Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young

CHAPTER XII. COMMENDATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT

We are very apt to imagine that the disposition to do right is, or ought to be, the natural and normal condition of childhood, and that doing wrong is something unnatural and exceptional with children. As a consequence, when they do right we think there is nothing to be said. That is, or ought to be, a matter of course. It is only when they do wrong that we notice their conduct, and then, of course, with censure and reproaches. Thus our discipline consists mainly, not in gently leading and encouraging them in the right way, but in deterring them, by fault-finding and punishment, from going wrong.

Now we ought not to forget that in respect to moral conduct as well as to mental attainments children know nothing when they come into the world, but have every thing to learn, either from the instructions or from the example of those around them. We do not propose to enter at all into the consideration of the various theological and metaphysical theories held by different classes of philosophers in respect to the native constitution and original tendencies of the human soul, but to look at the phenomena of mental and moral action in a plain and practical way, as they present themselves to the observation of mothers in the every-day walks of life. And in order the better to avoid any complication with these theories, we will take first an extremely simple case, namely, the fault of making too much noise in opening and shutting the door in going in and out of a room. Georgie and Charlie are two boys, both about five years old, and both prone to the same fault. We will suppose that their mothers take opposite methods to correct them; Georgie's mother depending upon the influence of commendation and encouragement when he does right, and Charlie's, upon the efficacy of reproaches and punishments when he does wrong.

Georgie, eager to ask his mother some question, or to obtain some permission in respect to his play, bursts into her room some morning with great noise, opening and shutting the door violently, and making much disturbance. In a certain sense he is not to blame for this, for he is wholly unconscious of the disturbance he makes. The entire cognizant capacity of his mind is occupied with the object of his request. He not only had no intention of doing any harm, but has no idea of his having done any.

His mother takes no notice of the noise he made, but answers his question, and he goes away making almost as much noise in going out as he did in coming in.

The next time he comes in it happens—entirely by accident, we will suppose—that he makes a little less noise than before. This furnishes his mother with her opportunity.

"Georgie," she says, "I see you are improving."

"Improving?" repeats Georgie, not knowing to what his mother refers.

"Yes," said his mother; "you are improving, in coming into the room without making a noise by opening and shutting the door. You did not make nearly as much noise this time as you did before when you came in. Some boys, whenever they come into a room, make so much noise in opening and shutting the door that it is very disagreeable. If you go on improving as you have begun, you will soon come in as still as any gentleman."

The next time that Georgie comes in, he takes the utmost pains to open and shut the door as silently as possible.

He makes his request. His mother shows herself unusually ready to grant it.

"You opened and shut the door like a gentleman," she says. "I ought to do every thing for you that I can, when you take so much pains not to disturb or trouble me."

Charlie's mother, on the other hand, acts on a different principle. Charlie comes in sometimes, we will suppose, in a quiet and proper manner. His mother takes no notice of this. She considers it a matter of course. By-and-by, however, under the influence of some special eagerness, he makes a great noise. Then his mother interposes. She breaks out upon him with,

"Charlie, what a noise you make! Don't you know better than to slam the doer in that way when you come in? If you can't learn to make less noise in going in and out, I shall not let you go in and out at all."

Charlie knows very well that this is an empty threat. Still, the utterance of it, and the scolding that accompanies it, irritate him a little, and the only possible good effect that can be expected to result from it is to make him try, the next time he comes in, to see how small an abatement of the noise he usually makes will do, as a kind of make-believe obedience to his mother's command. He might, indeed, honestly answer his mother's angry question by saying that he does not know better than to make such a noise. He does not know why the noise of the door should be disagreeable to his mother. It is not disagreeable to him. On the contrary, it is agreeable. Children always like noise, especially if they make it themselves. And although Charlie has often been told that he must not make any noise, the reason for this—namely, that though noise is a source of pleasure, generally, to children, especially when they make it themselves, it is almost always a source of annoyance and pain to grown persons—has never really entered his mind so as to be actually comprehended us a practical reality. His ideas in respect to the philosophy of the transaction are, of course, exceedingly vague; but so far as he forms any idea, it is that his mother's words are the expression of some mysterious but unreasonable sensitiveness on her part, which awakens in her a spirit of fault-finding and ill-humor that vents itself upon him in blaming him for nothing at all; or, as he would express it more tersely, if not so elegantly, that she is "very cross." In other words, the impression made by the transaction upon his moral sense is that of wrong-doing on his mother's part, and not at all on his own.

It is evident, when we thus look into the secret workings of this method of curing children of their faults, that even when it is successful in restraining certain kinds of outward misconduct, and is thus the means of effecting some small amount of good, the injury which it does by its reaction on the spirit of the child may be vastly greater, through the irritation and ill-humor which it occasions, and the impairing of his confidence in the justice and goodness of his mother. Before leaving this illustration, it must be carefully observed that in the first-mentioned case—namely, that of Georgie—the work of curing the fault in question is not to be at all considered as effected by the step taken by his mother which has been already described. That was only a beginning—a right beginning, it is true, but still only a beginning. It produced in him a cordial willingness to do right, in one instance. That is a great thing, but it is, after all, only one single step. The work is not complete until a habit of doing right is formed, which is another thing altogether, and requires special and continual measures directed to this particular end. Children have to be trained in the way they should go—not merely shown the way, and induced to make a beginning of entering it. We will now try to show how the influence of commendation and encouragement may be brought into action in this more essential part of the process.

Having taken the first step already described, Georgie's mother finds some proper opportunity, when she can have the undisturbed and undivided attention of her boy—perhaps at night, after he has gone to his crib or his trundle-bed, and just before she leaves him; or, perhaps, at some time while she is at work, and he is sitting by her side, with his mind calm, quiet, and unoccupied.

