Why an Angry Child Stamps Its Feet.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 19 June 1914, Page 2

Why an Angry Child Stamps Its Feet.

There are a few universal habits in the human race which have strange primitive origins, and there are some which are universal because they have a physiological stimulus, and one.of these, latter is the habit that a little child often has of stamping its feet when angry. Exactly the same 1 hing occurs when a man. when he is angry, brings down his list on the table. In both cases it is due to lack of nervous control. The nervous system is a unit, and most of the emotions of anger come from a sudden thwarting of a calculated nervous plan. Thus, if we are about to sit down on a chair and a mischievous urchin pulls the chair away just we we have let the muscles of the thighs relax, the anger excited is out of I all proportion to the actual bruises that have resulted. If a child wants a pot of jam and is denied he is immediately angry, unless he has been taught to control himself. The desire for the jam, for example, has set in motion a nerve plan, and when this is suddenly stopped there 1 is a flow of nervous energy which has to spend itself in some way. In the case of the child, he usually works this of)' by stamping his feet and crying. In the case of the man he usually goes through exactly the same processes by thumping the table and swearing ; in the case of a hysterical woman, she beats upon the floor with her heels and screams. It is all the same thing. Strange as itemay seem, moreover, the outflow of emotion is far better for an angry person than it is to bottle it up. Emotion is going to express itself in action somewhere, and if the muscles are kept still the brain cells will be exhausted instead. Emotional force has got to go somewhere—it can't just stop and disappear. Too great a suppression of the emotions leads to a gradual atrophy of "them, and when the emotions begin to die out the person himself or herself is of comparatively little use to the | world. It is for this reason that nothing should ever be done to [ "break" a child's temper, but only to guide it into right channels. You ! can teach a child not to lose coni trol of his temper, but never, as you , vulue tlie child's development, try jto train him not to be angry.

Wilfrid was sitting on his father's knee, watching his mother arrange her hair. "Papa hasn't any waves like that," said the father, laughing. Wilfrid, looking up at his father's bald pate, replied :— "No, no waves ; it's all beach." "Preserve order, please!" shouted a man on the platform to a restless audience. " There's no chance for preserves here," a man yelled back. "There's too much jam."