Your Child: Today and Tomorrow Part 8

It is impossible to enumerate all the indoor group games that are offered, but in selecting a game you must make sure that it really has some sense in it, and that it does not stimulate the gambling spirit, as do so many of the games with dice or a spinning wheel as a part of the equipment.

All toys that encourage healthy outdoor sports are worth while. A great deal of the progress in toy-making has been along mechanical lines, until we are confronted with the most intricate mechanical contrivances. They are interesting at an exhibition, and most likely the child will be attracted by them and will want them, but only to look at and own. He will tire of them much more quickly than he would of the simple, usable toy. In this respect the children of the rich are to be pitied. They are overloaded with these expensive, mechanical toys which overstimulate them at first and later bore them. The educative value of simple games with sticks and stones, or anything the child may happen to pick up, is far greater and calls for more exercise of imagination and ingenuity and the other qualities we desire to foster than is that of the elaborate mechanical toys.

It would be very desirable if all the skill and enterprise that is devoted to the development of the toy industry were applied to making toys simpler, more durable, and cheaper, instead of making them more elaborate, more realistic, and more flimsy. However, the desirable kinds of toys will not be manufactured in larger quant.i.ties until an enlightened parenthood both demands them and refuses to buy the glittering heart-breakers that look so charming in the shop, but go to pieces in the child's hands.

It is far better to have fewer and better toys than more of an inferior quality. The thing to keep in mind is that a toy is neither an artistic model, an aesthetic ornament, nor a mechanical spectacle, but should be a stimulus to call forth self-activity, invention, ingenuity, imagination, and skill.

X.

CHILDREN'S GANGS, CLUBS, AND FRIENDSHIPS

"What a plague boys are!" sighed Mrs. Brown. "That White boy has been getting our Harry into all sorts of mischief, and I can't make Harry give up that gang."

Mrs. Green agreed that boys were a plague. Her Jack went with a lot of boys, too, and they were always up to some sort of tricks which she was quite sure _her_ boy would never do if it were not for those other boys. And Mrs. Green was right. Any boy will do things when he is with the gang that he never would think of doing alone-- and that he wouldn't dare to do alone, if he did think of them. Even your boy--and mine, too, I hope. That's the way of boys.

What we mothers will have to do is to stop fretting about the other boys in the gang who spoil our boys, and about the mischief and noise and dirty boots and staying away late for meals, and get down to a practical way of making all the boys in the gang as we find them into a lot of decent young men. We shall have to stop trying to make boys do what it is impossible for them to do; and we shall have to stop trying to keep the boys from doing what it is absolutely necessary that they should do, if they are to develop into the decent young men we have in mind.

The modern way, the efficient way, of treating children is to find out their instincts and then use these almost irresistible forces of nature as a means of directing their development. And that is what we shall have to do with the boy and his gang, and that is what we shall have to do with the girl and her set. The boy is a more serious problem because, under the promptings of his instincts, he soon becomes indifferent to the attractions and amus.e.m.e.nts of the home and seeks the companionship of boys of his own age, and he seeks activities that cannot, for the most part, be carried on in the home. The girl, on the other hand, remains much longer subject to the will of her mother and to the conventions and standards of the home; she remains for a longer period satisfied with the kinds of activities that can be carried on at home.

We have been told over and over again that the instincts of childhood are all for activity, and a few of us have trained ourselves not to expect the children to _be still_ all the time. Of course, there are times when we simply must have them be still, and, of course, we allow the teachers to insist upon the children being still in school. But we recognize that they must play and romp and run and shout, and we are willing even to spend public funds for playgrounds. This shows that we can learn, and that we can make use of our knowledge. It is necessary only that we extend our knowledge of the instincts of our children just as fast as we can make use of more.

Up to the age of about ten, boys are apparently satisfied to play games by themselves, or to play with others in ways that let each look out pretty much for himself. At this age, however, a change begins to appear. Now the boy tends to a.s.sociate himself with others of the same age, and before you know it your son "belongs" to some "gang." Every street in a town and every corner in a city has its gang. And if your boy has red blood and hard grit in him, he is a member of one of these gangs. He can't help it. He does not join because it is the fashion, or because he is afraid to keep out, or because he has social ambitions. He joins because it is his instinct to join with others in carrying on the activities to which other instincts drive him. If you stand in the way of the gang, you are fighting against one of the strongest forces in human nature.

