Chapter XV: Freedom and Discipline (2)

We must recognize that there is no general faculty of lying. It is very easy for us to class as _lies_ every word and every act that is not in complete harmony with the facts--as we understand them. But there are many kinds of lies, as well as many degrees of them. A child that is branded a liar has undoubtedly given abundant occasion for mistrust, and has lied aplenty; but undoubtedly also he has specialized in his lying, and would be incapable of certain kinds of lies that are common enough with other children. As we are the judges of our children in all of their misdeeds, we must preserve not only a judicious attitude, but we must really be _just_. And to this end it is essential that we take into consideration all the circumstances that lead to a lie, including the motives, as well as the special traits of the particular child.

The first thing that we should keep always in mind is that the moral character of the child is still unformed, and that his standards of truth, like his other standards, are not the same as those of the adult. Indeed, this fact is at the same time the hope of childhood and the source of its many tragedies. It is the hope because the child is _growing_, and acquiring new vision and new powers; the child of to-day is the adult of to-morrow, and most of the children of to-day will be at least as developed, in time, as the adults of to-day. The tragedy arises from the fact that as we grow older we forget the outlook of the child, and misunderstandings between the parents and the children are almost inevitable.

Whatever the prevailing morality of a community may demand, the fact remains that practically all children up to a certain age consider it perfectly legitimate to lie to their enemies if they but tell the truth to their friends. Children may lie to the policeman, or to the teacher, or to anyone with whom they are for the moment in conflict. This is a relic of the time when our savage ancestors found it necessary to practice deceit in order to save themselves from their enemies. So ingrained is this instinct that many a child will stick to a falsehood before the teacher or other inquisitors, only to retract and "go to pieces" when obliged to answer his mother. It has been shown over and over again that children even well along in the teens consider it quite right to tell one story to a teacher or to another child who is disliked, and a different story to one that is liked. This attitude probably arises not so much from a desire to deceive as an outcome of natural cunning and adaptability.

This is illustrated by the little girl who used to throw the crust of her bread under the table, to get more soft bread. The child was too young to deceive anyone; she could not possibly have the idea of deceit or of lying. She had simply come to dispose of the crust in this way because she had associated the arrival of more bread with her empty-handedness; to throw the bread under the table was a direct way to the getting of what she wanted. The question of truth or untruth never entered the little mind. To treat this child as a liar would not only be unjust, but would be apt to make the child conscious of the idea of deceit. Later in his development the child may still use the same kind of cunning in getting what he wants or in escaping what he does not like, without the intention to deceive. And a lie, to be a lie, must include that intention.

All students of child nature agree that a very young child--say before the age of four or five--does not lie consciously. Later, the child may say many things that are not so, but gradually he comes to recognize the difference between what he says and what is really so; he may need help in coming to see the difference, but this aid should not be forced upon him too soon. A little boy of five who was very imaginative became acquainted with some older children in a new neighborhood who had little imagination and therefore were greatly shocked by Herbert's "stories." They proceeded to inform him that he was lying, and to explain to him what a lie was. The boy was very much impressed. After he came home he discovered that there was a great deal of lying going on. He asked his little brother, "Are you older than me?"--to which the little one answered in the affirmative. Herbert came running to his mother to report that the baby had "told a lie!" For several weeks everything that was said was subject to the child's severe scrutiny; every slightest mistake was at once labelled by him as a "lie." Richard said _this_ is my right hand, that is a lie; Helen said I may not play with the hammer, mother said I may, so Helen lied; the maid said it was time to go to bed, but it is only five minutes to seven, so the maid lied. And he would delight especially in asking the baby brother leading questions, to trap him into saying lies. This experience did not result in making Herbert any more scrupulous in his own speech, for his imagination created interesting and dramatic situations, which he described with zeal and enthusiasm, for a long time after he had discovered "lies."

The young child is really incapable of distinguishing between his dreams and reality on the one hand, and between reality and his day-dreams or imaginings on the other. A little boy came home from kindergarten a few days after he had entered, and, when the experience was still full of novelties to him, he described the workshop: each little boy had a pair of overalls with the name across the bib in black letters; there was a little locker for each child, with the name on the outside; each had his set of tools and his place at the bench. Day by day he narrated his doings in "school" and reported the progress he was making with a little "hair-pin box" that he intended for his aunt's birthday. On the birthday the mother came to the school to see how the boy was getting on; and she asked about the hair-pin box which he was now to bring home. It then appeared that there was no shop, no overalls, no lockers, no tools. The whole story was a creation of the child's imagination, and all the details he had invented were real enough to him to be described repeatedly with such vividness that no one suspected for a moment that it was all a fabrication. To call such stories "lies" would be worse than useless. If scolding or preaching could make a child merely stop _telling_ such stories, there would be no gain; if they stopped a child _thinking_ such stories, there would be a decided loss.

