Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young Part 24

_Protracted Contests with Obstinacy_.

It seems to me, though I am aware that many excellent persons think differently, that it is never wise for the parent to allow himself to be drawn into a contest with a child in attempting to compel him to do something that from ill-temper or obstinacy he refuses to do. If the attempt is successful, and the child yields under a moderate severity of coercion, it is all very well. But there is something mysterious and unaccountable in the strength of the obstinacy sometimes manifested in such cases, and the degree of endurance which it will often inspire, even in children of the most tender age. We observe the same inexplicable fixedness sometimes in the lower animals--in the horse, for example; which is the more unaccountable from the fact that we can not suppose, in his case, that peculiar combination of intelligence and ill-temper which we generally consider the sustaining power of the protracted obstinacy on the part of the child. The degree of persistence which is manifested by children in contests of this kind is something wonderful, and can not easily be explained by any of the ordinary theories in respect to the influence of motives on the human mind. A state of cerebral excitement and exaltation is not unfrequently produced which seems akin to insanity, and instances have been known in which a child has suffered itself to be beaten to death rather than yield obedience to a very simple command. And in vast numbers of instances, the parent, after a protracted contest, gives up in despair, and is compelled to invent some plausible pretext for bringing it to an end.

Indeed, when we reflect upon the subject, we see what a difficult task we undertake in such contests--it being nothing less than that of _forcing the formation of a volition_ in a human mind. We can easily control the bodily movements and actions of another person by means of an external coercion that we can apply, and we have various indirect means of _inducing_ volitions; but in these contests we seem to come up squarely to the work of attempting, by outward force, to compel the _forming of a volition_ in the mind; and it is not surprising that this should, at least sometimes, prove a very difficult undertaking.

_No Necessity for these Contests_.

There seems to be no necessity that a parent or teacher should ever become involved in struggles of this kind in maintaining his authority. The way to avoid them, as it seems to me, is, when a child refuses out of obstinacy to do what is required of him, to impose the proper punishment or penalty for the refusal, and let that close the transaction. Do not attempt to enforce his compliance by continuing the punishment until he yields. A child, for example, going out to play, wishes for his blue cap. His mother chooses that he shall wear his gray one. She hangs the blue cap up in its place, and gives him the gray one. He declares that he will not wear it, and throws it down upon the floor. The temptation now is for the mother, indignant, to punish him, and then to order him to take up the cap which he had thrown down, and to feel that it is her duty, in case he refuses, to persist in the punishment until she conquers his will, and compels him to take it up and put it upon his head.

But instead of this, a safer and a better course, it seems to me, is to avoid a contest altogether by considering the offense complete, and the transaction on his part finished by the single act of rebellion against her authority. She may take the cap up from the floor herself and put it in its place, and then simply consider what punishment is proper for the wrong already done. Perhaps she forbids the boy to go out at all. Perhaps she reserves the punishment, and sends him to bed an hour earlier that night.

The age of the boy, or some other circ.u.mstances connected with the case, may be such as to demand a severer treatment still. At any rate, she limits the transaction to the single act of disobedience and rebellion already committed, without giving an opportunity for a repet.i.tion of it by renewing the command, and inflicts for it the proper punishment, and that is the end of the affair.

And so a boy in reciting a lesson will not repeat certain words after his mother. She enters into no controversy with him, but shuts the book and puts it away. He, knowing his mother's usual mode of management in such cases, and being sure that some penalty, privation, or punishment will sooner or later follow, relents, and tells his mother that he will say the words if she will try him again.

"No, my son," she should reply, "the opportunity is past. You should have done your duty at the right time. You have disobeyed me, and I must take time to consider what to do."

If, at the proper time, in such a case, when all the excitement of the affair is over, a penalty or punishment apportioned to the fault, or some other appropriate measures in relation to it, are _certain to come_, and if this method is always pursued in a calm and quiet manner but with inflexible firmness in act, the spirit of rebellion will be much more effectually subdued than by any protracted struggles at the time, though ending in victory however complete.

But all this is a digression, though it seemed proper to allude to the subject of these contests here, since it is on these occasions, perhaps, that parents are most frequently led, or, as they think, irresistibly impelled, to the infliction of bodily punishments as the last resort, when they would, in general, be strongly inclined to avoid them.

_The Infliction of Pain sometimes the speediest Remedy_.

