Your Child Today and Tomorrow | Page 8

allow so much time to elapse as to make the
child lose the connection between his act and the consequence. A little
boy at breakfast threw some salt upon his sister's apple in a spirit of
mischief. The mother sent him out of the room and told him that he
would have to go to bed two hours earlier than usual that night as a
punishment for his misdeed. Now we all know that "the days of youth
are long, long days," and the many events of that day had completely
crowded out of the little boy's mind the trivial, impulsive act of the
morning. The punishment could not arouse in him any feeling but that
of unjust privation.
This particular case illustrates three other problems in connection with
punishment. In the first place, nothing that is considered desirable or
beneficial should be brought into disfavor by being used as a
punishment. Sleep is a blessing, and, it may be said in general, no
healthy child gets too much of it. By imposing two hours of additional
sleep upon the child the mother discredits sleeping. It isn't logical. It is
as unreasonable as that once favorite punishment of teachers, now
rapidly being discarded, of keeping children after school. On the one
side they are told how grateful they should be for this great boon of
education, and for being allowed to come to school, and then they are
told: "You have been very bad and troublesome to-day; as a

punishment you shall have an extra hour of this great privilege."
The second point is that no punishment should ever deprive a child of
conditions that are necessary for his health or impose conditions that
are harmful. And, finally, it is not wise to exaggerate the importance of
trivial acts by treating them too seriously. The little boy tried to be
"smart" when he threw that salt. With nearly every child it would be
sufficient, in a case like this, to make him feel that it was really very
silly and that he had made himself ridiculous in the eyes of the family.
Very often the seriousness of a child's offence is greatly exaggerated.
We must not waste our ammunition on these small matters; if we use
our strongest terms of disapproval for the many little everyday
vexations, we shall be left quite without resource when something
really serious does occur. Children are very sensitive to such
exaggerations, and their attention is so much taken up with the injustice
of making a big ado about such trifles that they overlook what is
reprehensible in their own conduct.
Some of the greatest authorities believe that a child should be allowed
to suffer the consequences of his deeds. We should borrow from nature,
they say, her method of dealing with offenders. If a child touches fire
he will be burnt, and each time the same effect will follow his deed.
Why not let our punishments be as certain and uniform in their reaction?
To a certain extent this plan can be followed. If a little girl stubbornly
refuses to wear her mittens, it is all right to let her suffer the
consequences, the natural consequences--and let her hands get quite
cold.
But this principle cannot be consistently applied as a general method. If
a child insists upon leaning far out of the window it would be foolish to
let him suffer the consequences and fall, possibly to his death. Part of
our function is to prevent our children from suffering all the possible
consequences of their actions. We are here to guide them and to protect
them.
To abandon the child to the natural consequences of his moral actions
would be even more harmful, for very often we must separate the child

from his fault. This is true in a double sense. In the first place, we are
concerned chiefly in removing the child's faults, as a physician seeks to
separate a patient from his sickness. But we must also avoid the error of
identifying any fault with the fundamental nature of the child; that is,
we must keep before us the character of the child as distinct from the
wrong acts which the child may commit. If a child lies, that does not
make of him a liar, any more than does his failure to understand what
he has just been told make of him a blockhead. Yet the natural
consequence of lying, for instance, is to be mistrusted in the future--to
be branded a liar. This, however, is one of the worst things that can
happen to a child, and one of the surest ways of making him a habitual
liar. Many children pass through a stage in which they naturally come
to have the feeling which is expressed in the saying: "If