How Shall We Raise Our Children?

A person's possibilities in life depend to a great extent on what he has inherited from his parents and grandparents in the way of bodily and mental endowments. He is bound by them throughout his life, yet they change and are affected by environment, upbringing, and care.

And they help the child in his growth and his ceaseless movement. The healthy child loves play and never leaves off coming and going. Grown people often complain of this conduct in little children, and try to teach them quiet and stillness. This is an error, born of ignorance of the psychology of the child and of the science of health and growth. All that grown people can do is to watch their children, lest they go too far with strenuous games that exhaust them or expose them to danger...

The child learns of his own accord, by repetition, not to expose himself to things that hurt him, and to withdraw from unpleasant situations. When he eats food that is hot his tongue is burned and he cries; and if he touches fire, or something scalding, he pulls his finger back quickly and cries. The repetition of the act teaches the child not to eat hot food and not to touch a scalding thing. These are situations and experiences in which the punishment came naturally from the thing itself. But when the punishment is artificial, imposed by a person standing apart from the incident, such as the mother or the teacher, it does not bring the same benefit; for if the mother or the teacher is absent, the child no longer finds anything to restrain him from the act. Take, for example, a child who pulls the flowers out of the vase and throws them on the floor. His mother sees him, strikes him, and scolds him; so he learns that the act brings him harm from his mother — and if his mother is absent, he finds nothing to restrain him from doing it again. Hence it is said in the psychology book of Skinner & Harriman that natural punishment is desirable, being an effective instrument in prompting the child and guiding him, whereas improvised, artificial punishment is for the most part of little use. It may drive the child to lying, trickery, and hiding what he has done for fear of punishment. Punishment is a cutting tool with two edges: used without thought, it does great harm; and whoever uses it needs special care and more than ordinary tact if it is to bring the desired result.

Here is the following story: Salim came to play with Hanna at our house, and Hanna struck him during the game. I learned of the matter, and I came and struck Hanna — not to punish him, but to quiet the storm of feeling in Salim, the dear guest whose rights I do not like to see trampled in our house. Hanna's real punishment was that I did not allow him to go to Salim to play with him for the whole week. Every time he asked my leave to go to him, I said: "No — you shall not play with Salim, because you are not well-mannered and you strike your companion. If you love playing with children, you must be kind to them." And so he learned that if he struck Salim, he was deprived of the pleasure of playing with him; and today he is an intimate friend of Salim's, and neither strikes the other.

As for rewarding children, the reward may be natural, arising out of the work, and it may also be artificial. If I ask my son to help me carry in the wood for lighting the fire in the stove, he will do it gladly if I promise him half a lira; and he may do it gladly, too, if I say to him, for instance: "Hanna, if you help me bring in the wood, we will light the fire together and sit together watching it blaze. Don't you love the beautiful sight of the fire?" But the difference between the first reward and the second is a wide one. The first reward is artificial: it teaches the child to demand a reward every time he performs a service in the house, and he may sometimes lie and claim that he has performed a service in order to collect his wage. The second reward — the beautiful sight of the fire — arises from the work itself and cannot be separated from it; it prompts the child toward useful work, and no harm comes of it.

The guidance of the child's feelings does not come by showering advice, but by the parents' giving their children, through their own conduct, the highest example; that is more effective and more powerful. What use is a mother's counsel to her son not to quarrel with his companion, while she quarrels with her neighbor or her husband every day?

I said at the opening of my talk that a person inherits from his parents bodily and mental possibilities, which are affected by the environment; and man's personality is not the planting of nature alone. The traits of personality do not stand each apart from the others in our growth: the constant interplay of the mental, bodily, social, emotional, and religious sides makes up a complete and finished whole, which is the personality. That is why the first years of children's lives have the greatest importance in directing growth and forming personality.

The mother of a five-year-old boy wrote to Colonel Parker to ask him at what suitable age she ought to begin her son's upbringing. The Colonel answered her: "Hurry home, for you have missed five years — the most important years of your son's life for setting the course of it." And would that we all hurried home to guide our children, even if it cost us the sittings at the green table and the visits of neighbor women and friends...