AFRAID OF THE DARK

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 35, 4 May 1927, Page 5

AFRAID OF THE DARK

One of the things the child-study psychologists have taught is the folly of refusing to yield to a child’s fear of the dark. Yielding is not in question; it is sheer brutality not to accept as a real infirmity this particular obsession of the young mind. Yet there are still parents who, having either forgotten their own infancy, or who have never been troubled by night visions, insist on treating this' manifestation of fear as a form of naughtiness. They are apparently incapable of appreciating the simple truth that nothing is to be gained by callously compelling a child to remain in a darkened room. No child ever developed into a better man or woman in later years because such so-called “disciplinary” measures were adopted by ignorant adults. Fears and dreads are not overcome by such methods. Much more often, acute mental suffering is the result, a result that leaves its imprint well on into adult life. It is useless to keep on asking a child what it is afraid of in the dark. It only knows, poor little soul, that the darkness holds something to which it can give no name other than terror. Let the little one be gently reasoned with, by all means; but iet it never be made to feel that its fears are something to be ashamed of. To try to make a child feel shame in such circumstances ;s to encourage it to hide those fears from its own parents, and pave the way to other concealments later on. Understanding sympathy is the only cure for childish “nerves,” and any disciplinary measures that lack such sympathy will but aggravate the trouble. C. E. If your methylated spirit bottle catches alight, turn it neck downwards in water. This will stop an explosion, and if quickly righted again not much spirit will be lost.