POSSESSIVE PARENTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 August 1938, Page 8

POSSESSIVE PARENTS

AND CHILD’S EMOTIONS. Sometimes the possessive parents are made by not having had enough love in their own childhood. Or they may have been brought up in a home where, as the youngest of the family or the plainest or the slowest, they developed such a feeling of inferiority that the frustrated sense of power and achievement had no outlet until they became possessed of a child who is “mine.” This frustration often leads the possessive parents to play too much on the child's emotions. When the child wants to do something that displeases, the parent appeal is made to the child’s love by the fact that “it will make mummy very, very unhappy.” This recourse to emotionalism as a means of controlling behaviour is most unhealthy, as it not only keeps the child in a constant state of strain, but it does not teach the child to guide his acts by general principles. If the child, however, has the strength to try to maintain its freedom of personality, it is not unusual for the parent to make use of illness to keep the child near. The tragedy of all this is that by demanding love, parents are unconsciously destroying the child’s impulse to give it. Children cannot love to order any more than adults. Love the children; give them freedom to develop their own individuality. Trust them and let them feel they are trusted, and they will give, their love with the spontaneity that must characterise al> sincere emotions.