Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young by Jacob Abbott (best english books to read txt) 📕

Such a talk as this, though it could not be expected entirely and at once to dispel Jennie's unfounded fears, would be far more effectual towards beginning the desired change than any arguments or reasoning could possibly be.

Any mother who will reflect upon the principle here explained will at once recall to mind many examples and illustrations of its power over the hearts and minds of children which her own experience has afforded. And if she begins practically and systematically to appeal to it, she will find herself in possession of a new element of power—new, at least, to her realization—the exercise of which will be as easy and agreeable to herself as it will be effective in its influence over her children.

I think there can be no doubt that the most effectual way of securing the confidence and love of children, and of acquiring an ascendency over them, is by sympathizing with them in their child-like hopes and fears, and joys and sorrows—in their ideas, their fancies, and even in their caprices, in all cases where duty is not concerned. Indeed, the more child-like, that is, the more peculiar to the children themselves, the feelings are that we enter into with them, the closer is the bond of kindness and affection that is formed.

An Example.

If a gentleman coming to reside in a new town concludes that it is desirable that he should be on good terms with the boys in the streets, there are various ways by which he can seek to accomplish the end. Fortunately for him, the simplest and easiest mode is the most effectual. On going into the village one day, we will suppose he sees two small boys playing horse. One boy is horse, and the other driver. As they draw near, they check the play a little, to be more decorous in passing by the stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and don't drive him hard when it is hot weather. And if ever you conclude to sell him, I wish you would let me know."

So saying, the gentleman walks on, and the horse, followed by his driver, goes galloping forward in high glee.

Now, by simply manifesting thus a fellow-feeling with the boys in their childish play, the stranger not only gives a fresh impulse to their enjoyment at the time, but establishes a friendly relationship between them and him which, without his doing any thing to strengthen or perpetuate it, will of itself endure for a long time. If he does not speak to the boys again for months, every time they meet him they will be ready to greet him with a smile.

The incident will go much farther towards establishing friendly relations between him and them than any presents that he could make them—except so far as his presents were of such a kind, and were given in such a way, as to be expressions of kindly feeling towards them—that is to say, such as to constitute of themselves a manifestation of sympathy.

The uncle who gives his nephews and nieces presents, let them be ever so costly or beautiful, and takes no interest in their affairs, never inspires them with any feeling of personal affection. They like him as they like the apple-tree which bears them sweet and juicy apples, or the cow that gives them milk—which is on their part a very different sentiment from that which they feel for the kitten that plays with them and shares their joys—or even for their dolls, which are only pictured in their imagination as sharing them.

Sophronia and Aurelia.

Miss Sophronia calls at a house to make a visit. A child of seven or eight years of age is playing upon the floor. After a little time, at a pause in the conversation, she calls the child—addressing her as "My little girl"—to come to her. The child—a shade being cast over her mind by being thus unnecessarily reminded of her littleness—hesitates to come. The mother says, "Come and shake hands with the lady, my dear!" The child comes reluctantly. Miss Sophronia asks what her name is, how old she is, whether she goes to school, what she studies there, and whether she likes to go to school, and at length releases her. The child, only too glad to be free from such a tiresome visitor, goes back to her play, and afterwards the only ideas she has associated with the person of her visitor are those relating to her school and her lessons, which may or may not be of an agreeable character.

Presently, after Miss Sophronia has gone, Miss Aurelia comes in. After some conversation with the mother, she goes to see what the child is building with her blocks. After looking on for a moment with an expression of interest in her countenance, she asks her if she has a doll. The child says she has four. Miss Aurelia then asks which she likes best, and expresses a desire to see that one. The child, much pleased, runs away to bring it, and presently comes back with all four. Miss Aurelia takes them in her hands, examines them, talks about them, and talks to them; and when at last the child goes back to her play, she goes with the feeling in her heart that she has found a new friend.

Thus, to bring ourselves near to the hearts of children, we must go to them by entering into their world. They can not come to us by entering ours. They have no experience of it, and can not understand it. But we have had experience of theirs, and can enter it if we choose; and in that way we bring ourselves very near to them.

