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

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 passes 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 punishing well enough, it soon afterwards passes 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 assistance 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 passed 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.

Mothers are very often pained at what seems to them the ingratitude 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 gratitude 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 assume 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 gratitude 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 assuredly 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.