Now if you feel the way Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Green felt about the gangs, I do not blame you. But you must not stop there. Let's try to find out first what the gang means to the boys and what it means to the race. When a boy joins a gang, he does not discard his instinct for play or for running and shouting. He simply takes on a new relation to the world about him. As a member of the gang, he still runs and plays and shouts; but now he has become conscious of his place in the world, and that place is with his fellow-members, surrounded by all sorts of enemies and dangers and obstacles to his well-being. In his gang he finds comfort and support for his struggle with the outside world. Here he finds opportunity for satisfying exchange of thought; here he finds sympathy and understanding such as he can get nowhere else.

The gang, without a written code in most cases, without formal rules, without very definite aims, even, nevertheless has a moral scheme of its own that every boy understands and lives up to as earnestly and as devotedly as ever man followed the dictates of conscience. The gang demands of the boy unfailing loyalty, and--what is more--it usually gets it. Of how many other inst.i.tutions or organizations can as much be said? The gang demands fair play and fidelity among its members, and it usually gets these. The gang demands devotion and self-sacrifice of its members, and the boy who cannot show these qualities becomes more effectually ostracized than any defaulting bank official or corrupt politician. These fine virtues, then--loyalty, honor, devotion--are cultivated by the gang just at the time when the instincts for them are strongest, and at a time when no other agency is prepared to do the work.

For you will realize, when you once think of it, how much we coddle the baby when he is cute, how we shower him with toys far in excess of what he can use or enjoy, how we fuss and fondle him, and how much thought we give to every possible and impossible want; and how, on the other hand, we neglect the boy when he enters upon that most unattractive, but very critical, age in which he finds other boys more interesting than his sister and her dolls, when he cares more for other boys than he does for his mother and her parlor, when he thinks more of the "fellers" than he does of his teacher and her lessons. Just at this time, when the boy is beginning to wonder vaguely and to long just as indefinitely, we abandon him to his own resources and to Mrs. White's Bob, the leader of the gang.

The problem that confronts us is: How can we save and strengthen the fine qualities which this spontaneous a.s.sociation with other boys produces without encouraging the lawlessness and the destructiveness and the secretiveness of the gang? First of all, we mothers must recognize not only that the boy cannot be happy without his a.s.sociates, but also that the social virtues will never be developed in him at all if we keep him at home away from the others or restricted to one or two play-mates--which we may like to select for him. Then, when this is perfectly clear to us, we will take the next step, which will be to use all the resources of the homes and of the community to change the antisocial gang into a club. The difference between a gang and a _club_ is not a matter of clean clothes and "nice" manners. It is a difference in mental att.i.tude. The gang has rules and it has power. The club has put its rules into form and it _knows_ what it can do and what it wants to do. In other words, the gang is a casual, random group that drifts about in the village or in the city, subject to every pa.s.sing influence, whereas the club is a deliberate, purposeful organization with definite aims and developments. Both meet the needs of the growing boy for a.s.sociation; both give the social instincts and virtues suitable opportunity for exercise.

This problem of giving the boys a chance to get together and do what their instincts drive them to do is not one merely for the mothers who can provide for their boys little or no supervision, and whose boys play in the streets and vacant lots. The problem is just as great in the case of the well-to-do, who provide constant supervision for their children. Indeed, it is a serious question whether the condition of the children of wealthier families is not in this respect more dangerous than that of the less wealthy. With the boys of the street the problem is how to divert the activities into suitable channels; with the closely-guarded boys of the wealthy the problem is how to develop the spirit of loyalty and self-sacrifice and honor, which have been suppressed by the restricted and artificial a.s.sociations of the solicitous home. Both kinds of boys must be left free to form their own a.s.sociations, but the groups must be so directed in their club activities (without, however, suspecting that they are being directed) as to connect their interests with lawful amus.e.m.e.nts, civic needs, and social relations. The great danger is that when adults take a hand in these matters they fix their attention upon the civic and moral virtues and overlook the instincts of activity and sociability which call the gang into being, and the club degenerates into a preachy Sunday- school cla.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The boys need a chance to get together.]

