Hector Charles Cameron

“ In any one family did a greater proportion turn out well? Is it not true that at least among the educated classes the relaxation of nursery and schoolroom discipline which the last fifty years has seen has been justified by its results? Is it not true that the childhood of our grandmothers was often lived "in fear, in restraint, in submission, in suffering subject to galling, unreasoning, unnecessary, arbitrary prohibitions and taboos, and to customary duties equally galling, unreasoning, unnecessary, and arbitrary." ”

“ I have known a little girl who was seized with violent fear whenever her father or mother was absent from the house, and she would stand for hours at the window in an agony of terror lest some harm should have befallen them. As if with some strange notion of propitiating the powers of darkness these children will often constantly perform some action and will refuse to be happy until they have done so. ”

“ Finally, we should always remember that refusal of sleep is, for the most part, caused and kept up by harmful suggestions derived from mother and nurse, who allow the child to perceive their distress and agitation, who speak before the child of his habitual wakefulness, who unwittingly focus his attention on the difficulty. It is cured in the moment that the suggestion in the child's mind is reversed, in the moment when he comes to regard it as characteristic of himself not to make a fuss about going to bed, but to sleep with extraordinary readiness and soundness. ”

“ A caged animal is a creature deprived of the stimulus of environment, and bereft therefore to a great extent of the skill which we call instinct, by which it procures its food, guarantees its safety from attack, constructs its home, cares for its young, and procreates its species. If, metaphorically speaking, we encircle the child with a cage, if we constantly intervene to interpose something between him and the stimulus of his environment, his characteristic powers are kept in abeyance or retarded, just as the marvellous instinct of the wild animals becomes less efficient in captivity. ”

“ The imitativeness of the young child is so great that he will repeat in almost every detail all the actions of his nurse as she carries out the daily routine. At eighteen months of age, when the electric light is turned on in his nursery, the child will at once go to the curtains and make attempts to draw them. At the same age a little girl will weigh her doll in her own weighing-machine, will take every precaution that the nurse takes in her own case, and will even stoop down anxiously to peer at the dial, just as she has seen her mother and nurse do on the weekly weighing night. ”

“ Nevertheless, the mother of a nervous and delicate child—a child, that is to say, who, even if he is not permanently an invalid, nevertheless never seems quite well and lacks the robustness of other children—should realise clearly how much of this sensitiveness is due to the atmosphere of unrest and too great solicitude which surrounds him. It is a matter of universal experience that excess of care for only children has a depressing influence which affects their character, their physical constitution, and their entire vitality. ”

“ No entreaty, no force, no threats of force will ever succeed, but will only make him worse, and, since negativism is due to mental unrest, the struggles and crying will only perpetuate the cause. The one way to banish negativism and overcome the opposition is to cease to oppose, and to practise this aloofness not so much at meal-times, for somehow by patience the child must be got to take his food, but in all our conduct to him. ”

“ If too much is made of any one action of the child, a strong impression is made on his mind and he cannot choose but return to it again and again.
This little drama of the fireplace may teach us a great deal in the management of children. The wise mother and nurse will find a hundred devices to catch the child's attention and lure him away from the danger zone without the incident making any impression on his mind at all, and will not call attention to it by repeated reproofs or warnings which will certainly lead him straight back to the spot. ”

“ With older children, if the crying is more purposeful and less emotional, the mother may busy herself for a little with some task in the room, ostentatiously neglecting the storm and making no reference to it. If she speaks to the child at all she should do so in a matter-of-fact way, referring lightly to other matters. If only she can convince him that his conduct is a matter of indifference to her, the victory is won. It is because the child knows so well that his mother does care that he so often has the upper hand. ”

“ In older children insomnia is common enough. Even when sleep comes it may be light and broken, as though the child slept just below the surface of consciousness and did not descend into the depths of sound and tranquil slumber. We have often noticed how different is the estimate of the patient from that of the nurse as to the number of hours of sleep during the night. The sick man maintains that he has hardly slept at all, whilst the nurse, drawing us aside, whispers in our ear that he has slept most of the night. ”

