Your Child Today and Tomorrow | Page 9

I have the name,
I may as well have the game." We must show the child that we have
unbounded confidence in him, otherwise he will lose faith in himself.
It is clear, then, that the "natural" method will not work in such cases,
for the impulse to condemn the child after he has committed a wrong
deed, instead of condemning the deed, may merely help to fix upon him
the habit of committing similar deeds in the future.
In Nature, too, the same punishment invariably follows the same
offence. If we try to imitate that method, the child soon learns what he
has to reckon with. If the child knows that a certain action will produce
a certain result, he often thinks it is worth the price. Then the child feels
that he has had his way, and, having paid the price, the account is
squared; so he feels justified in doing the same thing again. In
following this course we defeat our own ends, as this kind of
punishment does not act as a fine moral deterrent.
Scolding as a punishment is also not efficacious. We are justified in
having our indignation aroused at times and in letting the offender feel
our displeasure. There is something calm and impressive about genuine
indignation, while scolding is apt to become nagging and to arouse
contempt in the child.
When we consider the many difficulties of finding a punishment
exactly fitted to the offence in a way that will make the offender avoid

repetition, we are tempted to resort to sermonizing and reasoning, for
through our words we hope at times to establish in the child's mind a
direct relation between his conduct and the undesirable consequences
that spring from it.
In doing this, however, we should not speak in generalities, but bring
before the child's mind concrete examples of his own objectionable acts
from recent experience. It is useless to tell John how important it is to
be punctual and let it go at that; it is not enough even to tell him that he
often fails to be on time. If you can remind him that he was late for
dinner on Wednesday, missed the letter-carrier twice last month, and
delayed attending to an errand Monday until all the shops were closed,
you have him where he can understand your point. Mary will listen
respectfully enough to a homily on being considerate, but it will have
little effect upon her compared to bringing before her a picture of some
of her actions: how, instead of coming right home from school the day
you were not feeling well, and helping you with some of your tasks,
she had gone to visit a friend just that afternoon.
But reasoning with a child often fails to accomplish its purpose,
because the child's reasoning is so different from that of an adult.
Unless there is a nearly perfect understanding of the workings of the
child's mind, reasoning is frequently futile. A seven-year-old boy who
had received a long lecture on the impropriety of keeping dead crabs in
his pockets said, after it was all over: "Well, they were alive when I put
them in. You are wasting a lot of my precious time." These little brains
have a way of working out combinations that seem weird to us
grown-ups.
Only with a child of a certain type and a parent able to understand the
workings of his mind may the method of reasoning work satisfactorily
in correcting faults and establishing good habits and ideals.
No discussion of this subject would be complete without a word on
corporal punishment. It is impossible here to present all the arguments
for or against it. I am sure, however, that the most enthusiastic
advocates of it will admit that it is not always practised with discretion
and that it is in most cases not only unnecessary but positively harmful.

Children that are treated like animals will behave like animals; violence
and brutality do not bring out the best in a child's nature. It would seem
that intelligent parents do not need to resort to such methods in the
training of normal children.
As suggested by our veteran novelist, William Dean Howells, we have
clung to the wisdom of Solomon, in this respect, through centuries of
changing conditions. Solomon said: "Spare the rod and spoil the child";
Mr. Howells suggests that we might with profit spoil the rod and spare
the child. In the small families of to-day there is no need to cling to the
methods that may have worked well enough with the Oriental,
polygamous despot, who never could know all his children individually,
and it is therefore hardly necessary to use Solomon as our authority.
It is plain, then, that it is impossible to recommend any punishment