Your Child: Today and Tomorrow Part 5

In the case of the very young child absolute obedience must be required, for the reason that the child is not in a position to a.s.sume the responsibility for his conduct. The will of the mother must be followed for the child's own safety and health, for the child has no intelligence or experience,--that is, judgment,--or purpose to guide him. He has only blind impulses that may often be harmless but are never reliable. So the first need is for training in regularity, and this is possible only under the guidance of the mother or nurse, who _knows_ what is to be done, or not done, and whose authority must be absolute. So the child must first of all learn to obey. Later he must learn what and whom to obey.

Recognizing, then, in full the value of obedience, we must be careful not to exaggerate it and consider it a cardinal virtue.

Obedience is far from being a fundamental virtue. On the contrary, once established as a ruling principle in the household or anywhere else, it is easily carried far enough to become a source of positive harm. To obey means to act in accordance with another's wishes. To act in this manner does not call upon the exercise of judgment or responsibility, and too many grow up without acquiring the habit of using judgment and without acquiring a sense of responsibility. They are only too willing to leave choice and decision to others.

Decision of character and habitual obedience do not go well together. Moreover, it is now coming to be more fully recognized that the progress of society depends not upon closer obedience to the few natural leaders, but upon the exercise of discretion and judgment on the part of an ever larger number of those who are not leaders.

There may be a still greater danger in requiring so-called implicit obedience of every child. We have learned from modern studies of the human mind that _doing_ is the outcome of _thinking_ and _feeling_. When we constantly force children to do things that have no direct connection with their thoughts and feelings, or when we prevent actions which follow naturally from their thoughts and feelings, we are interfering with the orderly working of the child's mind. We force children to act in ways unrelated to their thoughts and feelings, and as a result we have many men and women of fine sentiment and lofty thought who never let their ideas and sentiments find expression in effective action. In other words, the effect upon the mind of "thoughtless minding" is not a healthy one.

A large amount of disobedience arises from the fact that the child's attention and interest are so different from an adult's. The little girl who is said to have given her name as "Mary Don't" ill.u.s.trates this. Mary does a great many things in the course of a day, impelled by curiosity and the instinct to handle things. Most of her activities are harmless; but when she touches something that you care about, you command her to let it alone. This is quite proper.

Very often, however, she is told to stop doing things that are quite indifferent, and that satisfy her natural craving for activity without being in the least harmful. Being interfered with constantly, she soon comes to consider all orders arbitrary and-- disobedience results.

The other side of the problem is seen when a child is told to do something when he is preoccupied with his own affairs. You may tell him a second time; very likely you raise your voice. The third time you fairly shout. This is undignified and it is also unnecessary.

For Bobby has _heard_ the order from the first; but he has not _attended_ to your wishes. In such cases there is no primary disobedience; but a frequent repet.i.tion of such incidents can easily lead Bobby to become quite indifferent to your orders; then disobedience is habitual. The child that has acquired the habit of ignoring the mother's wishes will not suddenly begin to obey orders when the emergency comes.

From these two cases we may see that it is important to get first the child's habit of attending to what is said to him--by making everything that is said to him _count_. In the second place, the child must be taught to feel that what he is directed to do is the best thing to do.

For getting the child to obey we must keep constantly in mind the idea that we are working for certain habits. Now, a habit is acquired only through constant repet.i.tion of a given act or a given kind of behavior. The first rule for the parent should therefore be to be absolutely consistent in demanding obedience from the child.

If you call to the children in the nursery to stop their racket (because father is taking a nap) and fail to insist upon the quietness because father just whispers to you that he is not sleeping, you have given the children practice in _disobedience_. If they are to be allowed to go on with the noise, this should be because you openly permit them to go on with their noisy fun, and not because they may heedlessly disregard your wishes. Direct disobedience is not to be overlooked under any circ.u.mstances. It is true that parents often give orders that had better not be carried out; but the remedy is not in allowing the children to disobey, but in thinking twice or thrice before giving a command, or in agreeing with them upon a course of action without giving commands at all. By giving no orders that are unnecessary or that are arbitrary, the child will come in time to feel that your interferences with his own impulses are intended for his own good.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Only a good reason can warrant calling an absorbed child from his occupation.]