Gradually the child may come to recognize the difference between the make-believe and the reality, and he may be helped. When at a certain age you think your child ought to distinguish more clearly between his imagination and cold facts, it would be all right to explain to him that, although there is no harm in his enjoying his make-believe, still he must not tell his fancies as if they were real, but must tell them as "make-believe stories." That will achieve the desired result without making him feel hurt at your lack of understanding in treating him like an ordinary liar whose prime intention is to deceive. But it is not wise to force this development, even at the risk of prolonging the age of dreams.

With some children lying is caused by their esthetic feelings. It is much easier for them to describe a situation as they feel it should have been than to describe it as it actually was. Many children "embellish the facts" without any trace of intent to deceive. Although we recognize that what they say is not strictly the truth, we must further recognize that it is their love of the beautiful or their sense of the fitness of things that leads them to these "exaggerations." It is the same sort of instinct as shows itself in our love of certain kinds of fiction. We know that some of the happy endings in the plays and in the novels are often far-fetched; but we like to have the happy endings, or the "poetic justice" endings, or the "irony of fate" endings, just the same. When the child makes up his endings to fit his sense of justice or beauty, we must not condemn him, as we are often tempted to do, by calling his fabrication a "lie," for that at once puts it in the same class as deliberate deceit for a selfish purpose. There is really no harm in this class of lies, unless, as the child grows older, it becomes apparent that he lets his wishes and preferences interfere with his vision of what is actually going on. In such cases the remedy is not to be found in the denunciation of lying, but in giving the child opportunity to experience realities that cannot be treated untruthfully. To this end various kinds of hand work and scientific study have been useful. It is impossible for the child to cheat the tools of the workshop or his instruments of precision; it is impossible to make a spool of thread do the work of two or three; or one cannot make the paint go farther by applying the brush faster. It is concrete reality that can teach the imaginative child reality; in the things he learns from books there is no check upon the imagined and the desired--one kind of outcome is as likely and as true as another. But in the experience of the workaday world causes and consequences cannot be so easily altered by a trick of words.

Investigation has shown that the sentimental or heroic element is one that appeals to children so strongly that it may often lead to what we adults would call lies, or it would seem to the child to justify lying. The confession to a deed that he has not committed, for the purpose of saving a weaker companion from punishment or injury, seems to be a type of lie that appeals strongly to most children. Again and again have boys--and girls, too--declared stoically that they were guilty of some dereliction of which they were quite innocent, to shield a friend. And most children not only admire such acts, but will seek to defend them on moral grounds, even when they are old enough to know what a _lie_ is. The explanation for this is to be found in the fact that the child sees every situation or problem as a whole; he has not yet learned to separate problems into their component parts. A situation is to him all wrong or all right; he cannot see that a part may be wrong, while another part is right. Now in the case of the self-confessed culprits, the magnanimity and heroism of the act stand out so prominently that they quite overshadow the trifling circumstance that the hero did _not_ do the wicked deed.

An excellent illustration of this trait of child nature came out in an inquiry that was made a number of years ago. A child replied, in answer to the question "When would a lie be justified?" that if the mother's life depended upon it one would have the moral duty of saying that she "was out, although she was really in." That is, it would be one's duty to make the great moral _sacrifice_ of speaking an untruth for the sake of saving the mother. Any child will tell you, as did this one, that it would be wicked to tell a lie to save his own life!

This suggests another type of lie that is quite common. Most children feel their personal loyalties so keenly that they would do many things that they themselves consider wrong for a person they love or admire. A little girl was so much impressed with the moral teachings of her Sunday-school teacher that she was determined to get her a suitable Christmas present. Now, the family had not the means to supply such a present, and Mary knew it, and was greatly distressed by the fact. However, where there is a will there is a way; and Mary found the way by cunningly stealing a moustache cup from a store with the inspiring legend "To dear Father" and beautiful red and blue roses and gilt leaves. Mary had learned that it was wicked to steal and to lie, etc., but her heart was set on getting something for the teacher, not for herself, and she very unselfishly risked her moral salvation for the person she loved and admired.

It is probably better for the child if we do not push the analysis of acts and motives too early, for there is more danger at a certain age from morbid self-consciousness than from acquiring vicious habits. If we recognize that many of the lapses from the paths of truth arise from really worthy motives, we must make sure that these ideals become fixed before we attempt to separate the unworthy act from the commendable purpose.