In organizing clubs, or rather in presenting opportunities for the organization of clubs, we must recognize that bodily activity, taking the form of athletics, or of workshop effort, or of camping, hunting, etc., is a fundamental condition of healthy growth for the boys and girls. As every group must have its meeting place, this should be first provided, and it should be of a nature that allows gymnastics and hammering and boxing to go on without any restrictions beyond those required by the nature of the little animals. That is, there is need for sleep and rest and meals--and perhaps certain definite hours for school and church--but beyond such disagreeable though necessary interruptions the meeting place of the club should be a busy place at all decent hours. We are tempted to force literature and debating upon our clubs; these things usually come later, and appeal at best to but relatively few boys. Literature and debating are good, but they can never take the place of parallel bars and boxing gloves and hammer and saw.

We are also tempted to pick out the boys for the clubs that we are interested in. This is a serious mistake. It is this sort of thing that causes the failure of so many well-meaning attempts to redeem the children of the "slums" or of the street. We must let the groups form spontaneously; the boys' instincts are keener in detecting the sneak and the coward and the traitor than yours are, and if the club has the right start, the undesirable citizen will either adopt the morals of the club or be squeezed out. And the right start is chiefly a good meeting place. It is here that the church and the school and the home can cooperate. In the larger cities the settlement has pointed the way by carrying on practically all of the work with children through the medium of clubs.

It is not necessary for every parent to furnish a suitable meeting place; indeed, each club needs only one meeting place. But every home can contribute something. If you have not the suitable garret or barn or shed, you can supply the baseball outfit, or the Indian clubs, or the work-bench, or some of the tools. You can lend your homes for those not very frequent occasions when the boys are quite satisfied to have a quiet evening of table games or theatricals, or imitation camp-fire with chestnuts to roast and songs to sing. You can make up lunch-baskets for fishing or tramping trips, or you can sew tapes on the old pants for "uniforms."

It does not matter so much _what_ you do, so long as you do as much as you can, and, above all, if you show an "interest." The bond of sympathy and intimacy that comes from such an understanding and from the hearty cooperation of the home with these natural instincts of the children is an immense gain to the individual parent, as well as to the individual child. Instead of friction and opposition of forces, there results a cooperation of forces that all make for good.

As for the community, the village or town that can provide meeting places for all of its groups of young people, under the direction of those who understand them and sympathize with them, with suitable equipment for physical activities of all kinds, can make no better investment of the money that such a venture would cost. For it is in such a.s.sociation that the boys and girls learn to be members of a group, and eventually of the larger group that includes us all. The good citizen is the one who has developed the instincts of loyalty and devotion and self-sacrifice and honor, and has directed them toward the community. The bad citizen is the one in whom these virtues were never developed, or one in whom these traits remain in the gang stage.

In the attempts that have been made to direct the instincts of children we have given the boys much more attention than the girls, for the simple reason that the boys have given us more trouble.

Still, the girls should not be neglected. They are ent.i.tled to all the advantages that can be derived from organized opportunity to a.s.sociate with one another and to develop the social virtues. They should also have the opportunity for physical exercise and development which the boy gets because he makes violent demand for it, but which the girl needs just as much.

It has been found unwise to have mixed clubs of boys and girls in the early years, and even later, when girls and boys could profitably a.s.sociate together, they like to have their separate groups for special activities. For the strictly sociable times, however, boys and girls may be brought together at any age.

Apart from the other advantages to be gained from the club, the girl or boy will be saved from his friends. There is a real danger that children who do not get into larger groups will take up with a single chum or intimate. While it is true that many lasting and valued friendships start in these early years, the danger is nevertheless a serious one. Chums or intimates, in their tendency to get away from other people, may do nothing worse than carry on silly conversations; but they may also read pernicious literature and develop bad habits. Activities in a group are more open and less likely to be of a secret nature.

Intimacies at this early age will spring up for all kinds of superficial reasons. In a study made some years ago these were some of the reasons given for the formation of friendships: "We were cousins," "He taught me to swim," "We had the same birthday," "She had a red ap.r.o.n," "Her brown eyes and hair," "Neither of us had a sister." A large proportion of the children who were questioned gave as the only reason for their intimate friendship the fact that they "live near each other." However absurd these reasons may appear to us, we are compelled by what we know of the child's mind to respect these attachments. But if there is any danger in the intimacy--and there often is--the only remedy is encouragement of a.s.sociation in a large group. "There is safety in numbers."

