EFFECT OF THE SEASONS ON
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
The effect of the change in seasons is much more marked in children than in grown people. In the Spring in particular the watchful mother should keep a careful eye on the health of her little ones. “There come with the Spring in many children,” writes a noted physician, “a restlessness and excitability, a perversity and irascibility of temper, or a listlessness, and indisposition for exertion that are not displayed at other times; and there come then, also, more plentifully than at other seasons, physical indications of debility and the scrofulous habit, such as enlarged glands and tonsils, dyspepsia and loss of appetite, strumous ophthalmia, discharges from the ear, and enlargements of joints.”
The moral is that since the body is growing fastest (and therefore has the greatest need of husbanding its vitality) in the Spring time, any extra pressure on the nervous system as from prolonged school hours, or any undue exertion, should be strenuously avoided. Unfortunately with the “final” examinations in the early summer, our school systems demand that the hardest and most strenuous work of preparation falls in the Spring time, the season at which the body is least fitted to withstand abnormal stress.
When a child or growing boy or girl becomes more nervous in the Spring time than is his usual habit, or becomes depressed in mind, or constantly complains of being tired, the only common-sense treatment is to put an end at once to all schooling for the time being, and to turn the child out-of-doors every day for all the hours of sunlight.
THE PERIOD OF
PUBERTY AND ITS SPECIAL PROBLEMS
Parents should ever be watchful regarding the education of their young children when they approach the age of puberty, that is, the period when the child begins to develop into the man or woman.
Profound and rapid changes take place at this period in mind, brain, the nervous system, the glandular system, and, one may indeed say, in the body generally. The nerve centers temporarily lose some of their normal stability, and such conditions as insanity, hysteria, and epilepsy, rare in childhood, now become common. Even though no actual nervous disease develop, there is quite commonly during this change from childhood to adult life a period of nervous excitability and exhaustion accompanied by physical weakness, which to a great extent unfits the young person for close pursuit of his or her studies. Particularly in young girls is there the greatest necessity for curtailing any tendency to overwork at school during this period.
CONDITIONS OF BONES AND MUSCLES
AT THE PERIOD OF PUBERTY
At this time there is also rapid growth and development of the bones which lengthen rapidly, and are still soft and cartilaginous in places. It is all-important at this period, therefore, that the muscles on the two sides of the body receive roughly the same amount of use, otherwise there is grave danger of some deformity, such as lateral curvature of the spine, developing.
While the bones are in this condition of rapid development, all muscle-straining attitudes, such as sitting upright at a desk, practicing at the piano, writing, painting, etc., should be kept within such limits as never to entail real fatigue. Young girls at this period, even more than boys, require all their strength and vitality to support them in their rapid growth. This does not mean, however, that all muscular exercises must be forbidden during the period of puberty, which may be reckoned as from twelve to sixteen in girls, and from thirteen to sixteen in boys. The point is that violent, really fatiguing exercise, such as hockey, hunting, cycling tours, mountain climbing, etc., as well as all occupations which entail the holding of the muscles tense and fixed in one position for a long period, should be indulged in very sparingly, if at all. The young girl can obtain all the exercise necessary for health in less strenuous outdoor pursuits such as golf, croquet, a little not too strenuous tennis, walking, etc.