There are, moreover, some cases, perhaps, in the ordinary exigencies of domestic life, as the world goes, when some personal infliction is the _shortest_ way of disposing of a case of discipline, and may appear, for the time being, to be the most effectual. A slap is very quickly given, and a mother may often think that she has not time for a more gentle mode of managing the case, even though she may admit that if she had the time at her command the gentle mode would be the best. And it is, indeed, doubtless true that the principles of management advocated in this work are such as require that the parents should devote some time and attention, and, still more essentially, some _heart_ to the work; and they who do not consider the welfare and happiness of their children in future life, and their own happiness in connection with them as they advance towards their declining years, as of sufficient importance to call for the bestowment of this time and attention, will doubtless often resort to more summary methods in their discipline than those here recommended.

_The Sting that it leaves behind_.

Indeed, the great objection, after all, to the occasional resort to the infliction of bodily pain in extreme cases is, as it seems to me, the sting which it leaves behind; not that, which it leaves in the heart of the child who may suffer it--for that soon pa.s.ses away--but in the heart of the parent who inflicts it. The one is, or may be, very evanescent; the other may very long remain; and what is worse, the anguish of it may be revived and made very poignant in future years.

This consideration makes it specially imperative on every parent never, for any cause, to inflict punishment by violence when himself under the influence of any irritation or anger awakened by the offense. For though the anger which the fault of the child naturally awakens in you carries you through the act of punis.h.i.+ng well enough, it soon afterwards pa.s.ses away, while the memory of it remains, and in after years, like any other sin, it may come back to exact a painful retribution. When the little loved one who now puts you out of patience with her heedlessness, her inconsiderateness, and, perhaps, by worse faults and failings--all, however, faults which may very possibly, in part or in whole, be the result of the immature and undeveloped condition of her mental or bodily powers--falls sick and dies, and you follow her as she is borne away, and with a bursting heart see her laid in her little grave, it will be a great comfort to you then to reflect that you did all in your power, by means of the gentlest measures at your command, to train her to truth and duty, that you never lost patience with her, and that she never felt from your hand any thing but gentle a.s.sistance or a loving caress.

And your boy--now so ardent and impulsive, and often, perhaps, noisy, troublesome, and rude, from the exuberant action of his growing powers--when these powers shall have received their full development, and he has pa.s.sed from your control to his place in the world as a man, and he comes back from time to time to the maternal home in grateful remembrance of his obligations to his mother, bringing with him tokens of his affection and love, you will think with pain of the occasions when you subjected him to the torture of the rod under the impulse of irritation or anger, or to accomplish the ends of discipline which might have been attained in other ways. Time, as you then look back over the long interval of years which have elapsed, will greatly soften the recollection of the fault, but it will greatly aggravate that of the pain which was made the retribution of it. You will say to yourself, it is true, I did it for the best. If I had not done it, my son would perhaps not be what he is. He, if he remembers the transaction, will doubtless say so too; but there will be none the less for both a certain sting in the recollection, and you will wish that the same end could have been accomplished by gentler means.

The substance of it is that children must, at all events, be governed. The proper authority over them _must be_ maintained; but it is a great deal better to secure this end by gentle measures, if the parent have or can acquire the skill to employ them.

CHAPTER XXII.

GRAt.i.tUDE IN CHILDREN.

Mothers are very often pained at what seems to them the ingrat.i.tude of their children. They long, above all things, for their love. They do every thing in their power--I mean, of course, that some mothers do--to win it.

They make every sacrifice, and give every possible evidence of affection; but they seem to fail entirely of bringing out any of those evidences of grat.i.tude and affection in return which, if they could only witness them, would fill their hearts with gladness and joy. But the only feeling which their children manifest towards them seems to be a selfish one. They come to them when in trouble, they even fly to them eagerly when in danger, and they consider their parents the chief resource for procuring nearly all their means of gratification. But they think little, as it often seems, of the mother's comfort and enjoyment in return, and seldom or never do any thing voluntarily to give her pleasure.

It would be a great exaggeration to say that this is always the feeling of the mother in respect to her children. I only mean that this is sometimes, and I might probably say very often, the case.

_Two Forms of Love._

Now there are two distinct forms which the feeling of love may a.s.sume in the mature mind, both of which are gratifying to the object of it, though they are very different, and indeed in some sense exactly the opposite of each other. There is the _receiving_ and the _bestowing_ love. It is true that the two forms are often conjoined, or rather they often exist in intimate combination with each other; but in their nature they are essentially distinct. A young lady, for example, may feel a strong attachment for the gentleman to whom she is engaged--or a wife for her husband--in the sense of liking to receive kindness and attention from him more than from any other man. She may be specially pleased when he invites her to ride with him, or makes her presents, or shows in any way that he thinks of her and seeks her happiness--more so than she would be to receive the same attentions from any other person. This is love. It may be very genuine love; but it is love in the form of taking special pleasure in the kindness and favor bestowed by the object of it. Yet it is none the less true, as most persons have had occasion to learn from their own experience, that this kind of love may be very strong without being accompanied by any corresponding desire on the part of the person manifesting it to make sacrifices of her own ease and comfort in order to give happiness to the object of her love in return.