So, whether we are more concerned with the mischief done by the gang, or with the danger of intimate chums, whether we care more for the development of good citizenship in boys and girls, or merely to make the children happy while they are growing up, it is necessary for parents to use all the means at their disposal to organize and encourage the social activities of the young people to the fullest extent.

XI.

CHILDREN'S IDEALS AND AMBITIONS

When you take pains to instruct your children in the way they should go, it is because you have in mind certain standards of what a child should do, or of what kind of an adult you wish your child to become. In other words, you look to your ideals to guide you in the training of the child. We all appreciate more or less vaguely the importance of ideals in shaping character, and for this reason we value ideals, although it is considered smart for adults to sneer at ideals and idealism--which are supposed somehow to be opposed to the "practical" affairs of life. But in a way there is nothing more truly practical than a worthy ideal.

Where there is no vision the people perish; and that is just as true of the individual as it is of a nation. Moreover, it is the _youth_ who shall see the visions and draw from them the inspiration for higher and better things. Fortunately, every normal child develops ideals. It is for more experienced people to provide the opportunities for the formation of desirable ideals, to guide the ideals after they are formed into practicable channels, to use the ideals to reinforce the will in carrying out our practical purposes in the training of the child.

You no doubt find it easy enough to recognize and to encourage ideals that are in harmony with your own, or that seem to you worthy and likely to have a favorable influence upon your child's career or character. When five-year-old Freddy says that he wants to become a lawyer or a doctor, you encourage him. You say, "That's fine, my boy," and in your mind's eye you see him climbing to fame and fortune. But when Freddy says that he wants to be a policeman and marry the candy-lady, you laugh at him, and you certainly do _not_ encourage him. But in Freddy's mind doctor and lawyer mean no more than policeman; they involve no more important social service, they mean no more dignity in personal position, they suggest nothing more of anything that is worth while. For whatever it is that Freddy wants to be at any moment is to him the sum of all that is to him worth while--and that is just what an ideal ought to be.

This is not a plea to cruel parents in behalf of smoothing Freddy's path toward the coveted post--or the course of his courtship of the candy-lady's daughter. It is simply an effort to point out how important it is to avoid shattering early in life that precious mirror in which alone visions are to be seen. When you have ridiculed the policeman out of further consideration, you are likely with the same act to have weakened Freddy's faith in ideals--and to this extent you have loosened one of the safest props of his character. We need not be afraid of the crude and short-sighted ideals of the young child. With the growth of his experience his ideals will expand. We should fear rather to infect him with the vulgar disrespect for all ideals.

In a few years Freddy has his heart set on charting the blank s.p.a.ces on his geography map, and he has never a thought for the girls. It is the same Freddy, but he has in the meanwhile roamed far from the home neighborhood--in imagination--and has discovered new heroes and new types of heroism. The policeman and the candy-lady are still at their old posts, but Freddy ignores them because his ideals have grown with his experience and his information, as well as with his bodily growth and development.

Study of thousands of children in all parts of this country, in England and in Germany, has shown that the young people begin to form ideal images of what they consider desirable, or beautiful, or right rather early in life. They form ideals of virtue as well as ideals of happiness, and these ideals reflect their experiences and their surroundings to a remarkable degree. Thus, there are differences between the ideals formed by country children and those formed by city children, between the ideals of poor children and those of wealthy ones, between the ideals of English children and those of American or German children. But, aside from all these differences, it is found that the ideals vary with the s.e.x of the child, and also with the age, so that each child pa.s.ses through a series of stages marked by characteristic types of ideals.

As early as the age of nine years children have expressed themselves as looking forward to "doing good" in the world, or to making themselves "good." The age at which this impulse to service or to personal perfection may take form must depend upon many things besides the peculiar characteristics of the individual child.

Jessie's ideals concerning "being good" will be shaped by what she hears and sees about her. If you speak frequently about the foreign missions, she may think of being good as something that has to do with the heathen. If the family conversation takes into consideration the sick and the needy, Jessie's ideal may be dressed like a Red Cross nurse. If you never speak of the larger problems of community welfare, or of social needs, or of moral advance in the home, where Robert has a chance to hear you, he can get suggestions toward such ideals only after he has read enough to become acquainted with these problems and the corresponding lines of service for himself.

