SEPARATION CAUSES DOUBT
A HEALTHY personality is built on trust, the happy feeling that everything is right, that grown-ups are re-
liable, and that your mother wants you. Separation for too long or too often causes doubt about the world. Deprivation, resentment, hostility and a feeling of being unworthy of love and interest may result, Many parents are knowledgable about their children’s personality needs and have given care to building up trust in infancy by attention to good feeding habits and a warm, friendly family life. Trust is not developed in a day or a year, but.by the continuing attitude of parents. The mother is the focal point of her child’s life till he is about seven, and should be associated with him in any service undertaken for his welfare. In sickness a child will revert to babyhood and will need special care and security (especially the closeness of his mother) and to feel at home in his surroundings and familiar with routine. In hospital a child is shut off from these essential needs and a check to normal, happy personality growth is almost inevitable. Is the choice to be between a sick body and a sick personality? A way of avoiding shock is to admit the mother with the child, as is done in some hospitals, and let her attend the child under the direction of the nurse. The daily visiting of the mother is the next best solution, but the mother needs direction on how to visit if her emotional state is not to be transferred to the child. The introduction of daily visiting to a hospital needs careful preparation and thought, and it assumes adequate if not generous staffing in the children’s ward and special ‘raining of staff to cope with parents’ emotional problems in relation to their children. The best solution is to nurse your child at home if possible,
giving him all care and love but refraining from making illness an escape from responsibility and development.
Mrs
H. C. D.
Somerset
Dominion Adviser to Federation of Nursery Play Centres.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 725, 5 June 1953, Page 7
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344SEPARATION CAUSES DOUBT New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 725, 5 June 1953, Page 7
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