Your Child Today and Tomorrow | Page 3

A GOOD REASON CAN WARRANT CALLING AN ABSORBED CHILD FROM HIS OCCUPATION
HABITS OF CAREFUL WORK FURNISH A GOOD FOUNDATION FOR THE WILL
WORK IS PLAY
LET THEM ROMP IN THE WINTER AS WELL AS IN SUMMER
IN THEIR GAMES THEY SHOULD LEARN TO LOSE AS WELL AS TO WIN
DON'T FORGET HOW TO PLAY WITH THE CHILDREN
THE BOYS NEED A CHANCE TO GET TOGETHER
IN THE COUNTRY CHILDREN BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE FACTS OF LIFE

YOUR CHILD TODAY AND TOMORROW

I.
YOU AND YOUR CHILD
Housekeeping, in the sense of administering the work of the household, has been raised almost to a science. The same is true of the feeding of children. But the training of children still lags behind, so far as most of us are concerned, in the stage occupied by housekeeping and farming a generation or two ago. There has, indeed, been developed a considerable mass of exact knowledge about the nature of the child, and about the laws of his development; but this knowledge has been for most parents a closed book. It is not what the scientists know, but what the people apply, that marks our progress.
"Child-study" has been considered something with which young normal-school students have to struggle before they begin their real struggle with bad boys. But mothers have been expected to know, through some divine instinct, just how to handle their own children, without any special study or preparation. That the divine instinct has not taught them properly to feed the young infant and the growing child we have learned but slowly and at great cost in human life and suffering; but we have learned it. Our next lesson should be to realize that our instincts cannot be relied upon when it comes to understanding the child's mind, the meaning of his various activities, and how best to guide his mental and moral development.
Mistakes that parents--and teachers--make in dealing with the child's mind are not often fatal. Nor can you always trace the evil effects of such mistakes in the later character of the child. But there can be no doubt that many of the heartbreaks, misunderstandings, and estrangements between parents and children are due to mistakes that could have been avoided by a knowledge of the nature of the child's mind.
There are, fortunately, many parents who arrive at an understanding of the nature of the child through sympathetic insight, through quick observation, through the application of sound sense and the results of experience to the problems that arise. It is not necessary that all of us approach the child in the attitude of the professional scientist; indeed, it is neither possible for us to do so, nor is it desirable that we should. But it is both possible and desirable that we make use of the experience and observations of others, that we apply the results of scientific experiments, that we re?nforce our instincts with all available helps. We need not fall into the all-too-common error of placing common-sense and practical insight in opposition to the method of the scientists. Everyone in this country appreciates the wonderful and valuable services of Luther Burbank, and no one doubts that if his method could be extended the whole nation would benefit in an economic way. Yet Burbank has been unable to teach the rest of us how to apply his shrewd "common-sense" and his keen intuition to the improvement of useful and ornamental plants. It was necessary for scientists to study what he had done in order to make available for the whole world those principles that make his practice really productive of desirable results. In the same way it is well for every parent and every teacher--everyone who has to do with children--to supplement good sense and observation with the results of scientific study.
On the other hand, there is no universal formula for the bringing up of children, one that can be applied to all children everywhere and always, any more than there is a universal formula for fertilizing soil or curing disease or feeding babies. Yet there are certain general laws of child development and certain general principles of child training which have been derived from scientific studies of children, and which agree with the best thought and experience of those who learned to know their children without the help of science. These general laws and principles may be profitably learned and used in bringing up the rising generation.
Too many people, and especially too many parents, think of the child as merely a small man or woman. This is far from a true conception of the child. Just as the physical organs of the child work in a manner different from what we find in the adult, so the mind of the child works along in a way peculiar to its stage of development. If a physician should use the