CARE OF CHILDREN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 March 1943, Page 2

CARE OF CHILDREN

IN WAR CONDITIONS. ADDRESS BY MRS C. E. BEEBY. In an address at the annual meeting of the Masterton Free Kindergarten Association last evening, Mrs C. E. Beeby, wife of the New Zealand Director of Education, dealt with problems involved in the care of children in war time in Britain and in this country. The effect of the bombing blitz on young children in England, Mrs Beeby observed, had been surprisingly slight. It was separation from their mothers and the breaking up of homes that had most seriously affected British children. Mrs Beeby went on to observe that in war time there were many homes where young children had their fathers in camp or on overseas service. The anxiety and strain of the father being away must communicate itself to the child. More of the mother’s emotional life, too, must centre itself on the child. If that were too great it might have a bad effect on the child. As the child grew older it needed the control of a man about the house, although, said Mrs Beeby, a child under five could get along with the company of its mother although a father was an asset. She suggested that it was a good outlet for the anxiety of mothers if they could, where possible, go out to work. Mrs Beeby said that the small child under five years of age did not mind destruction. As all mothers knew, at that age children could be aggressive and violent. It was a dangerous thing that, destruction by blitz should come to be regarded by them as a normal part of life. It, was a serious problem to know what would happen to their minds. Mrs Beeby stressed the value of the work carried on in nurseries and kindergartens here and in Ey.land and read extracts from a book stealing with the experiences of workers at nurseries, etc., in England and with the cases and problems they had met. Mrs Beeby concluded her talk by quoting incidents concerning children evacuated from their homes.