The Right And Wrong Way To Bring Up Young Children

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 71, 30 March 1949, Page 3

The Right And Wrong Way To Bring Up Young Children

Enid Bagnold, the well known novelist and playwright who is author of the famous best-seller “National Velvet,” broadcast in the 8.8.C.’s Overseas Service programme “Mainly for Women,” on the question of parents and children and the different views about their upbringing. She herself has three sons and a daughter, and speaks from solid experience.

“With my first child,” she said; “I was a friend, an equal, I called it by its Christian name, and never Baby. As it grew I was entranced by its originality, I discussed it with itself, and laid on it the burden of its own psychology. It grew tired and worried; • it disobeyed; it communed darkly with itself; rebelled, fought, criticised. And I, bristling with faults, fought back. “In fairness to my eldest child, I admit she turned out all right directly she had brothers. After that I understood that a child rests better and is more comfortable if it has not to decide for itself—particularly too early. Unquestioning obedience is as healthy as the seaside. Meals are eaten more quietly and there are no rows at bedtime. Abandon the idea that your child has exquisite and original faults, and a nature unlike other children, and a sensitiveness out of the ordinary. We decide on obedience then. How do we get it. Mainly by one very simple method. “Simple, and utterly unpractised so far as I can notice in trains and buses by the travelling mother with her child. Never threaten; but always carry out. Hesitate long before the doom is pronounced; but once pronounced, let it fall like inevitable fate. I’m for obedience. I’mi for rare punishment—but final. Evade and* avoid pitched battles. But when one comes be sure you win. And a last word of advice, if 1 you want to keep people happy all their lives, teach children to use their hands.”