What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know Part 5

You have already decided, after much thought and the writing of many letters--perhaps after a visit to the school you incline to most--just where it is best that the child shall go.

You have studied carefully all the directions about clothing given in the school catalogue, and have made sure that every little blouse or stocking has its owner's name written or sewed fast on it, and that all the small garments are in perfect order and ready for use.

But have you thought how your own att.i.tude toward this change in your boy's life is unconsciously preparing him either to rebel against and fear school, or to look forward to going there as one of the most delightful and interesting events of his life?

I know that it is impossible for you to avoid dreading the day when your child must go among strangers, but I beg you not to let him see what your feeling is. It will take all your resolution and all your courage to wear not only a cheerful face, but a happy one; but you must make your boy feel that a very delightful time is coming.

If you go about the necessary preparations as you might if he were going to the show or on a visit, he will enter into the spirit of things with enthusiasm; but if you once let him find you crying over his packing he will immediately jump to the conclusion that some dreadful thing is in prospect, and will be entirely prepared to be frightened at being left at school, and to break your heart by clinging to you and begging to go home again. And, more than this, he will be far more likely to be homesick.

So, since you know it is best for him to be in school, and that it is the only possible road to happiness and usefulness, why not lead him to antic.i.p.ate the going; to look forward to it as a treat, and to feel that to be a schoolboy is really the great end of existence?

One of the first steps in this direction will be to help him understand a little what kind of a place he is bound for.

Very likely the school you have decided on publishes an ill.u.s.trated catalogue, and weeks before school opens begin to show him the pictures of the school buildings and grounds, and make him understand that on a certain day in September, which you mark on the calendar with bright crayon, you and he will go there. Let him see one of the little white beds where he will sleep after you return home, the sunny dining room where he will eat his morning porridge and his Sunday ice cream; the playground full of rollicksome youngsters, with whom he will seesaw and play tag by and by, and the busy schoolroom, where so many delightful and interesting things are sure to happen.

Talk about all these things often and brightly and you will find that school has become a most desirable and fascinating place, and that every night there will be a great satisfaction in climbing on a chair to scratch off from the calendar another day done before the joy of going there.

Then you can buy such delightful things to be put into that waiting trunk--things often to be looked at, but never to be used till that wonderful place is reached--long red and blue pencils, with rubbers on the ends; boxes of writing paper, all gay with pictures and exactly right for the first letters home; a foot rule, and, if you are a truly brave mother, a real jackknife to sharpen the same red and blue pencils and add to the joy of living.

It is absorbing work, too, to mark them all with one's name, so they may never be mistaken for any other little boy's property, and to make a place for a new toy or two, though if you are wise you will not buy many playthings now, but will save them to send later, one by one, by parcel post, to be received with a joy it is a pity you cannot be there to see, it will be so out of proportion to any other pleasure you could give by such simple means.

Of course, you must have some kodak pictures taken--ever so many of them--showing the family, the house, and the pets, as well as the boy himself. These are to be kept, too, to go in letters. They will be not only very precious possessions, but if they are labeled carefully they will be extremely useful in the cla.s.sroom when your boy begins to learn to speak the names of the people at home.

Since they are to be used for this double purpose, be sure that each member of the family group is very distinctly marked, or the names of Aunt Mary and sister Helen may get hopelessly mixed in the boy's mind!

Finally, the last little garment and the last package is in the trunk, the last day is scratched off the calendar, and the boy himself is on the train. And now let me tell you something that you will not believe--that you will even resent, but which is perfectly true, and which I hope will comfort you a little when you say good-by to the boy--and that is this: it really is very unusual for a little child from five to eight years old to be homesick at school. There are so many distractions, so many new and curious things to see, so many interesting things to do, and there are so many other children all friendly and all happy, that even if your boy cries when you leave him, the probabilities are high that before you reach the station he will be playing--shyly or uproariously, as temperament may decide--but certainly happily, with some new-found friend.

One of the most delightful things about a school for deaf children is the way all the other pupils welcome, pet, and look out for a newcomer.

Every one makes much of him, and it would be hard indeed to be lonely long in the midst of so much attention and friendliness.

And now a word about letters.

Before you sent the boy to school I hope you didn't fail to teach him to recognize the written names of the different members of the family, so that he might be sure to understand whom his first letters came from.

And don't forget that he will be eager for letters! Too many mothers feel that it is useless to write to their children during their first year away from them. They are so sure that no word from them can be understood that they content themselves with sending inquiries to the proper authorities, and an occasional picture postcard to the children themselves, and fail to realize how soon their little boy or girl grasps the fact that the other children have real letters in envelopes, and that these come from home, or how sharp a disappointment it is when day after day goes by and brings them nothing.

