CHILDHOOD INFLUENCES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 421, 1 August 1928, Page 13

CHILDHOOD INFLUENCES

PARENTS BLAMED FOR MENTAL TROUBLES “The mind is akin to the balance wheel of a watch, and as the time kept by the watch is regulated by 1 the hair-spring, so the condition of the body is regulated by the mental attitude of the individual.” It was in these simple terms that Hr. P. Fennelly, past-president of the British Association of Practical Psychologists, made one of his big points in the lecture on “Nerve Control,” which he gave before a largo audience in the Lewis Eady Hall last evening. Hr. Fennelly explained that the human body was a powerhouse containing parts that were equivalent to the boilers, furnaces, dynamos, electric wires and control instruments used in a modern electric powerhouse. The body was fed with food in the same way that the boilers were stoked with coal, and the food was converted into energy in much the same manner. If the mind lost control of the expenditure of energy, physical troubles im< mediately manifested themselves. The body was dependent entirely on the control of the mind. He went on to say that the world was in a condition of shock, the cause of which was not wholly due to later experiences of life, but obtained its foundation in the present attitude toward childhood. “A great deal of the lack of confidence so evident in adults,” he said, “is due to the environment of childhood. Not one in 500 children is born with the “balance wheels” functioning anything but perfectly. It is in the early stages of life, when character is being formed, that the * balance wheels ’ get out of prder.” BRINGING UP CHILDREN Parents were in the habit of thinking they owned their children. Hr. Fennelly continued. This was quite wrong. Each individual belongs to himself, and no one had the right to compel him or seek to fashion him into some ideal of their own. In addition to this, children were told stories of ghosts, ogres and witches, merely a figment of imagination to adults, but terribly real to the child. The attitude of the home, and the influence of these stories were the principal cause of upset to the “balance ’wheels.” The secret of mental development lay within the child, and if th£ child were allowed to lay the foundation of development in its own way and at its own pace, much of the world’s nervous disorder would disappear. This evening, at 6.15, Hr. Fennelly will give a special lecture to women, and at 8 o’clock he will speak on “Psychology and Religion.”