Social Moods.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 380, 20 August 1903, Page 2

Social Moods.

CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. .W, REMEMBER once hearing a homily alp addressed to mothers, in which the jgg speaker declared that parents should consider a young child's mind as a blank canvas on which they might paint what they would—and one is uncertain whether to be more sorry for the unsuspecting parent who embarks on this impossible task, or for the poor little person who is to be the victim of the artistic experiment! It seems to me that the first and supreme right of every child is to have his individuality respected—nay, reverenced. If one must have a simile, one would do well to regard him not as a blank canvaß, but as a seed in which are untold possibilities cf growth—as a seed which is able to develop into a great tree under favourable conditions. Parents would then regard themselves as gardeners on whom there rests the responsibility of seeing that the little seed has every chance cf growing up as healthy, land strong, and beautiful as possible. A gardener cares for the soil in which a seed is placed, he is careful that it has the right amount cf sunehire, and that it is sheltered from cruel winds. Ha will watch it lovingly and will train its spreading form, not forgetting to prune it wisely. But some parents speak of what they mean to 'make' their children, and of how tbey will not 'allow' this taste or that characteristic even where there is no question of right or wrong. Surely the gardener who planted an acorn and then insisted on trying to make the young plant springing from it into a Scotch fir would not be more foolish. The little child has its own individual-

ity—disposition, brain, tastes, physical powers—which it is the duty of those of us who are parents to observe, develop and train as carefully as may ba, and which we cannot crush, if we would. One might almost Buppose that some parents would like to effect in their child a change as complete' as that brought about by removing all the mechanism of a clock and filling up the case with machinery of one's own manufacture. One often sees thoughtless parent 3 treating small people in a way that would be impossible if they realised how much respect is their Heaven-sent right. How frequently is a sensitive, shrinking little child made the butt of grown-up people's wit, not from any intension at unkindness, but to fill up the blanks of conversation, 'merely a little chaffing—so good for children,' and yet it wounds a sby child. Then, again, many parentß will discuss their children btfore them—their appearance and tastes, or will relate rraccdoteß of their doings and sayings in a way that must be agonising to a sensitive child, and even worse training for the one who is pleased to hear himself diecussed. Any real respect for children would prevent parents from comparing them favourably or otherwise with any others. Surely a little daughter has the right to resent as an insult her mother's remark that' Annie Jones is a much better little girl T Yet another way in which a sensitive brain is made to sutler unnecessarily and unjustly is in being reproved for faults -before strangers—little failings should be a matter for mother and child to talk over in confidence. In snort, lam not advocating any injudicious indulgence of the children such as will make them a nuisance both to themselves and the rest of the world, but that tbey may be treated in such a way that they will grow up respecting themselves and with unbounded respect and confidence in their parents,