"Georgie," she says, "I have a plan to propose to you."

Georgie is eager to know what it is.

"You know how pleased I was when you came in so still to-day."

Georgie remembers it very well.

"It is very curious," continued his mother, "that there is a great difference between grown people and children about noise. Children like almost all kinds of noises very much, especially, if they make the noises themselves; but grown people dislike them even more, I think, than children like them. If there were a number of boys in the house, and I should tell them that they might run back and forth through the rooms, and rattle and slam all the doors as they went as loud as they could, they would like it very much. They would think it excellent fun."

"Yes," says Georgie, "indeed, they would. I wish you would let us do it some day."

"But grown people," continues his mother, "would not like such an amusement at all. On the contrary, such a racket would be excessively disagreeable to them, whether they made it themselves or whether somebody else made it. So, when children come into a room where grown people are sitting, and make a noise in opening and shutting the door, it is very disagreeable. Of course, grown people always like those children the best that come into a room quietly, and in a gentlemanly and lady-like manner."

As this explanation comes in connection with Georgia's having done right, and with the commendation which he has received for it, his mind and heart are open to receive it, instead of being disposed to resist and exclude it, as he would have been if the same things exactly had been said to him in connection with censure and reproaches for having acted in violation of the principle.

"Yes, mother," says he, "and I mean always to open and shut the door as still as I can."

"Yes, I know you mean to do so," rejoined his mother, "but you will forget, unless you have some plan to make you remember it until the habit is formed. Now I have a plan to propose to help you form the habit. When you get the habit once formed there will be no more difficulty.

"The plan is this: whenever you come into a room making a noise, I will simply say, Noise. Then you will step back again softly and shut the door, and then come in again in a quiet and proper way. You will not go back for punishment, for you would not have made the noise on purpose, and so would not deserve any punishment. It is only to help you remember, and so to form the habit of coming into a room in a quiet and gentlemanly manner."

Now Georgie, especially if all his mother's management of him is conducted in this spirit, will enter into this plan with great cordiality.

"I should not propose this plan," continued his mother, "if I thought that when I say Noise, and you have to go out and come in again, it would put you out of humor, and make you cross or sullen. I am sure you will be good-natured about it, and even if you consider it a kind of punishment, that you will go out willingly, and take the punishment like a man; and when you come in again you will come in still, and look pleased and happy to find that you are carrying out the plan honorably."

Then if, on the first occasion when he is sent back, he does take it good-naturedly, this must be noticed and commended.

Now, unless we are entirely wrong in all our ideas of the nature and tendencies of the infantile mind, it is as certain that a course of procedure like this will be successful in curing the fault which is the subject of treatment, as that water will extinguish fire. It cures it, too, without occasioning any irritation, annoyance, or ill-humor in the mind either of mother or child. On the contrary, it is a source of real satisfaction and pleasure to them both, and increases and strengthens the bond of sympathy by which their hearts are united to each other.

It must be understood distinctly that this case is given only as an illustration of a principle which is applicable to all cases. The act of opening and shutting a door in a noisy manner is altogether too insignificant a fault to deserve this long discussion of the method of curing it, were it not that methods founded on the same principles, and conducted in the same spirit, are applicable universally in all that pertains to the domestic management of children. And it is a method, too, directly the opposite of that which is often—I will not say generally, but certainly very often—pursued. The child tells the truth many times, and in some cases, perhaps, when the inducement was very strong to tell an untruth. We take no notice of these cases, considering it a matter of course that he should tell the truth. We reserve our action altogether for the first case when, overcome by a sudden temptation, he tells a lie, and then interpose with reproaches and punishment. Nineteen times he gives up what belongs to his little brother or sister of his own accord, perhaps after a severe internal struggle. The twentieth time the result of the struggle goes the wrong way, and he attempts to retain by violence what does not belong to him. We take no notice of the nineteen cases when the little fellow did right, but come and box his ears in the one case when he does wrong.

The idea on which this mode of treatment is founded—namely, that it is a matter of course that children should do right, so that when they do right there is nothing to be said, and that doing wrong is the abnormal condition and exceptional action which alone requires the parent to interfere—is, to a great extent, a mistake. Indeed, the matter of course is all the other way. A babe will seize the plaything of another babe without the least compunction long after it is keenly alive to the injustice and wrongfulness of having its own playthings taken by any other child. So in regard to truth. The first impulse of all children, when they have just acquired the use of language, is to use it in such a way as to effect their object for the time being, without any sense of the sacred obligation of making the words always correspond truly with the facts. The principles of doing justice to the rights of others to one's own damage, and of speaking the truth when falsehood would serve the present purpose better, are principles that are developed or acquired by slow degrees, and at a later period. I say developed or acquired—for different classes of metaphysicians and theologians entertain different theories in respect to the way by which the ideas of right and of duty enter into the human mind. But all will agree in this, that whatever may be the origin of the moral sense in man, it does not appear as a practical element of control for the conduct till some time after the animal appetites and passions have begun to exercise their power. Whether we regard this sense as arising from a development within of a latent principle of the soul, or as an essential element of the inherited and native constitution of man, though remaining for a time embryonic and inert, or as a habit acquired under the influence of instruction and example, all will admit that the period of its appearance as a perceptible motive of action is so delayed, and the time required for its attaining sufficient strength to exercise any real and effectual control over the conduct extends over so many of the earlier years of life, that no very material help in governing the appetites and passions and impulses can be reasonably expected from it at a very early period. Indeed, conscience, so far as its existence is manifested at all in childhood, seems to show itself chiefly in the form of the simple fear of detection in what there is reason to suppose will lead, if discovered, to reproaches or punishment.