In the same manner a gentleman may feel a strong sentiment of love for a lady, which shall take the form of enjoying her society, of being happy when he is near her, and greatly pleased at her making sacrifices for his sake, or manifesting in any way a strong attachment for him. There _may be_ also united with this the other form of love--namely, that which would lead him to deny himself and make sacrifices _for her_. But the two, though they may often--perhaps generally--exist together, are in their nature so essentially different that they may be entirely separated, and we may have one in its full strength while there is very little of the other. You may love a person in the sense of taking greater pleasure in receiving attentions and favors from him than from all the world beside, while yet you seldom think of making efforts to promote his comfort and happiness in any thing in which you are not yourself personally concerned. On the other hand, you may love him with the kind of affection which renders it the greatest pleasure of your life to make sacrifices and endure self-denial to promote his welfare in any way.

In some cases these two forms are in fact entirely separated, and one or the other can exist entirely distinct from the other--as in the case of the kind feelings of a good man towards the poor and miserable. It is quite possible to feel a very strong interest in such objects, and to be willing to put ourselves to considerable inconvenience to make them comfortable and happy, and to take great pleasure in learning that our efforts have been effectual, without feeling any love for them at all in the other form--that is, any desire to have them with us, to receive attentions and kindness from them, and to enjoy their society.

On the other hand, in the love of a young child for his mother the case is reversed. The love of the child consists chiefly in liking to be with his mother, in going to her rather than to any one else for relief from pain or for comfort in sorrow, and is accompanied with very few and very faint desires to make efforts, or to submit to privations, or to make sacrifices, for the promotion of her good.

_Order of their Development_.

Now the qualities and characteristics of the soul on which the capacity for these two forms of love depend seem to be very different, and they advance in development and come to maturity at different periods of life; so that the mother, in feeling dejected and sad because she can not awaken in the mind of her child the grat.i.tude and the consideration for her comfort and happiness which she desires, is simply looking for a certain kind of fruit at the wrong time. You have one of the forms of love for you on the part of the child now while he is young. In due time, when he arrives at maturity, if you will wait patiently, you will a.s.suredly have the other. Now he runs to you in every emergency. He asks you for every thing that he wants. He can find comfort nowhere else but in your arms, when he is in distress or in suffering from pain, disappointment, or sorrow. But he will not make any effort to be still when you are sick, or to avoid interrupting you when you are busy; and insists, perhaps, on your carrying him when he is tired, without seeming to think or care whether you may not be tired too. But in due time all this will be changed. Twenty years hence he will conceal all his troubles from you instead of coming with them to you for comfort. He will be off in the world engaged in his pursuits, no longer bound closely to your side. But he will think all the time of your comfort and happiness.

He will bring you presents, and pay you innumerable attentions to cheer your heart in your declining years. He will not run to you when he has hurt himself; but if any thing happens to _you_, he will leave every thing to hasten to your relief, and bring with him all the comforts and means of enjoyment for you that his resources can command. The time will thus come when you will have his love to your heart's content, in the second form.

You must be satisfied, while he is so young, with the first form of it, which is all that his powers and faculties in their present stage are capable of developing.

The truth of the case seems to be that the faculties of the human mind--or I should perhaps rather say, the susceptibilities of the soul--like the instincts of animals, are developed in the order in which they are required for the good of the subject of them.

Indeed, it is very interesting and curious to observe how striking the a.n.a.logy in the order of development, in respect to the nature of the bond of attachment which binds the offspring to the parent, runs through all those ranks of the animal creation in which the young for a time depend upon the mother for food or for protection. The chickens in any moment of alarm run to the hen; and the lamb, the calf, and the colt to their respective mothers; but none of them would feel the least inclination to come to the rescue of the parent if the parent was in danger. With the mother herself it is exactly the reverse. Her heart--if we can speak of the seat of the maternal affections of such creatures as a heart--is filled with desires to bestow good upon her offspring, without a desire, or even a thought, of receiving any good from them in return.

