Study of Child Life Part 7

[Sidenote: The Family Republic]

Perhaps the most fundamental principle is that enunciated by Fichte.

"Each man," he says, "is a free being in a world of other free beings." Therefore his freedom is limited only by the freedom of the other free beings. That is, they must "divide the world amongst them."

Stated in the form of a command he says again, "Restrict your freedom through the freedom of all other persons with whom you come in contact." This is a rule that even a three-year-old child can be made to understand, and it is astonishing with what readiness he will admit its justice. He call do anything he wants to, you explain to him, except bother other people. And, of course, the corollary follows that every one else can do whatever he pleases except to bother the child.

[Sidenote: Rights of Others]

This clear and simple doctrine can be driven home with amazing force, if you strictly respect the child's right as you require him to respect yours. You should neither allow any encroachments upon your own proper privileges, except so far as you explain that this is only a loving permission on your part, and not to be a.s.sumed as a precedent or to be demanded as a right; nor should you yourself encroach upon his privileges.

If you do not expect him to interrupt you, you must not interrupt him.

If you expect him to let you alone when you are busy, you must let hint alone when he is busy, that is, when he is hard at work playing.

If you must call him away from his playing, give him warning, so that he may have time to put his small affairs in order before obeying your command. The more carefully you do this the more willing will be his response on the infrequent occasions when you must demand immediate attention. In some such fashion you teach the child to respect the rights of others by scrupulously respecting those rights to which he is most alive, namely, his own. The next step is to require him with you to think out the rights of others, and both of you together should shape your conduct so as to leave these rights unfringed.

[Sidenote: The Child's Share in Ruling]

As soon as the young child's will has fully taken possession of his own organism he will inevitably try to rule yours. The establishment of the law of which I have just spoken will go far toward regulating this new-born desire. But still he must be allowed in some degree to rule others, because power to rule others is likely to be at some time during his life of great importance to him. To thwart him absolutely in this respect, never yielding yourself to his imperious demands, is alike impossible and undesirable. His will must not be shut up to himself and to the things that he can make himself do. In various ways, with due consideration for other people's feelings, with courtesy, with modesty, he may well be encouraged to do his share of ruling. And while, of course, he will not begin his ruling in such restrained and thoughtful fashion as is implied by these limitations, yet he must be suffered to begin; and the rule for the respect of the rights of others should be suffered gradually to work out these modifications.

A safe distinction may be made as follows: Permit him, since he is so helpless, to rule and persuade others to satisfy his legitimate desires, such as the desire for food, sleep, affection, and knowledge; but when be demands indulgencies, reserve your own liberty of choice, so as to clearly demonstrate to him that you are exercising choice, and in doing so, are well within your own rights.

[Sidenote: Low Voice Commands]

There is one simple outward observation which greatly a.s.sists us the inculcation of these fundamental truths--that is the habit of using a low voice in speaking, especially when issuing a command or administering a rebuke. A loud, insistent voice practically insures rebellion. This is because the low voice means that you have command of yourself, the loud voice that you have lost it. The child submits to a controlled will, but not to one as uncontrolled as his own. In both cases he follows your example. If you are self-controlled, he tends to become so; if you are excited and angry, he also becomes so, or if he is already so, his excitement and anger increases.

While most mothers rely altogether too much upon speech as a means of explaining life to the child, yet it must be admitted that speech has a great function to perform in this regard. Nevertheless it is well to bear in mind that it is not true that a child will always do what you tell him to do, no matter how plain you may tell him, nor how perfectly you may explain your reasons.

[Sidenote: Limitations of Words]

In the first place, speech means less to children than to grown persons. Each word has a smaller content of experience. They cannot get the full force of the most clear and eloquent statement. Therefore all speech must be reinforced by example, and by as many forms of concrete ill.u.s.trations as can be commanded. Each necessary truth should enter the child's mind by several channels; hearing, eye-sight, motor activity should all be called upon. Many truths may be dramatized. This, where the mother is clever enough to employ it, is the surest method of appeal. But in any case, speech alone must not be relied upon, nor the child considered a hopeless case who does not respond to it.

