Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

Most parents do not half realize how impressionable children are, and how easily they may be injured or ruined by discouragement or ridicule. Children require a great deal of appreciation, praise, and encouragement. They live upon it. It is a great tonic to them. On the other hand, they wither very quickly under criticism, blame, or depreciation. Their sensitive natures can not stand it. It is the worst kind of policy to be constantly blaming, chiding them, and positively cruel, bordering on criminality even, to suggest to them that they are mentally deficient or peculiar, that they are stupid and dull, and that they will probably never amount to anything in the world.

How easy it is for a parent or teacher to ruin a child's constructive ability, to change a naturally, positive creative mind to a negative, non-producing one, by chilling the child's enthusiasm, by projecting into his plastic mind the idea that he is stupid, dull, lazy, a "blockhead" and good-for-nothing; that he will never amount to anything; that it is foolish for him to try to be much, because he has not the ability or physical stamina to enable him to accomplish what many others do. Such teaching would undermine the brightest intellect.

I have known of an extremely sensitive, timid boy who had a great deal of natural ability, but who developed very slowly, whose whole future was nearly ruined by his teacher and parents constantly telling him that he was stupid and dull, and that he probably never would amount to anything. A little praise, a little encouragement, would have made a superb man of this youth, because he had the material for the making of one. But he actually believed that he was not up to the ordinary mental standard; he was thoroughly convinced that he was mentally deficient, and this conviction never entirely left him.

We are beginning to discover that it is much easier to attract than to coerce. Praise and encouragement will do infinitely more for children than threats and punishment. The warm sunshine is more than a match for the cold, has infinitely more influence in developing the bud, the blossom, and the fruit than the wind and the tempest, which suppress what responds voluntarily to the genial influence of the sun's rays.

We all know how boys will work like troopers under the stimulus of encouragement and praise. Many parents and teachers know this, and how fatal the opposite policy is. But unfortunately a great majority do not appreciate the magic of praise and appreciation.

Pupils will do anything for a teacher who is always kind, considerate, and interested in them; but a cross, fractious, nagging one so arouses their antagonism that it often proves a fatal bar to their progress. There must be no obstruction, no ill-feeling between the teacher and the pupil, if the best results are to be obtained.

Many parents are very much distressed by the waywardness of their children; but this waywardness is often more imaginary than real. A large part of children's pranks and mischief is merely the outcome of exuberant youthful spirits, which must have an outlet, and if they are suppressed, their growth is fatally stunted. They are so full of life, energy, and so buoyant that they can not keep still. They must do something. Give them an outlet for their animal spirits. Love is the only power that can regulate and control them.

Do not try to make men of your boys or women of your girls. It is not natural. Love them. Make home just as happy a place as possible, and give them rein, freedom. Encourage them in their play, for they are now in their fun age. Many parents ruin the larger, completer, fuller development of their children by repressing them, destroying their childhood, their play days, by trying to make them adults. There is nothing sadder in American life than the child who has been robbed of its childhood.

Children are little animals, sometimes selfish, often cruel, due to the fact that some parts of their brain develop faster than others, so that their minds are temporarily thrown out of balance, sometimes even to cruel or criminal tendencies, but later the mind becomes more symmetrical and the vicious tendencies usually disappear. Their moral faculties and sense of responsibility unfold more slowly than other traits, and of course, they will do mischievous things; but it is a fatal mistake to be always suppressing them. They must give out their surplus energy in some way. Encourage them to romp. Play with them. It will keep you young, and will link them to you with hooks of steel. Do not be afraid of losing your dignity. If you make home the happiest, most cheerful place on earth for your children, if you love them enough, there is little danger of their becoming bad.

Thousands of parents by being so severe with their children, scolding and criticizing them and crushing their childhood, make them secretive and deceitful instead of open and transparent, and estrange them and drive them away from home.