ABUNDANCE

NZ Truth, Issue 1262, 6 February 1930, Page 20

ABUNDANCE

OF SLEEP

Children Need It

(Plunket Series Articles, No. 32.)

QNE notices ' that even where there is no excuse for overwork or lack of help for the mother, babies are often no better off, simply because people have no idea that it does c small child and serious harm tob*- traipsed about all over the country an Sundays or holidays, or, indeed,' on any occasion where the parents may have the opportunity of getting- off the chain themselves. . Our main purpose to-day is to draw attention to the fact that stunting of growth and development, nervousness, and all-round instability and precocity tend to result from robbing- a child of its proper sleep, and from stimulating: it when it ought to be 'at rest and growing-. Any kind of over-stimulation or over-exertion is injurious to children. One frequently sees small children made nervous, high -strung 1 , irritable, and capricious ,by being habitually dragged about of an evening long after bedtime to the point of weariness and fatigue — this beinsr done by parents devoted to their offspring, but without any idea as to what a 'child needs) m the way of regularity, early hours, and unbroken, sleep and; rest. One could better understand this kind of thing as a feature of town life,' but one finds little children m the country kept up long after they ought to be asleep. Their parents recognise that they are nervous, spindly little shrimps; but. they put this down to Providence rather than to faulty rearing-. Our school doctors are drawing attention to the number of weedy specimens they come across; indeed, no observant person can fail to be struck .by- the fact that 'the majority of our children are below the standard that .wft have, a right to. expect. It will be realised sooner or later that Herbert Spencer was quite right when he insisted that "Education m Parenthood" was the^ foremost of all duties to the race. : -■' When are parents going to realise that, m an ideally healthy country like New Zealand, almost every f child should be. a fine specimen of humanity. — powerfully built, well-made, broadchested, and provided with sturdy legs, instead of the spindles one s,o often sees. , • ■'■'. These matters will never toe-righted until parents learn to ask themselves this question, when there are any shortcomings . m their , children: "Wherein are we failing m our duty?" As Herbert Spencer says: "When sons and daughters grow up sickly and feeble, ■ parents commonly regard the event as a misfortune — as a visitation of Providence .. ; . they assume that these evils came -without causes. . . . Nothing of the kind . . . very generally parents themselves are responsible. . . In utter ignorance of the simplest laws of life and growth, they have been year after year undermining the constitutions of their children."