The cases so far given show how important it is to retain not only the affection but also the confidence of our children; and how important it is to have right teachers and associates. The child will do what he can to please those he really likes or admires; but the kind of thing he will do will depend a great deal upon what those he admires themselves like to see done.

There are some lies that are due to faulty observation. We do not often realize to what extent we supplement our sense perceptions in relating our experiences. Lawyers tell us that it is very difficult to have a witness relate _exactly_ what he saw; he is always adding details for completing the story in accordance with his _interpretation_ of what he saw. This is not lying in any sense, but it is relating as alleged facts what are in reality conclusions from facts. One may be an unreliable witness without being a liar; and so may the child tell us things that we know are not so because, in trying to tell a complete story, he has to supplement what he actually saw with what he feels _must_ have been a part of the incident. Defects of judgment as well as delusions of the senses or lapses of memory may lead to misstatements that are not really lies. Some delusions of the senses, especially of sight and of hearing, undoubtedly have a physical cause.

Another source of comparatively harmless lying is the instinct for secretiveness. Children just love to have secrets, and if there are none on hand, they have to be invented. A child will tell another a secret on condition that it be kept a secret; but when the secret is told it turns out to be a falsehood--perhaps even something libellous. Now, the child cannot feel that he has done anything wicked, for to his mind the big thing is that Nellie promised not to tell, and she broke her promise! If she had not broken her promise to keep the secret, it never would have come out, and no harm would have been done. Perhaps we have not yet sufficiently driven secrets from our common life to demand that the children shall be without secrets. When we set the children an example of perfect frankness and open dealing in all matters, we may perhaps be in a position to discourage the invention of secrets by the young people. Secretiveness leads naturally to deceit; but it is not in itself serious enough to make much ado about. Healthy children in healthful social surroundings will outgrow this instinct; where the atmosphere is charged with intrigue and scheming and dissimulation, this instinct may survive longer, but its manifestation is in itself not a trait that should give its concern.

Some children lie because they are inclined to brag or show off; others for just the opposite reason--they are too sensitive or timid. And a lie that comes from either side of the child's nature cannot be taken as a sign of moral depravity; the treatment which a child is given must take into consideration the child's temperament. Charles Darwin tells of his own inclination to make exaggerated statements for the purpose of causing a sensation. "I told another little boy," he writes in his autobiography, "that I could produce variously-colored polyanthuses and primroses by watering them with certain colored fluids, which was, of course, a monstrous fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as a little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance, I once gathered much valuable fruit from my father's trees and hid it in the shrubbery and then ran in breathless haste to spread the news that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit."

For the vaunting lie it is usually sufficient to defeat its purpose by showing that the boast cannot be carried out. The braggart is made to descend from the pedestal of the hero to the level of the fool.

How the other extreme in disposition may lead to a "lie" is shown by the little girl who was sent to the store for a loaf of bread and came back saying that there was no more to be had. The mother was very sure that that could not be, but soon found out, on questioning, that the child had forgotten what she was sent to get and was then afraid of being ridiculed for having forgotten. Here the cause of the lie was timidity. To punish this child would only make her more timid. In a case of this kind the mother should try to cultivate the self-confidence of the child instead of punishing her for untruthfulness.

Perhaps the most common kind of lie is the one that a child tells in order to escape punishment. It is often chosen as "the easiest way" without realization of any serious wrong-doing. And even when a child is taught the wrong of it, it is still too helpful to be entirely dropped. As a little boy once said, "A lie is an abomination to the Lord, and an ever-ready help in time of trouble." The first lie of this kind that a child invents comes without any feeling of moral wrong-doing. He has only an instinctive shrinking from pain. To cure a child of this kind of lie, we must take his disposition into consideration; there is no one remedy that suits all children. In some cases it has worked very well to develop the courage of the child, so that he will fearlessly accept the consequences of his deeds. We all know of cases where children can be physically very brave and stand a great deal of pain if they are made to see the necessity for it--as when they are treated by a dentist or physician. Children of that type surely can be taught to be brave, also, about accepting the consequences of misdeeds. With another type of child the desired result can be obtained by making him see that he will be happier and that his relations with others will he pleasanter if he always tells the truth. In some children the sense of honor can be very easily aroused, and they can be made to see how truthfulness and reliability help human beings to get along with each other in their various relations. A great many temptations for this kind of lie can be entirely avoided if your child feels from earliest infancy that you always treat him justly.