“ Conduct which is received indulgently or even encouraged at one moment is sternly reprimanded at another. Every one who has the management of little children must above all see to it, whatever the degree of stringency in discipline which they decide to adopt, that their attitude is always consistent. The less that is forbidden the better, but when the line is drawn it must be adhered to. If once the child learns that the force which restrains him can be made to yield to his own efforts, the future is black indeed. ”

“ Without the constant society and attention of a grown person, he feels himself lost. He cannot be left alone, and yet cannot enjoy the society he craves. He grows more and more restless, dominating the whole situation more and more, constantly plucking at his nurse's skirts, perversely refusing every new sensation that is offered him to still his restlessness for a moment. The result of all this stimulation is mental irritability and exhaustion, which in turn is often the direct cause of refusal of food, dyspepsia, wakefulness, and excessive crying. ”

“ At children's parties, for example, they will be found wandering about unhappy, dazed and unable to feel the reality of the surroundings which afford such joy to the others; or they may be anxious to join in play, but finding themselves called upon to take their turn are apt to stand helplessly inactive, or to burst into tears. At school, though they may be really quick to learn, they will often be found oblivious of all that has gone on around them, not from stupidity, but from inability to dissociate their thoughts from themselves and to concentrate attention upon the matter in hand. ”

“ In the nursery the word "naughty" is far too frequently heard. It is naughty to do this, it is naughty to do that. There is no gradation in the condemnation, and the child loses all sense of the meaning of the word. He himself proclaims himself naughty almost with satisfaction: his doll is naughty, the dog is naughty, his nurse and mother are naughty, and so forth. In reality the little child is peculiarly sensitive to blame, if he is not reproof-hardened. It is hardly necessary to use words of blame at all. ”

“ The criminal records of the nation show too often the truth of the saying that "Once a thief always a thief." Deprived of his good repute, man loses his chief protection against evil and his incentive to good.
The inability of a child—and especially of a nervous and sensitive child—to form conceptions of his own individuality except from ideas derived from the suggestions of others, gives us the key to our management of him and to our control of his conduct. ”

“ In estimating sleep we have to consider not only its duration, but also its depth, and the patient who denies that he has slept at all has lain perhaps half the night with an active restless brain betwixt sleep and wakefulness. Often enough when he comes to consider in the morning the problems that vexed his soul at midnight, he is quite unable to recall their nature, and recognises them as the airy stuff that dreams are made of. Although in a sense asleep he may have retained a half-consciousness of his surroundings and a sense of despair at the continued absence of a sounder sleep. ”

“ The force of suggestion acting upon the child's mind can clearly be traced. Once his attention is focused upon the particular movement by unwise emphasis on the part of the parents, he loses the power to control its occurrence. This trio of common neuroses—refusal of food, refusal of sleep, and habitual involuntary movement—grows only in an atmosphere of unrest and apprehension. Parents and nurses anxiously watch their development. They are distressed beyond measure to note their steady growth in spite of every attempt which they make to control or forbid them. ”

“ The education of the little child is carried on by means of games and toys. Handling the various objects which we give him, imparting movement to them, transferring them from hand to hand and from one situation to another, he learns dexterity and precision of movement, and in the process hand and brain grow in power. When at play, his whole energies should be absorbed to the exclusion of everything else. He will often be oblivious to everything that is going on around him, intent only on the purpose of the moment. ”

“ But with the child it is different; airy nurseries, big gardens, visits to the seaside, and every advantage that money can buy cannot achieve success if the child's mind is not at rest, if his sleep is broken, if food is habitually refused or vomited, or if to leave him alone in the nursery for a moment is to evoke a fit of passionate crying.
The grown-up person comes eventually to be able to control this tremendous organ, this brain, which is the predominant feature of his race. ”