SPOILT CHILDREN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 August 1938, Page 8

SPOILT CHILDREN

GOOD REASONS, BAD RESULTS Why do so many parents “spoil” their children, thereby encouraging selfishness and weakness of character? There are various reasons, the most common of which are as follows:— (1) The mother is young and inexperienced—she has had no training for motherhood, so she does not know how to meet the situation when the child cries. For the sake of quiet she yields to him, and he very quickly learns that in his crying, which later becomes temper-tantrums, he has an effective weapon by which to control her. (2) Sometimes a child is delicate or hqs been ill and the indulgence that is temporarily necessary-is still maintained after the period of control or reeducation should have set in. (3) Some parents have had such an unhappy childhood themselves that they determine not to reproduce the aggressive attitude of their parents, and go to the opposite extreme. (4) Sometimes one or both parents

make a favour of one child in the family, usually either the eldest or the youngest, and this child is indulged more than the others. The antagonism that this arouses in the rest of the family towards the favour causes the parents to be still, more unfair, trying to make up for the. bad time the other children give it, quite oblivious to the fact that the unhappy situation is primarily their fault. , (5) Sometimes we hear parents say, “Children can only be young once. Let them have what.they want while we can give it to them. Trouble comes soon enough.” This attitude ,may be sincere, but it is often only an excuse for going along the line of least resistance, and avoiding the conflict their unpsychological methods of treating the child has aroused.

It does not seem to occur to them that the child is learning the habit of expecting others to give into him in everything, which must inevitably lead to bitter disappointment later when his demands become impossible; or when he comes , in contact with others who will not consider him as the parent have done. (6) Parents who have one child only are sometimes so frightened that discipline of any kind will cause the child not to love them, that they allow the child to become a tyrant in the home, and frequently a thorough nuisance outside it. (7) Then there is the parent who has read a certain amount of psychology, and has assimilated certain points of view only, probably because of their appeal to some unrecognised impulse of their own. This parent will give what seem to be rational explanations for their attitude to the child—but it is what they ignore in their theory that is sometimes most significant.