CHILDREN WHO THINK ALOUD

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 238, 28 December 1927, Page 5

CHILDREN WHO THINK ALOUD

It is not so very many years since children were brought up on the “seen but not heard” principle, but the reaction has been complete. Nowadays they are encouraged to talk on all sorts of subjects. Many modern children are very charming, but there is no doubt that some of them get into the habit of playing up to the gallery of admiring parents and relations. They have learnt by experience that they can always find some grown-up person who will take a fervent interest in any idea that comes into their heads, and whenever they do happen to get an idea, they rush off to unfold it to an appreciative audience. A great many children would be very much the better for a little wholesome neglect occasionally. It is not really good for them to do all their thinking aloud. The thoughts, even of a four-year-old, would gain if they were left to develop for a time, and not dragged untimely into the light of day. The type of child who is always saying such things as: “Look at the darling little bluebells; do you think the fairies sleep in them all day?” and the child who is full of glib sayings about angels, and who tells his relations continually that he loves them, is not really likely to grow into an

original thinker. Already, at four or five, he is unconsciously saying the sort of things that he knows will be appreciated, and he does not really get time tq do any thinking on his own account. The rather stolid, silent child, who never says anything worth repeating, is very often thinking the more. Discriminating Sympathy Personally, I always treat children as I do grown-up people. I should no> more think of cross-questioning a newly-introduced four-year-old about his doings and his likes and dislikes than I should of asking a man I have just met how much he pays the inland revenue. The type of child who has always thought aloud generally finds me puzzling at first. A grownup person who is apparently not taking any notice of him is a novelty in his young life, and after making desperate efforts to attract my attention he usually gives up producing secondhand thoughts about fairies, and begins to talk like the reasonable person which he really is. Of course, a great many mc.e children do believe in fairies, but they do not talk about them to someone they have just met, any more than grownup people talk about their private beliefs to their tea-party acquaintances. Most children need a certain amount of encouragement and sympathy, but it ought to be disciiminating sympathy. It is all to the good for he child to know that he can take his troubles to some grown-up person, but he must not be allowed to think about the ffect that he is producing on his audience.