We frequently tell the children that we want them to obey "for their own good." If this were true, we should have little difficulty in obtaining obedience, for most children instinctively follow orders and suggestions. It is only when we abuse this instinct by too _frequent_ and _capricious_ and _thoughtless_ commands for our own convenience that the children come to revolt at our orders.

There are great differences among children in the readiness with which they adopt suggestions or follow orders. Some children are easily dissuaded from a line of action in which they are engaged.

Their attention is not very closely filed, and they are easily distracted, and may be sent from one thing to another without resenting the interruptions. Such children quickly learn to obey, and some seldom offer resistance to suggestion; but they deserve no special praise or credit for their perfect obedience, neither do their parents deserve special credit for having "trained" such children. On the other hand, there are children who set their hearts very firmly upon the objects of their desire, and who cannot easily stop in the middle of a game or in the middle of a sentence just to put some wood in the stove. Such children will appear to be "disobedient," although they are just as affectionate and as loyal and as dutiful as the others. When you see a child that is a model of obedience, you cannot conclude that he has been well trained; nor is frequent disobedience an indication of neglect on the part of the parents. But the majority of children will fall in the cla.s.s of those whose obedience or disobedience is a matter of habit resulting from the firmness and consistency and considerateness of the parents.

Unless a child has become altogether submissive, he will not obey all orders with equal readiness. Alice, who is not very active, does not display any great virtue if she sits still when you tell her to.

On the other hand, sitting still means to Harry a supreme effort as well as a great sacrifice; to demand this of him we should have a very good reason. I know children who are models of obedience in most matters, but who scream with protest and resentment when it comes to taking medicine or even to being examined by a physician.

On the other hand, a little boy I know, to whom obedience in general comes very hard, has such respect for the wisdom of physicians and for the helpfulness of medicines that he will undergo a thorough examination and will swallow the bitterest of drugs without even making a wry face.

If you will look about among your acquaintances, I think you will find that those who get really intelligent obedience from their children are the ones who make the least ado about it, and perhaps never use the time-worn phrase, "Now you _must_ mind me." It is the weak person who is constantly forced to make appeals to his authority. It is the weak person who is constantly threatening the child with terrible retributions for his disobedience. Yet none are quicker to detect the weakness, none know better that the threats will not be carried out, than those very children whose obedience we desire thus to obtain.

Many of us get into the habit of placing too many of our wishes in the form of commands or orders to do or not to do, instead of requesting as we would of an equal. Wherever possible we should suggest to the child a line of conduct, so as to make the child feel that he is making a choice. You may say to Johnnie, "Go and get me a pail of water." Or you may say, "Johnnie, please get me a pail of water." Or you may say, "Johnnie, mother needs a pail of water." You will perhaps get just as good service in one case as in another; but the ultimate effect on Johnnie may make the difference between a man who finds work a necessary evil and one who finds work a means of service.

From men who have been successful in managing industries and from women who have managed large households with the least amount of friction we can learn that there is a way of obtaining obedience without imposing upon the minds of those under our authority. Whenever you wish to depart from the usual routine, there is a good reason for the change, and in most cases the reason can be stated with the request. When this is done the order loses the appearance of arbitrariness. If you say to Mary, "I wish you would go out without me this afternoon, as I have some important sewing to finish," you will most likely meet with ready acquiescence. If, however, you say, "You must go alone this afternoon, I can't go with you," and if when Mary dares ask "Why?" you say, "Because I tell you to," you will certainly sow the seeds of rebellion. No self-respecting child will accept such a reason. If at least you make an appeal to your superior judgment, and say, "Mother knows best," there would be something gained. For now you are shifting the basis of the child's conduct from your position of power over her to the highest authority within our reach, namely, good judgment. The child is thus learning to obey not a _person_, but a _principle_.

Expressing your wishes in the form of a request, modified wherever possible by a reason, does not mean that you are to give the child a reason for everything he is asked to do; for if the child has respect for you and feels your sympathy with him, he will do many things that are requested without understanding any reason, but confident, when he does think of the matter, that you have a good reason. In other words, where there have been close sympathy and habitual obedience the parent becomes, in the child's mind, the embodiment of those ideals or principles toward which he feels loyal.

