Religious Education in the Family Part 26

But parents seldom understand these problems; they attempt to deal with each one as it arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb proverbial philosophy about morals and children. Does not the development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we most of all desire for all our children--position, fame, ease? or is it not rather simply this, that, no matter what else they do, they may be good and useful men and women? Then what are we doing to make them good and useful?

A clear view of the need for moral training, a belief that is possible, will surely lead to serious attempts to learn the art of moral training.

In this they need not be without guidance. There is a number of good books on character development in the child.[50] The foundation for all such training of parents ought to be laid in an understanding of what the moral nature is, and then of the laws of its development. Later the specific problems may be separately considered.

-- 3. TEASING AND BULLYING

Teasing is the child's crude method of experimentation in psychological reactions; the teaser desires to discover just how the teased will respond. It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless infliction of pain in sheer enjoyment of another's misery, and then into brutal bullying. When only two children are together mere teasing will not last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or his teasing will turn to that lowest of all brutalities, delight in inflicting pain on weaker ones.

But teasing is a serious problem in many families; the whole group sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance.

Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered, for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they inflict mental pain for the sake of winning approbation.

Teasing has a pedagogical basis. A certain amount of ridicule acts healthfully on most persons. Even children need sometimes to see their weaknesses, and especially their faults of temper, in the light of other eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous. But children are seldom to be trusted to discipline one another; freedom to do so is likely to develop hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others, and arrogance from the sense of lordship. The corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is a kindly expression of the sense of humor. The ability to see and to show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own.

Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save us all from unkind teasing.

-- 4. SOME CURES FOR TEASING

Help the habitual and unkind teaser to see how cowardly the act is, to see how it is against the spirit of fair play. Call on him to help the weaker one. If he is teasing for some fault of temper or some habit, show him the chance that is afforded to do the n.o.bler deed of helping another to overcome that fault.

Let the cowardly teaser reap the consequences of his own act; he must bear the burden of the critic, the expectation of perfection. Teasing him for his own shortcomings will sometimes cure him, but usually he loses his temper quickly. Make him feel the injustice of the teaser's method. If he is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, experience shows that it does not always work; the bully only bides his time, and, cherishing resentment, he wreaks it on the weaker ones.

The best cure for brutal teasing will take a longer time than is involved in a thrashing. Besides, the teaser will get his thrashings very soon from other boys. It requires time to change the habits that make bullying possible. Try gradually helping him to see the beauty and pleasure of helpfulness. Give him a chance to give pleasure instead of pain. Help him to taste the joy of praise, the praise that helps more than all teasing criticism. Help him to see that it is more truly a mark of superiority to help, to cheer, to do good, than to oppress and tease.

Take time to habituate him in helpfulness.

In dealing with teasing in the family, two other things are worth remembering: First, the teased must be taught the protective power of indifference. Teasers stop as soon as their barbs fail to wound; the fun ends there. Laugh at those who laugh at you, and they will soon cease.

Secondly, the atmosphere and habit of the family determine the course of teasing. Where carping criticism and unkindly ridicule abound, children cannot be blamed for like habits. Where the sense of humor lightens tense situations, where we sacrifice the pleasure of stinging criticism for the sake of encouraging those who most need it, children are quick to catch those habits too. The teasing child usually comes out of a family of similar habits. On seeing our children engaged in teasing others, our first thought ought to be as to the extent to which we may have been their example in this respect. Constant watchfulness on our part against the temptations to tease will have an effect far more potent than all attempts to talk them out of the habit; it will lead them out.

I. References for Study

1. HONESTY

P. Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. iii, x. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.75.

E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. viii.

Pilgrim Press, $0.50.

2. TEASING

W.L. Sheldon, _A Study of Habits_, chap. xvii. Welch & Co., Chicago, $1.25.

II. Further Reading

ON GENERAL MORAL TRAINING

Sneath & Hodges, _Moral Training in School and Home_. Macmillan, $0.80.

E.O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00.

H. Thisleton Mark, _The Unfolding of Personality_. The University of Chicago Press, $1.00.

Paul Carus, _Our Children_. Open Court Publishing Co., $1.00.

III. Topics for Discussion

1. Of what importance is the child's sense of possession?

2. What are the first evidences of a consciousness of property rights?

3. How do homes train in dishonesty?

4. What is the relation between cheating and dishonesty?

5. What is a child seeking to do when he teases another?

6. What are the unfortunate features of teasing?

7. What is the relation of teasing to bullying?

8. What cures would you suggest for either?

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Parents will be helped by the practical discussions of cheating, cribbing, and other boy problems in Johnson, _Problems of Boyhood_.

[50] See "Book List" in Appendix.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Whoever will stop to review his early educational experience will be impressed with the instantaneous and vivid manner in which certain teachers spring into memory. They are seen as though actually living again. We have difficulty in recalling even the subjects they taught, while of the particulars of their teaching we have absolutely no recollection. But they continue to influence us; they are like so many silent forces leading our lives to this day. The teacher is always greater than his lesson, and what he is, is greater than what he says.

The religious education of the young depends more on the gift of persons, on contact with lives, than on anything else.

There are instructors and there are teachers; the former impart information, the latter convey personality; the former deal with subjects, the latter teach people. The greatest factor in education as a process of developing persons is the power of stimulating personality.

The power of the family as an educational agency is in the fact that it is an organization of persons for personal purposes. When you take the persons away you remove all educational potencies.

The depersonalized home is the modern menace. We have come to think that provided you throw furniture and food together in proper proportions you can produce a capable life. So we depend on the home as a piece of machinery to do its work automatically, forgetting that the working activity is not the home but the family, not the furniture but people.

Life can only come from life, and lives can only come from lives.

Personality alone can develop personality. By so much as you rob the family life of your personal presence, as mother or as father, you take away from its reality as a family, from its force as an educational agency, from its religious reality.