Yet a child who is neither afraid of punishment nor inclined to deceive may often be tempted to lie when his wits are challenged. There is something about your tone of voice, or in the manner of asking "Who left the door of the chicken-house open?" that is an irresistible temptation to make you show how smart you really are. You think you know, and your manner shows it; but you may be mistaken, and your cocksureness arouses all the cunning and combativeness of the child. There is a vague feeling in his mind that he would like to see you confirm your suspicion without the aid of an open confession--and the result is a "lie." Indeed, any approach that arouses antagonisms is almost sure to bring out the propensity to dissimulate or even to deceive. In such cases the mother should learn how to approach the child without a challenge, instead of trying to teach the child not to lie.

The worst kind of lies are those caused by selfishness or the desire to gain at the expense of another, or those prompted by malice or envy, or the passion for vengeance. Although such lies often appear in the games of children, the games themselves are not to be held responsible for this. Indeed, the games of the older children, when played under suitable direction, are likely to be among the best means for remedying untruthfulness. Yet it may be wise sometimes to keep a child from his games for a time, not so much to "punish" him for lying as to give him an opportunity to reflect on the close connection between truthfulness and good playing. Special instruction may sometimes be needed as a means to arousing the conscience. The lies of selfishness are bad because, if continued, they are likely to make children grasping and unscrupulous. But it is in most cases wiser to try to make the child more generous and frank than to fix the attention on the lies. If he can be made to realize that his happiness is more likely to be assured through friendly and sincere relations, the temptation to use lies will be reduced.

One type of lying that is very irritating and very hard to meet is that known as prevarication. This consists in telling a part of a truth, or even a whole truth, in such a way as to convey a false impression, and is most common at about twelve or thirteen years. When a child resorts to prevarication he is already old enough to know the difference between a truthful statement and a false statement. Indeed, it is when he most keenly realizes this that he is most likely to prevaricate, for this is but a device by which the childish mind attempts to achieve an indirect purpose and at the same time keep his peace with his conscience. It is when he already has a certain fear of lying, and is not yet thoroughly sincere and truth-loving, that he will come home from the truant fishing party and ingeniously tell you that a "friend of Harry's" caught the fish, instead of saying that he himself did it. His conscience is quite satisfied with the reflection that he _is_ a friend of Harry's. In this stage of his career the child is quite capable of understanding a direct analysis of what is essentially a deception, and a good heart-to-heart talk that comes to a conclusion is about the best thing he can get.

I hope you will not think, from what I have said, that I have been trying to justify lying, or that I do not consider lying a serious matter; nor, on the other hand, that you will consider a single application of the remedies suggested sufficient to make any child truthful. Thoroughgoing truthfulness comes hard and generally comes late. But for the majority of children truthfulness is attainable, although it will not be attained without a struggle. The finer instincts often enough lead to violations of strict veracity; but they may be made also to strengthen the feeling of scrupulous regard for the truth.

I have tried to show that what we call a lie is _not_ always a lie; and that some of the very methods we use in training our children themselves produce lies. The inflicting of severe punishments is one of the chief of these, and the most common lie is that which is due to fear of punishment. Lies that arise from bad habits should be treated by an attempt to remedy the bad habit. Lies that arise from ignorance should be treated by attention to necessary knowledge.

Even more important than the right kind of treatment for untruthfulness is the necessity for an atmosphere in which the spirit of truthfulness is all-pervading. Some day watch yourself and notice how often you tell untruths to your child; how often he hears you tell so-called "white lies" to your neighbors; how often he hears you prevaricate and exaggerate. If you will keep track of these things you will realize that it is a trifle absurd of you to expect your child to be a strict speaker of the truth. Part of our campaign against the lies of our children must therefore consist in our attempt to establish truthful relations among adults, and between adults and children.

V.

BEING AFRAID

The heroes of history and the heroes of fiction whom all of us like to admire are the men and women who know no fear. But most of us make use of fear as a cheap device for attaining immediate results with our children. When Johnny hesitates about going upstairs in the dark to fetch your work-basket, you remind him of Columbus, who braved the trackless sea and the unknown void in the West, and you exhort him to be a man; but when Johnny was younger you yourself warned him that the Bogeyman would get him if be did not go right to sleep. And it is not very long since the day when he tried to climb the cherry tree and you attempted to dissuade him with the alarming prophecy that he would surely fall down and break his neck.

Thus our training consists of countless contradictions: we set up noble ideals to arouse courage and self-reliance--when that suits our immediate purpose; and we frighten with threats and warn of calamity when the child has the impulse to do what we do not wish to have him do. This at once suggests the effect of fear upon character and conduct. We instinctively call upon courage when we want the child _to do_ something; we call upon fear when we want to _prevent action_. In other words, bravery stimulates, whereas fear paralyzes.