In the same way men and women who give arbitrary commands may get from their a.s.sistants formal obedience, but they never get hearty and intelligent cooperation. Indeed, it is no doubt because we still cling to the traditions of earlier times, when personal loyalty and military types of virtue were so prominent in the minds of men, that we are so slow to learn the need for cooperation in modern times.

The need to-day is for leaders who will inspire their fellows with enthusiasm for cooperation, who will wisely guide their fellows in effective service; and of the corresponding virtues in the followers obedience is _not_ the first.

And yet we must recognize all the time that there are occasions when a person must do what he is told to just because he is told; and it were well for one who has to take orders to be able to do so without fret and bitterness. The child should, however, come sooner or later to distinguish between those commands that arise out of real necessities and those that arise from the pa.s.sion or caprice of other persons. To the former he must learn to submit with the best possible grace, with an effort at understanding, or even with a desire to a.s.similate to himself. To the latter he should submit, when forced to, only under protest, and with the resolve to make himself free.

That confidence is a strong factor in obtaining obedience is well ill.u.s.trated by many boys in every village and town. These boys are notoriously disobedient at home and at school, but on the baseball field they will follow the orders of the captain without question.

They feet that his commands are not arbitrary or thoughtless, that they are not petty and personal, but really for the greatest advantage to those concerned. If we can inspire in our children such confidence in our motives, we shall have little worry about the problem of obedience.

In the training of the child we often forget that the child will some time outgrow his childishness. We must consider not only what is the best kind of behavior for a _child_, but what kinds of habits it is best for a child to develop in view of his some day becoming an adult human being. We want men and women to develop into free agents, that is, people who act in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience and their best judgment. With this aim in view, how much emphasis should then be placed on the matter of obedience?

Since the infant has no will, he must be guided by others for his own safety and for the development of his judgment. But we do not wish him to retain his habits of obedience to others long enough to deprive him of his independence of thought and action. The growing child must learn to repress his own many and conflicting impulses, and to select those that he learns to be best. But if he obeys always, he cannot acquire judgment and responsibility. He learns through obedience to value various kinds of authority, and eventually to choose his authorities; his final authority being his conscience or principle, not impulse or whim. He learns also by questioning the principle of obedience to persons, and comes to guide his conduct by principle or conscience, and not by custom or convention.

We do not wish to train our children for submission, but for judgment and discernment. We must, therefore, respect the child's individuality. We are, however, not obliged to choose between blind, unquestioning obedience and the undignified situations which arise from habitual disobedience. Obedience to persons as a settled habit is bad. The ability to obey promptly and intelligently when the commander's authority is recognized,--to respond to suggestion and guidance,--is desirable. Obedience is a _tool_ the parent may use with wisdom and discretion. It is not an _end_ in discipline or in life.

We should educate _through_ obedience,--that is, cultivate the habit of intelligent response,--but we must not educate _for_ obedience,--that is, the habit of submitting to the will of others.

VII.

THE TRAINING OF THE WILL

After all, what is there about a person that really counts? All experience and all philosophy agree that it is the character; and the central fact in character is the _will_. Yet the will is not something in the soul that exists by itself, as a "faculty" of the mind. The will is a product of all the other processes that go on in the mind, and can not be trained by itself. Neither can the will of the child be expected to come to its own through neglect.

Indeed, although the will can not be trained by itself, its training is even more important than the training of the intellect. The great defect in our moral training has been that we have generally attempted to train our children too exclusively through precepts and mottoes and rules, and too little through activities that lead to the formation of habits. The will depends upon the intellect, but it cannot be trained through _learning_ alone, though learning can be made to help. There are, as we all know, only too many learned men and women with weak wills, and there are many men and women of strong character who have had but little book learning. The will expresses itself through action, and must be trained through action.

But action is impelled by feelings, so the will must be trained also through the feelings. All right education is education of the will.

The will is formed while the child is learning to think, to feel, and to do.

We judge of character by the behavior. But our behavior is not made up entirely of acts of the will. Hundreds of situations occur that do not require individual decision, but are adequately met by acts arising from habit, or even from instinct. The experience of the race has given us many customs and manners which are for the most part satisfactory, and which the child should learn as a matter of course. It is thus important that the child should acquire certain habits as early in life as possible. These habits will not only result in saving of energy, but will also give a.s.surance that in certain situations the child will act in the right way. If it is worth while to have a person knock on a door before entering an occupied room, or if it is worth while to have people look to the left and to the right before crossing a thoroughfare, the child can acquire the habit of doing these things always and everywhere without stopping to make a decision on each occasion.