Answers received from hundreds of girls and boys would seem to show that virtue and goodness are desirable to children at a certain stage of their development chiefly, if not solely, because they bring material or social benefits. Virtue is rewarded not by any internal or spiritual satisfaction, but by freer access to the candy supply or to the skating pond. The right is that which is allowable, or that which may be practiced with impunity. The wrong is that which is forbidden or punishable. Of course, this att.i.tude toward moral values should not continue through life. We should do what we can to establish higher ideals of right and wrong. How soon this change will come must depend very largely on where the emphasis is laid by those around the child. If, when you give Robert a piece of candy, you always impress him with the idea that this is his compensation for having been "good," he will retain this a.s.sociation between virtue and material reward long past the age when he can already appreciate the satisfaction that comes from exercising his instinct to be helpful, or from doing what he thinks is right. If, however, the idea in the home is that all goes well and all feel cheerful and happy because every one is trying to do the right thing, the various indulgences and liberties will mean to the child merely the material manifestations of the good feeling that prevails, and not rewards of virtue. So far as possible, rewards and punishments should be directed toward the _deed_ and not the child. The aim should be to make the child derive his highest satisfaction from carrying out his own ideals of conduct, rather than from the reward for that conduct. The approbation of those he honors and loves should gradually replace the material reward.

To the child the ideal of success may mean two entirely different things. At one stage it may mean the satisfaction of accomplishing a set task, whether selected by himself or imposed by some one else.

Later, it comes to mean excelling some other child in a contest.

Even a child of four or five years gets a great deal of satisfaction from contemplating a house he has built out of his blocks, or the row of mud pies. This satisfaction gradually comes to be something quite distinct from the pleasure of _doing_, and is an important element in the ideal of workmanship. As the child grows older the ideal of successful accomplishment grows stronger, and, if it is retained throughout life, it contributes a large share toward the individual's happiness.

Most of the school activities of our children lay too much emphasis upon the ideal of successful rivalry, and too little upon the ideal of high achievement. The ideal set before the children is not frequently enough that of doing the best that is in them, and too frequently that of doing merely better than the neighbor--which may be poor enough.

Some of the work done with children in clubs, outside of schools, has brought out the instinct for an ideal of achievement in a very good way. Richard came home quite breathless when he was able to report that he could start a fire on a windy day, using but a single match!

In some of the more modern organizations, for girls as well as for boys, graded tasks are a.s.signed as tests of individual proficiency or prowess. Every girl and every boy must pa.s.s these standards, without regard to what the others do. The result of encouraging this ideal is likely to be an increased sense of responsibility, well as an increased self-respect; whereas the ideal of "beating" others may in many cases keep the girl or boy at a rather low level of achievement, compared to the child's own capacity.

This compet.i.tive ideal is ill.u.s.trated by the girl who is ambitious to stand at the head of her cla.s.s, and receives encouragement enough. But we give very little thought to the child whose ideals are for service to others or to the community. It is very often the same child that at one time glories in successful emulation under the encouragement of our approval, and that later fails to develop the germs of altruistic ideals because we fail to recognize, or at least to encourage, them. We cannot expect from the schools an early change of emphasis from the compet.i.tive type of ambition to the ideal of cooperation or service, although the teachers who have tried to encourage the latter have found the school work to proceed more satisfactorily than it does under the spirit of emulation. But in the home it should be much easier to encourage these higher types of ideals, for we do not have to set one child against the other, and there is greater opportunity for individual service on account of the greater differences in the ages and attainments of the children.

It is interesting and significant that, of the thousands of children who have given expression to their ideals and ambitions, a very small number--less than one in every hundred--have appeared to be quite content with themselves and with their surroundings. The normal child craves for some thing better, and roams as far afield as his knowledge and opportunities let him in his search for the best. It is during the years from the tenth to the fifteenth or sixteenth that this search is keenest, and during this period we should present to the children every opportunity for becoming acquainted with what has been considered best in the history of the race. The reading that the boy or girl does at this time is perhaps the most important source of ideals.

The selection of suitable books for the young is in itself an important problem, and one that many of us are apt to neglect. It is impossible to judge of the desirability or suitableness of a book from its appearance, or from its price, or from the standing of its publishers, or even from the repute of the author. Many attractive-looking books are not only worthless, but positively objectionable. If it is not possible for you to examine carefully each book that you consider buying, you should make use of an annotated list, or seek competent counsel in some other form.

Through libraries and various a.s.sociations it is now possible to obtain carefully prepared lists that will be helpful in selecting books for children of all ages.