CHILD DICTATORS

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 254, 3 November 1939, Page 2

CHILD DICTATORS

LACK OF HOME DISCIPLINE HARM FUL LATE HOURS LONDON, Aug. 2.—A complaint that children are dictators in the home/ and suffer in health because they refuse to go to bed when they should, is made by Dr. Nora Allan, a school medical officer under the West Riding education authority. Her statement forms part of a report presented to the authority by the school medical officer, Dr. T. N. A . Potts. Children, she says, will not'go to bed when they are told, and many do not get enough sleep to make them fit to do their lessons. “It is the usual thing to learn that children of four, five and six years of ago go to bed at eight or nine o’clock. Some will not go even then, but insist on waiting up until their parents retire. It is the will of the children that decides.’’ Older children go to bod as late as 10 o'clock, and go to school “pale, listless and heavy-eyed, and looking so .under-nourished that their teachers, recommend them for extra .meals, milk or school dinners. Insufficient sleep, Dr. Allan adds, remains the greatest obstacle in the way of making healthy school rhildren.