But we must remember that in guiding the child to the formation of these habits, example and practice are far more important than precepts and rules. Example is more important because the child is very imitative; one rude act on the part of some older member of the household will counteract the benefit of many verbal lessons in politeness. Practice is important because it is through constant repet.i.tion of an act that it at last becomes automatic, and is performed without thought or attention. In fact, this is the only way in which a habit can be formed. Having acquired habits about the common relations of life that do not call for new adjustment every time they are met, the mind is left free to apply itself to problems that really need special consideration. Imagine how wasteful it would be if we had to attend to every movement in dressing ourselves! You can easily see that there are a great many acts that bring us in relation to others and that should be as mechanical and automatic as dressing and undressing.

It is when we pa.s.s from the routine acts which are repeated every day that we come to the field in which the will holds sway. There is nothing more helpful in the training of the will than the frequent performance of tasks requiring application, self control, and the making of decisions. The routine of fixed duties in a large and complex household furnished to our grandparents, during their youth, just the opportunity for the formation of habits in attending to what needed to be done, without regard to the momentary impulse or mood. Many of our modern homes are so devoid of such opportunities that there is great danger that our children will have altogether too much practice in following their whims and caprices--or in doing nothing.

It is just because the modern home is so devoid of the opportunities for carrying on these character-building activities that provision must be made in that other great educational inst.i.tution, the school. All the newer activities of the school, the shop work and the school garden, the domestic science and the sewing, the recreation centres, the art and the music--all these so-called "fads and frills" against which the taxpayer raises his voice in protest-- these prove to be even more important in the making of men and women out of children than the respectable and acceptable subjects of the old-fashioned school; for these activities are but organized and planned subst.i.tutes for the incidental doings of the childhood of other days. They are the formal subst.i.tutes for the activities by means of which a past generation of men and women acquired that will-training and that insight into relations which distinguished their characters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Habits of careful work furnish a good foundation for the will.]

All systematic and sustained effort, whether in organizing a game or carrying a garden through from the sowing to the harvest, whether in making a dress or a chest of drawers, has its moral value as training in application, self-control, and decision, quite distinct from its contribution to knowledge or skill.

Two or three generations ago no thought whatever was given to the child's point of view; the authority of parents was absolute, and there were many unhappy childhoods. To-day we wish to avoid these errors, and by studying the child we hope to adjust our treatment to his nature and his needs.

But we must be on our guard against the danger of going to the extreme of attributing to the child ideas and instincts which he does not possess. In former times it was considered one of the mother's chief duties to "break the child's will"; to-day, realizing the importance of a strong will, we are in danger of a.s.suming that a child's stubbornness or wilfulness is a manifestation of a strong will, and we hesitate to interfere with it.

This is an entirely false a.s.sumption. In the first place, a child up to the age of about three years has no will; he can only have strong desires or impulses, or pet aversions. During this period the mother's will must be his will, and there can be no clash of wills.

But, to be his will, the mother must guide the child in accordance with _his_ needs, _his_ instincts,--that is, in accordance with his nature, and not in accordance with her convenience or caprice. She must bear constantly in mind that the child is not merely a miniature man or woman, but that each stage in his development represents a distinct combination of instincts, impulses and capacities. If, for example, your little girl is digging in the dirt--a very _natural_ and healthful activity--and you stop her for no better reason than that she will soil her hands or clothes, you are unduly interfering with her, and if you continue in that way, you will either make a defiant, disagreeable youngster or a servile, cringing slave to arbitrary authority. On the other hand, if Johnny should wish to play with a knife or a box of matches, it manifestly devolves upon you to take these objects away from him, no matter how strong his desire to have them may be. But it also devolves upon you to see that such harmful objects are not very easy for him to obtain and to see to it that plenty of other harmless things are provided for him.

