Punishment in the home.—Whipping, slapping and cuffing are relics of savagery. Whipping should never be resorted to except in extreme cases. It is not the natural consequence of disobedience. It never appeals to a child’s sense of justice. Punishment should always be natural and consistent with justice. Some examples will illustrate these principles, as follows: A child is called to breakfast—it does not come. Stubbornness or disobedience is the cause. What should be a natural punishment? Scolding, slapping, jerking the child up and forcing it to the table? No—there is no logical connection. The punishment should consist in the child’s doing without its breakfast. This should be explained to the child: A boy loses his toy. Should he be pitied and another bought for him? Certainly not. Should he be whipped? This would not be natural. He simply goes without his toy until he finds it: A boy steals some object. Should he be whipped? No. His attention should be called to the nature of his sin. He should be compelled, if necessary, to return the stolen object and confess his wrong. The deep sense of humiliation is the natural punishment. Let him feel the full force of it: A boy uses tobacco. Should he be whipped? Certainly not, as long as his teacher, the family doctor, the minister and the father use it. No child on earth could see any connection between the wrong and the punishment. What should be done? Nine times out of ten, under present conditions, the boy will use tobacco, in spite of all that a mother can do. So long as doctors, teachers, ministers and fathers use tobacco, legislation against the cigarette will increase our youthful criminals. If a father has a moral right to use tobacco, so has his boy. If the boy can be led to see clearly that the use of tobacco is wrong, if his conscience can be awakened and if his personal will can be brought to constantly oppose the use of it, then he can be saved. THIS IS THE ONLY REMEDY.
Study the offense.—Find the natural consequence. Become an example of obedience to every law, for your child. Show the child the results of wrong living and the benefits of right living. This will usually obviate all punishment, aside from what nature inflicts.
Corporal punishment.—If corporal punishment be unavoidable, it should not be administered when either parent or child is angry. This would only increase the cause that made the punishment necessary. In most cases it would be best to postpone the punishment until the next day. Only a very rebellious child can be helped by this method.
Scolding and threatening.—From a hotel window I heard a mother say to her twelve-year-old girl, “I will gouge your eyes out.” “I will slap your head off, you little hussy.” A child treated in this way becomes willful or spiteful, loses self-respect or respect for the parent. Scolding and threatening children are sins against their finer natures.
Three good rules.—The author’s father would not employ men on his farm without the understanding that they were not to swear, speak vulgarly about a woman, or tell a “ghost” or “bugaboo” story in the presence of his children. A servant, man or woman, about your business or home, can undo or counteract in a few hours or days, in a single statement or story, picture or book, act or habit, the life efforts of a noble father and a pure mother. One of the purest men recently said to me, “When I was only fifteen years of age I heard a servant utter one sentence that required a score of years to get its effects eradicated.” Men have told me of the pernicious effects of servants, dating back to when they were two and three years old. Frightful stories and startling statements, of impending dangers, destroy the natural freedom, independence and courage of many children for life. Once I sat by the side of a nervous mother holding a nervous four-year-old girl in her lap, as our train sped forward at the rate of fifty miles an hour, over one of those magnificent stretches on a western prairie. We had discussed heredity, child training and other interesting and vital subjects, when she referred to her nervous little girl and told me how at night she would notice her little body twitching, jerking, floundering and all at once she would awake with a scream having dreamed that she was falling from some dizzy height toward jagged rocks and certain death beneath; or that some huge angry beast, poised on tiptoes and in the act of pouncing upon her and tearing her body into shreds—a horrible nightmare. About the time she had finished describing one of those fearful experiences and was in the act of asking me for advice, we were passing an object on the outside that interested the little girl; quickly she turned and began peering through the window. She was in no danger. Her head was not projected beyond the window. The nervous mother grabbed the little girl by the body and cried, “You are falling! You are falling!” My reply to her request for advice was, “My! if you should handle me that way, I would have a half dozen nightmares here in open daylight.” I told that mother that her daughter’s nervousness was due to bad heredity and bad environment and that she was responsible for both.
Personal purity.—As soon as a child begins to enquire about its origin, it is old enough to be told the truth in the right way. Some children become interested when they are three and four, all normal children by the time they are seven. Since the inquiring mind will not rest satisfied until a plausible answer has been received, and since the ignorant and vicious youth is ever alert and anxious to give this information in a pernicious way, it behooves the thoughtful parents to safeguard their children with the truth told in the right way. No normal boy should reach the age of eight, or girl the age of ten, before they have been told the story of life.
Children often discover, or are taught, the secret vice at a very early age. Sex consciousness and pleasure may be early developed because of some unnatural conditions of the sex organs. For this reason, parents should know that these parts are normal in their children. When children are observed to frequently handle, or scratch these organs, unnatural conditions should be suspected. The child should not be slapped or scolded, rather call in the family physician. Trying to keep a child ignorant concerning this vice is impossible, therefore unwise. There is not one boy in fifty who does not know of the vice, and understands the language used to describe it. Trying to keep a child from vicious companions is good as far as it goes, but the facts are that the child is most likely to discover the vice himself, while it is hardly possible to keep a child entirely away from the vicious. The only sane method is to teach the child the laws of personal purity. If the secret vice is to be prevented, some children should receive council when they are six, others at eight, all by the time they are ten or twelve. Children have inherited lustful tendencies. Their troubles are more largely from within than from without. Hence the children that have been most carefully guarded from bad company and kept in ignorance are usually the ones who are most injured by the secret sin. A single talk to a child is not sufficient. We frequently instruct and appeal to the child to be obedient, truthful and honest; in like manner we should at reasonable periods instruct and encourage him to keep his thoughts and desires pure.
SECOND DIVISION
HOW TO TEACH SOCIAL PURITY AND SEX TRUTHS TO A CHILD
CHAPTER VII
THE RIGHT OF A CHILD TO A KNOWLEDGE OF SEX
Social conditions of childhood changed.—The social conditions of childhood have changed much in the last fifty years. Just as our children have opportunities and possibilities far greater than had we when we were children; so they are exposed to temptations and dangers greater than were we, when we were children. The suggestive, and oft-times positively obscene pictures on post cards, in books and on billboards; the viciously immoral literature; the cheap moving picture shows of to-day, were not social problems threatening the purity of our childhood.