The human race is characterized by an instinct of fear. Very young infants exhibit all the symptoms of fear long before they can have any knowledge or experience of the disagreeable and the harmful effects of the things that frighten them. Thus a sudden noise will make the child start and tremble and even scream. And all through life an unexpected and loud noise is likely to startle us. An investigation has shown that thunder is feared much more than lightning. Children will laugh at the flashes of lightning, but will cower before the roaring thunder.

The feeling of fear is closely associated with what is _unknown_. It is not noise in general that frightens the children, but an unexpected noise from an unknown source. Indeed, the children like noise itself well enough to produce it whenever they can by heating drums, or barrels, or wash-boilers. The frightful thing about thunder is that the cause remains a mystery, and it is frightful so long as the cause _does_ remain a mystery, if the child lives to be a hundred years old. During a thunder-storm children will picture to themselves a battle going on above. Some think of the sky cracking or the moon bursting, or conceive of the firmament as a dome of metal over which balls are being rolled.

The influence of the unknown explains also why that other great source of fear, namely, darkness, has such a strange hold upon children. Fear of darkness is very common and often very intense. There are but few children who do not suffer from it at some time and to some extent. This fear is frequently suggested by stories of robbers, ghosts, or other terrors, but even children who have been carefully guarded sometimes have these violent fears that cannot be reasoned away.

In order to discover what it is about the darkness that frightens children, a large number of women and men were asked to recall their childish experiences with fear, and from the many instances given the following may be used to illustrate the various terrors of the dark.

One woman described her fears of "an indistinct living something, black, possibly curly," which she feared would enter the room in the darkness from somewhere under the bed. Another could see dark objects with eyes and teeth slowly and noiselessly descending from the ceiling toward her. One little boy, when he had finally overcome fear, said to his father that he thought the dark to be "a large live thing the color of black." A girl of nineteen said she remembered that on going to bed she used to see little black figures jumping about between the ceiling and the bed.

It is well known that the feeling of fear is often very intense among children; and where it is due to ignorance it is not right to laugh it away. Doing so affords no explanation. The ridicule may cause the child to _hide_ his fear, but will not drive the feeling away. Since the feeling of fear is so closely connected with the strange and unknown, the only way that it may be directly overcome is by making the child familiar with the objects that cause such feelings.

In the case of young children with whom we cannot reason it is best, wherever possible, to remove the cause or gradually to make the child familiar with the darkness, or whatever it is that makes him unhappy. One very young child became frightened when he was presented with a Teddy bear. Every time the Teddy bear was produced he would cry with terror. The mother was perplexed about what to do. Now, as the Teddy bear is not a necessary part of the child's surroundings, there is no reason why it cannot be removed altogether and produced again upon some future occasion, when the child is old enough to be indifferent to it. Very many children are frightened by the touch of fur, or even of velvet; but this lasts only a short time, and they soon learn to like dogs and cats.

The fear of darkness is different; we cannot eliminate darkness from the child's experience, and we must patiently try to help the child to overcome his fear, since he will suffer greatly so long as it lasts. The help you give him will also constitute one more bond of sympathy between you and your child, and we cannot have too many such bonds.

One mother got her boy used to going into a dark room by placing some candy on the farther window and sending him for that. Here the child fixed his attention on the goal and had no time to think of the terrors of the dark. After making such visits a few times the boy became quite indifferent to the darkness.

Another ingenious mother gave her little daughter who was afraid a tiny, flat, electric spotlight which just fitted into the pocket of her pajama jacket She took it to bed with her, slipped it under the pillow, and derived such comfort from it that the whole family was relieved. The child soon outgrew her timidity.

A child who from infancy has been accustomed to going to sleep in the dark and suddenly develops a fear of it ought to be indulged to the extent of having a light for a few minutes to show him that there is nothing there to be afraid of. It may take a few evenings and several disagreeable trips to the child's bedroom, but in the end he will be victorious and you will have helped him to win the victory.

A child that is not in good health is likely to be possessed by his fears much longer than one who is well. In the latter case there is a fund of energy to go exploring, and the child thus becomes more readily acquainted with his surroundings, and as his knowledge grows his fears vanish. Again, the sickly child has not the energy to fight his fears, as has the healthy child. Indeed, the high spirits of the healthy child often lead him to seek the frightful, just for the exhilaration he gets from the sensation.