This suggests a common mistake parents and loving friends often make in meeting the uncomfortable a.s.sertions of the child's will. When the child cries for the moon, you try to get him interested in a jack-in-the-box; and when he wants a fragile piece of bric-a-brac-- you try to subst.i.tute for it a tin whistle. With a very young child, that is about all you can do. But a time comes when the child is old enough to know the difference between that upon which he has set his heart and that which you have subst.i.tuted for it in his hand. At this time you must stop offering subst.i.tutes. The child is now old enough to understand that some things are _not_ to be had, and that crying for them will not bring them. To offer him a subst.i.tute is now not only an insult to his intelligence, but it is demoralizing to his will; it makes for a loose hold upon the object of his desire--and it is the firmness of this hold that is the beginning of a strong will. It does not take the child long to learn that he is not to have a knife or a lighted lamp; nor does it take him long to get into the way of scattering his desires, so that he has no will at all.

In the second place, the a.s.sumption that stubbornness is a sign of strength is false, even for older children. Stubbornness is, in fact, a sign of weakness. It indicates that the child is either incapable of adjusting himself to the appeal that is made to his judgment or feelings, or that his weakness will make it impossible for him in the presence of his immediate desire to recognize the superior judgment and authority of his elders, at home or in school.

It takes much more will power to give in than to carry one's point.

But we must always make sure that _we_ are not the obstinate and wilful ones. If you have a very good reason for not wanting Helen to go to the dance--even if she is too young to understand that reason--you are perfectly justified in carrying your point. If your reason is a wise one, she will come to see it in time and will honor and respect you all the more for not having given in to her impetuous and immature desire. If she gives in gracefully, because she can understand the reasons, or just out of respect for your wishes, having found your guidance wise before, hers as well as yours is the triumph. The only thing of which we must make sure is that we are right to the best of our understanding, and that we do not insist upon having our way just because,--oh, well, just because we have a right to have our way, being in authority. As G. Stanley Hall, the father of child study in this country, has so well said: "Our will should be a rock, not a wave; our requirements should be uniform, with no whim, no mood or periodicity about them." Having made sure of ourselves, we need not fear that training our wilful children will weaken their will.

We must not neglect to consider the very close relation that exists between the health of the body and the health of the spirit. A strong will, showing itself in ability to concentrate its efforts on a chosen purpose, is not to be expected in a child whose muscles are flabby and whose nerves quickly tire. Since the will expresses itself in action, it can be best cultivated in a body capable of vigorous action.

The young child is not only a bundle of bones and muscles; it is also a bundle of impulses. And some of these impulses lead to actions that are quite desirable, while others lead to actions that are indifferent, and still others to actions that are decidedly undesirable. But, so far as the child is concerned, he has no means of discriminating between one kind of impulse and another. He would just as soon carry poison to his mouth as good food; he would rather grasp at a flame than at a harmless rattle. One of the essentials then becomes suitable knowledge. As the child grows older he should gradually learn that knowledge is necessary to wise choice. It is not so much the knowledge of what is commonly called "good" or "evil" as the knowledge of relations and needs that will enable him to choose ends, and to choose effective means toward those ends. Yet we cannot begin too early to have such considerations as "It is right," or "It is best," rather than "I want it," influence the conduct of our children. But, in order to do the right, we have to _know_ the right, and the children who get these moral lessons in their homes are fortunate indeed. It is here the child should acquire his feeling of loyalty to duty, for such lessons learned in the home are the most impressive and the most enduring. We must also make certain that children all through their lives at home are given opportunity for choice and decision.

In this matter of making decisions there is a great deal of individual variation, and even distinct types of persons have been described, according to the way they reach decisions. At one extreme is the child--or the grown person--who apparently without any effort balances the reasons that may be given on the opposite sides of a problem, and makes his choice solely on the strength of the reasoned argument. Herbert Spencer tells in his Autobiography how, when a young man, he wrote down, as in a ledger, all the advantages and all the disadvantages he could think of in regard to the married state.

After checking off the items on the two sides of the account, he found a balance in favor of remaining single. Later in life he had his doubts as to whether the decision was a wise one, but it was the best he could make under the circ.u.mstances, for he made use of all the knowledge at his command and stood by his reasoned decision.

At the opposite extreme is the person who resolves to do what is right (although he may have no systematic means of discovering what is right), and carries out his resolution at the cost of frequently painful effort. To such persons there is a kind of a.s.sociation between what is easy and what is wrong on the one hand, and between what is difficult and what is right on the other. Our early Puritans were men of this type, and there is much to admire in the st.u.r.diness with which they crushed their impulses in the resolve to carry out their ideals of the right.