PRIG OR REBEL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1938, Page 8

PRIG OR REBEL

BRINGING UP THE CHILD. If the parent has been over-anxious about the child from babyhood, then as he grows older the character pattern he began to build then will develop steadily with the years; its ultimate form will depend .upon the innate temperament that he brought into the werld with him. He may become a nice, good, and even priggish child, who is so “unco’ guid” that he is never in any trouble; but has little personality of his own. He will become a good but colourless adult, who will, in all probability, bring up his own children in the same over-anx-ious atmosphere in which he lived. Another child may become utterly selfish in his dependence upon one or both of his parents, and remain so all his life. On the other hand, if he is strong enough to keep his mental health, and independent enough to break away from the regime of his over-anxious parents, he will become a rebel.

Over-conscientious parents, however, are not always of the extreme type. If they are, they should, in fairness to their children, go to a psychiatrist to find out the cause of their anxiety obsessions, which in all probability have their basis in the experiences of their own childhood. Such cases are definitely pathological.