor reward till the fond Fit be over.
There are many things in the Management of Children rather to be wished than obtained; not so easily practised as desired; among these, one Expedient, I think, might often prove successful towards attaining this happy Medium I have been speaking of. Where a Father is of a choleric, hasty, and severe Disposition, and the Mother the reverse, which is most generally the Case, it were greatly to be wished, that, by mutual Consent, they sometimes exchanged Offices in the Government of their Children. Would the Father resolve to make it his Study so to conquer his Temper, as seldom or never, but in extreme Necessity, to interfere in reprimanding and correcting his Children, but rather to take upon him the Office of Commendations and Rewards; and of treating them with all the Affability he is Master of: and would the Mother take an equal Resolution to conquer the Softness of her Nature, to reprimand and punish them on proper Occasions with all the Sternness she can summon; remitting them for the Applause or Gratifications they may deserve to their Father: would Parents, I say, with these Dispositions, resolve on the Practice, I cannot but think it would produce excellent Effects in the Government of Children: considering the very little Danger there would be of the choleric, or naturally severe Father spoiling his Child by Excess of Fondness; or the naturally tender Mother ruining it by extreme Severity.
I will here suppose, what is most agreeable to good Sense, that Parents in general have such good Dispositions as to intend the real Benefit of their Children; but either that they have not thought on what was necessary to be done, or thought on it but confusedly: I will suppose too that both Father and Mother agree in this general Intention. Still, as all have their several Ways of judging, the most sensible People will be liable to have different Notions of different Things, and even different Ways of doing the same Thing; which, so far from being wrong, if well attended to, may contribute to the great Emolument of both. Yet Parents must be extremely cautious never to differ about the Government of Children in their Hearing; it does incredible Mischief; but particularly, it alienates them from their Duty; and weakens the Authority of the Parents on one Side at least, if not on both.