If you could see, as I have seen, a letter, so worn that it was cracked on all its folds and dingy with much handling, carried day after day inside a little blouse, or guimpe, and put under the pillows every night, you would understand a little what those pieces of paper, covered with very imperfectly understood characters, but carrying love and remembrance from home, mean, even before the children can read them.

And very soon, if you are an observant mother, your child will really be able to read them.

For example, your boy's first letter may be something like this:

"DEAR MAMMA:

"I am well. I love you. HARRY."

When you answer it you might say, with the certainty that every word would be understood:

"DEAR HARRY:

"Mamma loves you. Papa is well. Mamma and Papa love you.

"Good-by. MAMMA."

Not a very satisfactory letter, do you say? Perhaps not to you, but most delightful and understandable to the little boy to whom it is written.

And if a little later you follow it with another containing one of the kodak pictures of the cat, with "Tommy" written under it, accompanying such a note as this, not only your little boy, but his teacher will bless you:

"DEAR HARRY:

"Mamma is well. Papa is well. Mamma and Papa love you. Tommy loves you, too. Tommy is the cat. Tommy wants to see you.

"Good-by. MAMMA."

I have written these two notes not as models to be copied, but to show you how with a little thought and care you may ring the changes on almost every sentence that your boy learns; and make use of every new word, giving him a great deal of pleasure and helping to fix the phrases in his mind and to make him realize that they are really valuable additions to his means of communication. But I do not mean that you should confine your letters entirely to words and sentences that the child already knows. In fact, new expressions, if they are short and simple, and if the main part of your letter is made up of things the child understands at once, will add very much to the interest of your letter. He will be eager to know what the strange words mean, and the new nouns, verbs, and adjectives will go immediately to swell his vocabulary.

Like any child just learning to talk, your little boy will at first use nouns, when later he will use p.r.o.nouns, so in your earliest letters to him you will be surer of making yourself understood if you do the same.

Probably, too, with the exception of two or three sentences like "I am well. I love you," you will notice that all his statements are written in the past tense, and that will be a guide to you to confine your own remarks to the past, for the most part, till you notice that he has begun to use the future and the present himself. Watch his letters carefully and adapt your own language forms to his.

There are two things that, as a general rule, I would advise you not to write about, and these are any illnesses in the family and--that supreme joy of school life--the box you are planning to send.

My reasons for this taboo are that even very little children are often made unhappy and anxious, sometimes for days, if they know there is sickness at home, while in the second place boxes are so often delayed that they become the source of much disturbance of mind when the expressman fails to bring them.

I knew a little girl who watched every delivery for a week and cried after every one because the box her mother had promised her did not appear. So let illness and boxes go unmentioned till you can write something like this, "Papa was sick last week. He is well now. He goes to the office every day." And after the box has had time to reach its destination you can say, "Mamma sent a box to you Wednesday. She put two handkerchiefs, some new shoes, six oranges, and some money in the box.

Papa gave the money to you."

If you are like most mothers, before many weeks have gone by you will be eager to visit your boy and see for yourself how he is getting on; whether he is really as happy as the letters from school a.s.sure you he is; what he is learning in cla.s.s, and whether he has blankets enough on his bed and sugar enough on his oatmeal.

But before the letter announcing the day of your arrival is posted or your ticket is bought, sit down by the fire and think the matter over.

You have confidence in the school, else you would never have sent your boy there; and you have been told repeatedly either that the little fellow is happy and well or, it may be, that he was rather homesick at first, but has now settled down to a very comfortable and contented state of mind and is doing well in cla.s.s.

Now, if you go to see him too soon after he has left home there will really be a good deal more danger that the boy will be homesick after you leave him than there was when you took him to school in September, even if he has been quite happy up to the time of your visit.

In the first place, he will think, drawing his conclusions from visits that he may have made before, that school is over and that you have come to take him home. So it will be a great surprise and shock when you go away without him. And in any case, after the separation of some weeks, his love for you will make him want to be with you, and he will really suffer when you say good-by.

So, if I were you, I would wait till after the Christmas holidays before going for my visit. By that time he will be fully settled in his new life and will look on it as an established part of existence. He will know from observation that other mothers come for a little while and then go home again without taking their children with them, and his advance in understanding will make it much easier to explain to him that your visit is temporary and will not make any radical change in his own life.

The delay will mean a good deal of self-sacrifice for you, but may very possibly save your boy from a sharp attack of homesickness, while later in the year this danger will usually have disappeared, and your visit will bring nothing but pleasure to you both and will help to make school what you want it to be--a place where all sorts of delightful things are constantly sure to happen.

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