The period of most intense fears is between the ages of five and seven, and while imaginative children naturally suffer most, they are also the ones that can call up bright fancies to cheer them. Robert Louis Stevenson must have had a lovely time in the dark, seeing circuses and things, as he tells us in his poem which begins:

All night long and every night When my mamma puts out the light I see the circus passing by As plain as day before my eye, etc.

Although fear is a human instinct, it is not universal, and once in a while we find a child who has no instinctive fear. If such a child is not frightened he may remain quite ignorant of the feeling for many years. I know a boy who, at the age of five, was unacquainted with the sensation of fear, and, never having been frightened, also did not know the meaning of the word "fear." He had heard it used by other children and knew that it was something unpleasant, but when one day at dinner he said to his mother, "You know, I think I am afraid of spinach," meaning that he did not like it, it was evident that the feeling of fear was quite foreign to him.

Many parents have a feeling of helplessness in the face of a trait that is said to be "instinctive," as though there were some fatal finality in that classification. But, while it is true that fear is instinctive, it is equally true that it can often be successfully fought by having recourse to other instinctive traits. Thus the instinct of curiosity, which is more widespread even than the instinct of fear, may be used to counteract the latter. Since fear rests so largely on ignorance, curiosity is its enemy, because it dissipates ignorance. A little boy who had a certain fear of the figures in the mirror that were so vivid and yet so unreal used to try to come into a room in which there was a large mirror, and steal upon the causes of his curiosity unawares. His double was always there as soon as he, and caught his eye; but the child lost his fear only after he became familiar with the characters in the looking-glass. In the same way curiosity will often compel the child to become gradually so well acquainted with the source of his fears as to drive the latter quite out of his experience.

We must be careful to avoid confusing fear and caution. Fear arises from ignorance, and is not necessarily related to any real danger. Caution, on the other hand, is a direct outcome of the knowledge of danger. Two little boys were watching a young man shooting off fire-crackers. Whenever a bunch was lit the older boy stepped away, while the younger one held his ground. Someone taunted the older boy, saying, "You see, Harry is not afraid, and you are." To which he very sensibly replied, "I ain't afraid neither, but Harry doesn't know that he might get hurt, and I do."

Therefore, while we do not wish our children to be cowards, neither do we want them to feel reckless. Caution and courage may well go together in the child's character. Constantly warning the child against possible danger does not develop caution; it is more likely to destroy all spontaneous action. Too many mothers are always saying to their children, "Don't do this, you might hurt yourself," or "Don't go to the stable, the horse may kick you," and so on. If a child is properly taught, he will get along with the ordinary knowledge concerning the behavior of things and animals that might be injurious, and he will learn to be careful with regard to these without being constantly admonished and frightened.

The fear of being considered afraid has its evil side as well as its good side. While it may often make the child "affect the virtue" when he has it not, it does, on the other hand, make many a boy and girl, especially in the early teens, concede to the demands of prevailing fashions in misconduct, when the conscience and the knowledge of right and wrong dictate a different course. The taunt "you dassent" is stronger than the still small voice saying "_thou must not_." And so Harry plays truant for the first time not so much because he is tired of school, or because the smell of the young spring allures him, as because Tommy "dares" him to go swimming on the risk of getting caught and licked. Harry yields for fear of being called a "cowardy custard."

It is important to guard against the moral effect of fear when it is directed against the judgments of others. By always referring the child to "what others will think" of him, we are likely to make moral cowards. A child can be taught to refer to his own conscience and to his own judgment, and, if he has been wisely trained, his conscience and judgment will be at least as effective guides in his relations with human beings as his attempt to avoid misconduct for fear of what others will think or say.

The use of fear as a means of discipline is being discarded by all thoughtful parents and teachers. We have learned that authority maintained by fear is very short-lived; when a child gets past a certain age, the obedience based upon fear of authority is almost certain to turn into defiance. The fear of punishment leads directly to untruthfulness and deception; parents who rely upon affection and good-will to assure the right conduct of their children get better results than those who terrorize them.

Fear and hatred are closely connected, and in cultivating fear we are fostering a trait that may in a critical moment turn to hatred. The only things that we should teach our children to fear are those we should be willing to have them hate. Let your children learn to fear and hate all mean and selfish acts, all cunning and deception, all unfairness and injustice. But even better than teaching them to hate these vices, teach them to love and admire and to aspire to realize the positive virtues.

When we observe the undesirable physical effects of fear, such as the effect upon the heart and blood-vessels, the effect upon the nerve currents, etc., we can hardly expect it to have a beneficial effect upon the mental or moral side of the child's nature. Fear always cramps and paralyzes; it never broadens or stimulates. All the progress made by our race has been accomplished by those who were _not_ afraid: the men and women of broad vision and independent, fearless action. Every mother has lurking in some corner of her heart the fond hope that her children will in some way contribute to the advancement of humanity, to make our life here better worth living. To contribute in this way, our children must be without fear.