Sympathy must be Sincere.

But the sympathy which we thus express with children, in order to be effectual, must be sincere and genuine, and not pretended. We must renew our own childish ideas and imaginations, and become for the moment, in feeling, one with them, so that the interest which we express in what they are saying or doing may be real, and not merely assumed. They seem to have a natural instinct to distinguish between an honest and actual sharing of their thoughts and emotions, and all mere condescension and pretense, however adroitly it may be disguised.

Want of Time.

Some mothers may perhaps say that they have not time thus to enter into the ideas and occupations of their children. They are engrossed with the serious cares of life, or busy with its various occupations. But it does not require time. It is not a question of time, but of manner. The farmer's wife, for example, is busy ironing, or sewing, or preparing breakfast for her husband and sons, who are expected every moment to come in hungry from their work. Her little daughter, ten years old, comes to show her a shawl she has been making from a piece of calico for her doll. The busy mother thinks she must say, "Yes; but run away now, Mary; I am very busy!"—because that is the easiest and quickest thing to say; but it is just as easy and just as quick to say, "What a pretty shawl! Play now that you are going to take Minette out for a walk in it!" The one mode sends the child away repulsed and a little disappointed; the other pleases her and makes her happy, and tends, moreover, to form a new bond of union and sympathy between her mother's heart and her own. A merchant, engrossed all day in his business, comes home to his house at dinner-time, and meets his boy of fifteen on the steps returning from his school. "Well, James," he says, as they walk together up stairs, "I hope you have been a good boy at school to-day." James, not knowing what to say, makes some inaudible or unmeaning reply. His father then goes on to say that he hopes his boy will be diligent and attentive to his studies, and improve his time well, as his future success in life will depend upon the use which he makes of his advantages while he is young; and then leaves him at the head of the stairs, each to go to his room.

All this is very well. Advice given under such circumstances and in such a way produces, undoubtedly, a certain good effect, but it does not tend at all to bring the father and son together. But if, instead of giving this common-place advice, the father asks—supposing it to be winter at the time—"Which kind of skates are the most popular among the boys nowadays, James?" Then, after hearing his reply, he asks him what his opinion is, and whether any great improvement has been made within a short time, and whether the patent inventions are any of them of much consequence. The tendency of such a conversation as this, equally brief with the other, will be to draw the father and son more together. Even in a moral point of view, the influence would be, indirectly, very salutary; for although no moral counsel or instruction was given at the time, the effect of such a participation in the thoughts with which the boy's mind is occupied is to strengthen the bond of union between the heart of the boy and that of his father, and thus to make the boy far more ready to receive and be guided by the advice or admonitions of his father on other occasions.

Let no one suppose, from these illustrations, that they are intended to inculcate the idea that a father is to lay aside the parental counsels and instructions that he has been accustomed to give to his children, and replace them by talks about skates! They are only intended to show one aspect of the difference of effect produced by the two kinds of conversation, and that the father, if he wishes to gain and retain an influence over the hearts of his boys, must descend sometimes into the world in which they live, and with which their thoughts are occupied, and must enter it, not merely as a spectator, or a fault-finder, or a counsellor, but as a sharer, to some extent, in the ideas and feelings which are appropriate to it.

Ascendency over the Minds of Children.

Sympathizing with children in their own pleasures and enjoyments, however childish they may seem to us when we do not regard them, as it were, with children's eyes, is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the means at our command for gaining a powerful ascendency over them. This will lead us not to interfere with their own plans and ideas, but to be willing that they should be happy in their own way. In respect to their duties, those connected, for example, with their studies, their serious employments, and their compliance with directions of any kind emanating from superior authority, of course their will must be under absolute subjection to that of those who are older and wiser than they. In all such things they must bring their thoughts and actions into accord with ours. In these things they must come to us, not we to them. But in every thing that relates to their child-like pleasures and joys, their modes of recreation and amusement, their playful explorations of the mysteries of things, and the various novelties around them in the strange world into which they find themselves ushered—in all these things