NEW NURSERY TERROR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 841, 9 December 1929, Page 5

NEW NURSERY TERROR

THE CHILD WHO ARGUES A THOUGHTFUL MOTHER TELLS HOW TO DEAL WITH IT I remember, when I was at school, one of my teachers saying “Don’t make excuses,” and ms-self replying, “It’s not an excuse, Miss Blank—it’s an explanation.” I was then reported and nearly expelled for contradicting, but to this day I cannot see the justice of it.

Since then we have advanced to the stage of answering a child's questions with “Because I say so!” The old retort, “Because mother knows best!” is seldom heard, and so there has arisen in our midst a new terror—the child who will argue the point. How often we meet the mother who has read that she must never refuse an answer or an explanation to her child’s questions, and who never in consequence gets immediate obedience. She tells Peter to go to do something, and she has to tell him why, and then discuss a dozen arguments ho puts up on the point. AN EXTRA TWENTY MINUTES My own view Is that mothers must try to distinguish clearly between the questions which really betoken bewilderment in the child’s mind, and those which he propounds merely to delay obeying her to exercise his own will against hers.

More than once l have known a mother quite pleased when her child finally went off to bed after arguing the point, although I knew perfectly well that his debate had gained him exactly what he wanted at the outset —an extra 20 minutes downstairs with the grown-ups. It is obviously wrong to refuse to discuss a point with a child when he really wishes to give, or to get, an explanation, because the adult attitude toward it puzzles his mind. When there is a genuine thirst for knowledge, the aim must be always to explain. 1 have found a iilan which seems to wox-k well when I suspect my child of merely questioning to gain time before obeying. My reply then is. “Go and do it now, and, if you really want to know, remind me at bedtime (or in the morning, as the case may be), and I’ll try to explain it.” ALL THE DIFFERENCE X can recommend this system, for if there is a real question in the

child's mind—and, above all, if he has the slightest rankling of apparent injustice to himself—he will not forget. On the other hand, if he were simply arguing from habit or from disinclination to obey, be can only accept the fact that such little schemes will not work with mother, and that he must do her bidding at once.