VI.

THE FIRST GREAT LAW

When you have had a scene with your disobedient Robert, you are apt to wonder how Mrs. Jones ever manages to make her children obey so nicely. If all secrets were made public, you would know that Mrs. Jones has often wished that she could make her children mind as nicely as do yours. For we always imagine that making children mind is the one thing that other mothers succeed in better than we do.

Why is it that we consider obedience of such great importance in the bringing up of our children? Is it because obedience itself is a supreme virtue which we desire to cultivate in our children? Or is it because we find it convenient to receive obedience from those with whom we have to deal?

That obedience is a virtue cannot be denied. But it is a virtue only under special kinds of human relationship. The obedience required of a fireman or a sailor is of the same kind as that which we demand of a child exposed to a danger that he does not see. The work of the fireman and of the sailor is such that these people must be constantly prepared to obey instantly the orders given by those in authority over them. The life of the child, however, is such as to make his work or his safety depend upon his obedience only under exceptional circumstances. To justify our demand for _habitual_ obedience, we must find better reasons than the stock argument so often given, namely, that in certain emergencies the instant response to a command may result in saving the child from injury or even from death.

The need for obedience lies closer to hand than an occasional emergency which may never arise. In all human relationships there come occasions for the exercise of authority. There is no doubt that in the relations between parents and child the parent--or elder person--should be the one in authority, on account of his greater experience and maturer judgment, quite apart from any question of sentiment or tradition. But if you wish to exercise authority, you must make sure to deserve it. Laws and customs give parents certain authority over their children, but well we know that too few of them are able to make wise use of this authority.

Not only from the side of our own convenience, but also from the side of the child's real needs, we must give the young spirit training in obedience. The child that does not get the constant support of a reliable and firm guide misses this support; the child is happier when he is aware of having near-by an unfailing counsellor, one who will decide aright what he is to do and what he is not to do. But when I say that the obedient child is happier than the disobedient one, I do not mean merely that the latter gets into mischief more frequently, or that the former receives more marks of affection from the parents. There is involved something more important than rewards and punishments. The young child would really rather obey than be left to his own decisions. When he has no one to tell him what to do, or to warn him against what he must not do, the child feels his helplessness. And there is valuable tonic for the child's body as well as for his will in the comfortable consciousness of a superior authority upon which he can safely lean.

As the child becomes older he begins to assert his own desires in a more positive fashion, and at about two and a half to three years the problem of obedience takes on a new aspect. For now the child has had experience enough to enable him to have his own purposes, and these often come in conflict with the wishes of the mother. Should obedience be now demanded? And should it be insisted upon? There is more involved in this problem than the convenience of administering the household, or the immediate safety and well-being of the child. There is involved the whole question of the child's future attitude toward life. Shall the child become one who habitually obeys the commands of others, without questioning, without resisting, and so perhaps become a pliant tool in the hands of powerful but unscrupulous men? Or shall he be allowed to go his own way and over-ride the wishes of others, to become, perhaps, a wilful victim of his own whims and moods, presenting a stubborn resistance to overwhelming forces that will in the end crush him?

In the case of the very young child absolute obedience must be required, for the reason that the child is not in a position to assume the responsibility for his conduct. The will of the mother must be followed for the child's own safety and health, for the child has no intelligence or experience,--that is, judgment,--or purpose to guide him. He has only blind impulses that may often be harmless but are never reliable. So the first need is for training in regularity, and this is possible only under the guidance of the mother or nurse, who _knows_ what is to be done, or not done, and whose authority must be absolute. So the child must first of all learn to obey. Later he must learn what and whom to obey.

Recognizing, then, in full the value of obedience, we must be careful not to exaggerate it and consider it a cardinal virtue. Obedience is far from being a fundamental virtue. On the contrary, once established as a ruling principle in the household or anywhere else, it is easily carried far enough to become a source of positive harm. To obey means to act in accordance with another's wishes. To act in this manner does not call upon the exercise of judgment or responsibility, and too many grow up without acquiring the habit of using judgment and without acquiring a sense of responsibility. They are only too willing to leave choice and decision to others. Decision of character and habitual obedience do not go well together. Moreover, it is now coming to be more fully recognized that the progress of society depends not upon closer obedience to the few natural leaders, but upon the exercise of discretion and judgment on the part of an ever larger number of those who are not leaders.

