Parental Example. - Let us take no step we would not want our child to take. Think no thought and speak no word we would object to the child's thinking or speaking. Let us conquer our fears, our tempers, our jealousies, our malicious moments and rise cheerful and courageous before every trial and emergency. \AI e are fearful and imbue the child with a timidity which stubbornly persists in later life. Banish all gruesome stories, whether in newspaper or story-book, from the child and keep ever before the mind in its plastic, formative stage, suggestions of strength, courage and innate power over all adverse conditions.
Temper in Children as in grown persons-is misdirected energy. As it is necessary to remind many grown ups, so these high-tempered little ones must also be taught that the brain centers of energy situated in the side head, were given us by the Creator so that man might have the force necessary to hew down forests, bridge great rivers, tunnel mountains, even conquer the air with his flying machines; but that to spend God-given forces in ugly tempers and silly brainstorms, is a wicked waste of what God meant to be expended only in the ways to make us and others happy.
To one very violent tempered little chap I explained this matter carefully, and when he was rather inclined to excuse himself, "because if I've got that kind of a head, I can't help it," I asked him which he would rather be, one of the great Southern Pacific locomotives he saw drawing its heavy train of cars to the top of the Siskiyous every day, or just a little one-horse stationary engine? He interrupted eagerly, "You mean a donkey engine, do you?" I said "Yes, which would you rather be?" "Why, I'd rather be one of the mountain engines, of course." "Well," said I, "that is what you are; you have physical and brain force enough to carry your life freight to the very topmost peak of the mountain. But," I added, "what happens if the engineer loses control and the big engine plunges down the mountain side?" "Oh," he said, "things go all to smash and the bigger the engine the bigger the smash."
No more words were needed. The lesson sank deeply enough to put a stop to this little engineer's violent fits of temper. Our children should early learn that they are the engineers of their own destiny. Force, firmness and self esteem must be tempered with kindness, caution, deliberation and reason, or become a menace and not a blessing.
Guard the Soul of the Child. - The grown person who belittles a child, weakening his self respect and self confidence by arbitrarily placing him in the ranks of the incompetent or incorrigible, has planted a suggestion which may bear terrible fruit in days to come.
Years ago, at the bedside of a small boy who lay very ill with pneumonia, the attending physician with criminal thoughtlessness, remarked that the little fellow had "the head of a murderer." Years later when I met this motherless lad in a Western reform school where I had been invited to speak, he asked me anxiously if I agreed with the physician. I most emphatically did not and assured him of my belief that a successful and useful career was in store for him.
Just how far that baneful suggestion had sunk into the subconscious mind of the sick child and influenced him to the reckless course which finally led to the gates of the reform school, it would be hard to say. I only pray that the counter suggestion of hope and encouragement which I earnestly tried to plant in its stead may bear fruit as positive in results.
Corporal Punishment - In many homes all advise and reproof are so abruptly administered, that it is hard for the child to see in them anything but an exhibition of parental irritability and bad temper.
Plutarch writes that "sensible minds, however volatile and inattentive in early years, may be drawn to their duty by many means which shame and fears of a more liberal nature than those of corporal punishment will supply. When there is but little sensibility the effect of that mode of punishment is not more happy. It destroys that little, though it should be the first care and labor of the preceptor to increase it. To beat the body is to deface the mind. Nothing so soon or so totally abolishes the sense of shame, and yet that sense is at once the best preservative of virtue and the greatest incentive to every species of excellence."
To whip a child of a highly sensitive organism is shattering to the nerves and inflicts agonies of suffering upon both mind and body which leave their indelible mark upon the character. Love, sympathy, understanding and above all an abiding faith in the spirit of good innate in every human soul, must be deep rooted in the heart of one who would exert a lasting and beneficent influence upon youthful lives.
The Difference. - No two children can be treated alike. One seems to anticipate the desires of the parent and delights at all times in co-operating with the parents' or teachers' wishes. Another must not only be definitely instructed but supervised until the task assigned is completed; a third must needs be shown the reason for every request or command.
The first child is gentle, agreeable, its virtues frequently commented upon by older people until a smug self righteousness may be induced which soon mars a naturally beautiful character. In any case, unquestioning acquiescence may be carried too far, producing a nature too pliant for safety, as the years go by.
The second child is either unobservant, indolent or selfwilled. It will be well to discover which of these traits needs correction. Often the fault lies with the parent. The task assigned may be out of proportion to the child's abilities, or he may not have been fitted for it by previous preparation.
The third-the child who demands to know why-has a commendable appetite for knowledge which should be satisfied with explanations whenever possible to make them. Further, he must be taught that at times instant, unquestioning obedience is imperative. A woman who, with quick wit, challenged her small son for a race to the stone wall to save him from an adder lying in wait beyond her reach, and directly in the path of the child-had no time for argument. Instant acquiescence was his only salvation: and the mother took the right way to win it; for the boy turned without hesitation and dashed in pursuit of her.
Priceless to the world and to the child is that parent so self-controlled as to give son or daughter no occasion to doubt parental wisdom and justice.
Subterfuge is dangerous. Arbitrary rules are likely to prove disastrous; but the child should have it made clear that the knowledge and experience of father and mother are far better guides in conduct than his own brief years and inexperience.