Denunciatory speech especially needs wise regulation. As Richter says, "What is to be followed as a rule of prudence, yea, of justice, toward grown-up people, should be much more observed toward children, namely, that one should never judgingly declare, for instance, 'You are a liar,' or even, 'You are a bad boy,' instead of saying, 'You have told an untruth,' or 'You have done wrong.' For since the power to command yourself implies at the same time the power of obeying, man feels a minute after his fault as free as Socrates, and the branding mark of his _nature_, not his _deed_, must seem to him blameworthy of punishment.

"To this must be added that every individual's wrong actions, owing to his inalienable sense of a moral aim and hope, seem to him only short, usurped interregnums of the devil, or comets in the uniform solar system. The child, consequently, under such a moral annihilation, feels the wrong-doing of others more than his own; and this all the more because, in him, want of reflection and the general warmth of his feelings, represent the injustice of others in a more ugly light than his own."

[Sidenote: Example versus Precept]

If any one desires to prove the superior force of example over precept, let him try teaching a baby to say "Thank you" or "Please,"

merely by being scrupulously careful to say these things to the baby on all fit occasions. No one has taken the statistics of the number of times every small child is exhorted to perfect himself in this particular observance; but it is safe to say that in the United States alone these injunctions are spoken something like a million times a day and all quite unnecessarily. The child will say "Please"

and "Thank you" without being told to do so, if he merely has his attention called to the fact that the people around him all use these phrases.

[Sidenote: Politeness to Children]

The truth is, too many parents forget to speak these agreeable words whenever they ask favors of their own children; so the force of their example is marred. What you do to the child himself, remember, always outweighs anything you do to others before him. This is the reason why it is necessary that you should acknowledge your own shortcomings to the child, if you expect him to acknowledge his to you. It is also necessary sometimes to point out clearly the kind and considerate things that you are in the habit of doing to others, lest the untrained mind of the young child may fail to see and so miss the force of your example.

But in thus revealing your own good deeds to the child, remember the motive, and reveal them only (a) when he cannot perceive them of himself, (b) when he needs to perceive them in order that his own conduct may be influenced by them, and (c) at the time when he is most likely to appreciate them. This latter requirement precludes you from announcing your own righteousness when he is naughty, and compels you, of course, to go directly against your native impulse, which is to mention your deeds of sacrifice and kindness only when you are angry and mean to reproach him with them. When you tell him how devoted you have been at some moment when you are both thoroughly angry, he is in danger of either denying or hating your devotion; but when you refer to it tenderly, and, as your heart will then prompt you, modestly, at some loving moment, he will give it recognition, and be moved to love goodness more devotedly because you embody it.

[Sidenote: Law-Making Habit]

Another important rule is this: Do not make too many rules. Some women are like legislatures in perpetual session. The child who is confused and tantalized by the constant succession of new laws learns presently to disregard them, and to regulate his life according to certain deductions of his own--sometimes surprisingly wise and politic deductions. The way to re yourself of this law-making habit is to stop thinking of every little misdeed as the beginning of a great wrong. It is very likely an accident and a combination of circ.u.mstances such as may not happen again. To treat misdemeanors which are not habitual nor characteristic as evanescent is the best way to make them evanescent.

They should not be allowed to enter too deeply into your consciousness or into that of your child.

[Sidenote: Live with Your Children]

In order to be able to discriminate between accidental wrong-doing, and that which is the first symptom of wrong-thinking, you must be in close touch with your children. This brings us to Froebel's great motto, "Come, let us live with our children!" This means that you are not merely to talk with your child, to hear from his lips what he is doing, but to live so closely with him, that in most cases you know what he is doing without any need of his telling you. When, however, he does tell you something which happened in the school play-ground or otherwise out of the range of your knowledge, be careful not to moralize over it. Make yourself as agreeable a secret-keeper as his best friend of his own age; let your moralizing be so rare that it is effective for that very reason. If the occasion needs moral reflection at all--and that seldom happens--the wise way is to lead the child to do his own reflecting; to arrive at his own conclusions, and if you must lead him, by all means do so as invisibly as possible. For the most part it is safe to take the confessions lightly, and well to keep your own mind young by looking at things from the boy's point of view.