There may be a still greater danger in requiring so-called implicit obedience of every child. We have learned from modern studies of the human mind that _doing_ is the outcome of _thinking_ and _feeling_. When we constantly force children to do things that have no direct connection with their thoughts and feelings, or when we prevent actions which follow naturally from their thoughts and feelings, we are interfering with the orderly working of the child's mind. We force children to act in ways unrelated to their thoughts and feelings, and as a result we have many men and women of fine sentiment and lofty thought who never let their ideas and sentiments find expression in effective action. In other words, the effect upon the mind of "thoughtless minding" is not a healthy one.

A large amount of disobedience arises from the fact that the child's attention and interest are so different from an adult's. The little girl who is said to have given her name as "Mary Don't" illustrates this. Mary does a great many things in the course of a day, impelled by curiosity and the instinct to handle things. Most of her activities are harmless; but when she touches something that you care about, you command her to let it alone. This is quite proper. Very often, however, she is told to stop doing things that are quite indifferent, and that satisfy her natural craving for activity without being in the least harmful. Being interfered with constantly, she soon comes to consider all orders arbitrary and-- disobedience results.

The other side of the problem is seen when a child is told to do something when he is preoccupied with his own affairs. You may tell him a second time; very likely you raise your voice. The third time you fairly shout. This is undignified and it is also unnecessary. For Bobby has _heard_ the order from the first; but he has not _attended_ to your wishes. In such cases there is no primary disobedience; but a frequent repetition of such incidents can easily lead Bobby to become quite indifferent to your orders; then disobedience is habitual. The child that has acquired the habit of ignoring the mother's wishes will not suddenly begin to obey orders when the emergency comes.

From these two cases we may see that it is important to get first the child's habit of attending to what is said to him--by making everything that is said to him _count_. In the second place, the child must be taught to feel that what he is directed to do is the best thing to do.

For getting the child to obey we must keep constantly in mind the idea that we are working for certain habits. Now, a habit is acquired only through constant repetition of a given act or a given kind of behavior. The first rule for the parent should therefore be to be absolutely consistent in demanding obedience from the child. If you call to the children in the nursery to stop their racket (because father is taking a nap) and fail to insist upon the quietness because father just whispers to you that he is not sleeping, you have given the children practice in _disobedience_. If they are to be allowed to go on with the noise, this should be because you openly permit them to go on with their noisy fun, and not because they may heedlessly disregard your wishes. Direct disobedience is not to be overlooked under any circumstances. It is true that parents often give orders that had better not be carried out; but the remedy is not in allowing the children to disobey, but in thinking twice or thrice before giving a command, or in agreeing with them upon a course of action without giving commands at all. By giving no orders that are unnecessary or that are arbitrary, the child will come in time to feel that your interferences with his own impulses are intended for his own good.

We frequently tell the children that we want them to obey "for their own good." If this were true, we should have little difficulty in obtaining obedience, for most children instinctively follow orders and suggestions. It is only when we abuse this instinct by too _frequent_ and _capricious_ and _thoughtless_ commands for our own convenience that the children come to revolt at our orders.

There are great differences among children in the readiness with which they adopt suggestions or follow orders. Some children are easily dissuaded from a line of action in which they are engaged. Their attention is not very closely filed, and they are easily distracted, and may be sent from one thing to another without resenting the interruptions. Such children quickly learn to obey, and some seldom offer resistance to suggestion; but they deserve no special praise or credit for their perfect obedience, neither do their parents deserve special credit for having "trained" such children. On the other hand, there are children who set their hearts very firmly upon the objects of their desire, and who cannot easily stop in the middle of a game or in the middle of a sentence just to put some wood in the stove. Such children will appear to be "disobedient," although they are just as affectionate and as loyal and as dutiful as the others. When you see a child that is a model of obedience, you cannot conclude that he has been well trained; nor is frequent disobedience an indication of neglect on the part of the parents. But the majority of children will fall in the class of those whose obedience or disobedience is a matter of habit resulting from the firmness and consistency and considerateness of the parents.

Unless a child has become altogether submissive, he will not obey all orders with equal readiness. Alice, who is not very active, does not display any great virtue if she sits still when you tell her to. On the other hand, sitting still means to Harry a supreme effort as well as a great sacrifice; to demand this of him we should have a very good reason. I know children who are models of obedience in most matters, but who scream with protest and resentment when it comes to taking medicine or even to being examined by a physician. On the other hand, a little boy I know, to whom obedience in general comes very hard, has such respect for the wisdom of physicians and for the helpfulness of medicines that he will undergo a thorough examination and will swallow the bitterest of drugs without even making a wry face.