There is this difference, however, between the race of man and those of the inferior animals--namely, that in his case the instinct, or at least a natural desire which is in some respects a.n.a.logous to an instinct, prompting him to repay to his parents the benefits which he received from them in youth, comes in due time; while in that of the lower animals it seems never to come at all. The little birds, after opening their mouths so wide every time the mother comes to the nest during all the weeks while their wings are growing, fly away when they are grown, without the least care or concern for the anxiety and distress of the mother occasioned by their imprudent flights; and once away and free, never come back, so far as we know, to make any return to their mother for watching over them, sheltering them with her body, and working so indefatigably to provide them with food during the helpless period of their infancy--and still less to seek and protect and feed her in her old age. But the boy, reckless as he sometimes seems in his boyhood, insensible apparently to his obligations to his mother, and little mindful of her wishes or of her feelings--his affection for her showing itself mainly in his readiness to go to her with all his wants, and in all his troubles and sorrows--will begin, when he has arrived at maturity and no longer needs her aid, to remember with grat.i.tude the past aid that she has rendered him. The current of affection in his heart will turn and flow the other way. Instead of wis.h.i.+ng to receive, he will now only wish to give. If she is in want, he will do all he can to supply her. If she is in sorrow, he will be happy if he can do any thing to comfort her. He will send her memorials of his grat.i.tude, and objects of comfort and embellishment for her home, and will watch with solicitude and sincere affection over her declining years.

And all this change, if not the result of a new instinct which reaches its development only when the period of maturity arrives, is the unfolding of a sentiment of the heart belonging essentially to the nature of the subject of it as man. It is true that this capacity may, under certain circ.u.mstances, be very feebly developed. In some cases, indeed, it would seem that it was scarcely developed at all; but there is a provision for it in the nature of man, while there is no provision for it at all in the sentient principles of the lower animals.

_Advancing the Development of the Sentiment of Grat.i.tude._

Now, although parents must not be impatient at the slow appearance of this feeling in their children, and must not be troubled in its not appearing before its time, they can do much by proper efforts to cultivate its growth, and give it an earlier and a more powerful influence over them than it would otherwise manifest. The mode of doing this is the same as in all other cases of the cultivation of moral sentiments in children, and that is by the influence over them of sympathy with those they love. Just as the way to cultivate in the minds of children a feeling of pity for those who are in distress is not to preach it as a duty, but to make them love you, and then show such pity yourself; and the way to make them angry and revengeful in character--if we can conceive of your being actuated by so unnatural a desire--would be often to express violent resentment yourself, with scowling looks and fierce denunciations against those who have offended you; so, to awaken them to sentiments of grat.i.tude for the favors they receive, you must gently lead them to sympathize with you in the grat.i.tude which _you_ feel for the favors that _you_ receive.

When a child shows some special unwillingness to comply with her mother's desires, her mother may address to her a kind but direct and plain expostulation on the obligations of children to their parents, and the duty inc.u.mbent on them of being grateful for their kindness, and to be willing to do what they can in return. Such an address would probably do no good at all. The child would receive it simply as a scolding, no matter how mildly and gently the reproof might be expressed, and would shut her heart against it. It is something which she must stand still and endure, and that is all.

But let the mother say the same things precisely when the child has shown a willingness to make some little sacrifice to aid or to gratify her mother, so that the sentiment expressed may enter her mind in the form of approval and not of condemnation, and the effect will be very different. The sentiments will, at any rate, now not be rejected from the mind, but the way will be open for them to enter, and the conversation will have a good effect, so far as didactic teaching can have effect in such a case.

But now to bring in the element of sympathy as a means of reaching and influencing the mind of the child: The mother, we will suppose, standing at the door some morning before breakfast in spring, with her little daughter, seven or eight years old, by her side, hears a bird singing on a tree near by. She points to the tree, and says, in a half-whisper, "Hark!"

When the sound ceases, she looks to the child with an expression of pleasure upon her countenance, and says,

"Suppose we give that bird some crumbs because he has been singing us such a pretty song."

"Well!" says the child.

"Would you?" asks the mother.

"Yes, mother, I should like to give him some very much. Do you suppose he sang the song for us?"

"I don't _know_ that he did," replies the mother. "We don't know exactly what the birds mean by all their singing. They take some pleasure in seeing us, I think, or else they would not come so much around our house; and I don't know but that this bird's song may come from some kind of joy or gladness he felt in seeing us come to the door. At any rate, it will be a pleasure to us to give him some crumbs to pay him for his song."

The child will think so too, and will run off joyfully to bring a piece of bread to form crumbs to be scattered upon the path.

And the whole transaction will have the effect of awakening and cheris.h.i.+ng the sentiment of grat.i.tude in her heart. The effect will not be great, it is true, but it will be of the right kind. It will be a drop of water upon the unfolding cotyledons of a seed just peeping up out of the ground, which will percolate below after you have gone away, and give the little roots a new impulse of growth. For when you have left the child seated upon the door-step, occupied in throwing out the crumbs to the bird, her heart will be occupied with the thoughts you have put into it, and the sentiment of grat.i.tude for kindness received will commence its course of development, if it had not commenced it before.

_The Case of older Children_.