[Sidenote: The Subject of s.e.x]

If, however, there is to be perfect confidence between you, the one subject which is usually kept out of speech between mothers and children must be no forbidden subject between them; you must not refuse to answer questions about the mystery of s.e.x. If you are not the fit person to teach your child these important facts, who is?

Certainly not the school-mates and servants from whom he is likely to learn them if you refuse to furnish the information. Usually it is sufficient simply to answer the child's honest questions honestly; but any mother who finds herself unable to cope with this simple matter in this simple spirit, will find help in Margaret Morley's "Song of Life," in the Wood-Allen Publications, and the books of the Rev.

Sylva.n.u.s Stall.[B]

In respect to these matters more than in respect to others, but also in respect to all matters, children often do not know that they are doing wrong, even when it it very difficult for parents to believe that they do not intend wrong-doing. As we have seen from our a.n.a.lysis of truthfulness, the child may very often lie without a qualm of conscience, and he may still more readily break the unwritten rules of courtesy, asking abrupt and even cruel questions of strangers, and haul the family skeleton out of its closet at critical moments. Such things cannot be wholly guarded against, even by the exercise of the utmost wisdom, but the habit of reasoning things out for himself is the greatest help a child can have.

[Sidenote: Righteousness]

The formation of the bent of the child's nature as a whole is a matter of unconscious education, but as he grows in the power to reason, conscious education must direct his mental activity. It is not enough for him, as it is not enough for any grown person, to do the best that he knows; he must learn to know the best. The word righteousness itself means right-wiseness, i.e., right knowingness.

To quote Froebel again, "In order, therefore, to impart true, genuine firmness to the natural will-activity of the boy, all the activities of the boy, his entire will should proceed from and have reference to the development, cultivation, and representation of the internal.

Instruction in example and in words, which later on become precept and example, furnishes the means for this. Neither example alone, nor words will do; not example alone, for it is particular and special, and the word is needed to give the particular individual example universal applicability; not words alone, for example is needed to interpret and explain the word, which is general, spiritual, and of many meanings.

"But instruction and example alone and in themselves are not sufficient; they must meet a good pure heart and this is the outcome of proper educational influences in childhood."

[Sidenote: Moral Precocity]

Lest these directions should seem to demand an almost superhuman degree of control and wisdom on the part of the mother, remember that moral precocity is as much to be guarded against a mental precocity.

Remember that you are neither required to be a perfect mother nor to rear a perfect child. As Spencer remarks, a perfect child in this imperfect world would be sadly out of joint with the times, would indeed be a martyr. If your basic principles are right and if your child has before him the daily and hourly spectacle of a mother who is trying to conform herself to high standards, he will grow as fast as it is safe for him to grow. Spencer says: "Our higher moral faculties like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively complex. As a consequence they are both comparatively late in their evolution, and with the one as with the other, a very early activity produced by stimulation will be at the expense of the future character. Hence the not uncommon fact that those who during childhood were instanced as models of juvenile goodness, by and by undergo some disastrous and seemingly inexplicable change, and end by being not above but below par; while relatively exemplary men are often the issue of a childhood not so promising.

"Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and moderate results, constantly bearing in mind the fact that the higher morality, like the higher intelligence, must be reached by a slow growth; and you will then have more patience with those imperfections of nature which your child hourly displays. You will be less p.r.o.ne to constant scolding, and threatening, and forbidding, by which many parents induce a chronic irritation, in a foolish hope that they will thus make their children what they should be."

[Sidenote: Rules in Character Building]

In conclusion, the rules that may be safely followed in character-building may be summed up thus:

(1) Recognize that the object of your training is to help the child to love righteousness. Command little and then use positive commands rather than prohibitions. Use "do" rather than "don't."

(2) Make right-doing delightful.

(3) Establish Fichte's doctrine of right, see page 64.

(4) Teach by example rather than precept. Therefore respect the child's rights as you wish him to respect yours.

(5) Use a low voice, especially in commanding or rebuking.

(6) In chiding, remember Richter's rule and rebuke the sin and not the sinner.

(7) Confess your own misdeeds, by this means and others securing the confidence of your children.

Finally, remember that this is an imperfect world, you are an imperfect mother, and the best results you can hope for are likely to be imperfect. But the results may be so founded upon eternal principles as to tend continually to give place to better and better results.