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Children and
Child
Mentality, CHILDREN are often found to be very cruel to
animals. Why is it so? Their treatment of birds especially is notorious. To
seek out nests and pull them down, to capture nestlings and put them to all
kinds of torture, to pick up eggs and dash them to pieces are for children most
interesting games. They seem to take particular delight in varying and
enhancing as much as possible the torture they can inflict. One reason that can
be adduced for the callousness of a child's sensibility is his
self-centredness: he is wholly himself, isolated from others, has not yet learnt the social needs and virtues. All he does
and feels is for himself, for his own pleasure and free self-assertion. His
growing individuality, in order to grow, cuts itself aloof from others and
loses the sense of others having the same value as itself. Being
self-regarding, to that extent he ceases to be other-regarding. Fellow-feeling
is a sentiment that grows later on, as the result of shocks in mutual
interchange. Real sympathy is a movement of mature consciousness. The inquisitiveness that so strongly
possesses a child is also the drive of an awakening and growing consciousness.
He indulges in breaking, tearing, ripping because of this curiosity, this keen edge of a developing and experimenting consciousness.
It seems to be hard and unfeeling, even an aberration, precisely because of the
egocentric nature of the child consciousness yet unfamiliar with values normal
to age and experience. But if it is nature to a certain extent that
makes the child so apathetic, self-regarding and cruel, it is not the only
cause and it is not the whole story. There are other very active factors in
life that affect and mould the child's consciousness from the very beginning.
Page – 194 The child, we can take, comes into the world
with a more or less clean slate to record the reactions of life. In the early
period he is still nearer his psychic being which is not yet thrown back or
covered over by the impacts and impressions of the world. The first conscious
contacts with the world are not generally happy for the child. He meets things
all around that go against the grain of his still sensitive psychic consciousness.
The first quarrel he witnesses between his parents, the first rough behaviour or movement of an elder that shakes his
attention, the first lie that he hears uttered by his teacher, act almost as
shellshocks to his nerves. And as he grows, lessons like these are showered
upon him from all sides and no wonder if his consciousness very soon gets
warped and twisted, he too begins his own game in the
line he observes and experiences. Only, not being guided or controlled by
reason and experience, he overdoes the thing, and because of his age, what in
an adult is a matter of course, trivial and insignificant, looms large and
ominous in his case. The surroundings in which a child lives and grows form
the atmosphere which he breathes in at every moment and if there is poison in
it, he inhales and imbibes the poison which becomes part of his substance and
nature. A pure environment is needed for a pure life impulse to shape an develop itself. *** What is the very central character of the
child consciousness? It is confidence in life, the surety that nothing can
baulk the fulfilment of life's purpose, the trust that overrides all set-backs
and stumbles, gaily passes through dangers and difficulties. This confidence,
this assurance the very body shares in and impels it to movements of daring and
adventure. It is this that is the cause of the body's growth, and so long as it
is maintained, keeps the body young. So the poet says: A – A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death
?¹ ¹ Wordsworth: "We Are
Seven"
Page – 195 Age sets in precisely when there is a fall in
this self-confidence and assurance of the body consciousness, when the body
begins to fear, becomes too cautious and apprehensive. A wound, a cut, even a
broken limb would not stop a child normally to go forward with the same dash
and carelessness. And that character is the source not only of his physical
fitness and growth, but also that of a mental alacrity and soundness which is
an inestimable possession of the child consciousness. The wisest teacher is he
who does not teach too much the wisdom of prudence and moderation, but
encourages this élan vital, the life urge, in the child and yet seeks to
organise and canalise it, as an efficient instrument of high ideals
and purposes. *** There are two failings which a teacher must
guard against – to which he is usually prone – if he wishes to secure respect
and obedience and trust from children: (I) telling a lie and (2) losing temper.
A child can easily find out whether you are spinning a long yarn or not. He is
inquisitive, irrepressively curious and, above all, he has his own manner and angle of looking at
things. He puts questions about all things and subjects and in all ways that
seem queer to an adult view. His answers too to questions, his solutions of
problems are very unorthodox, bizarre. But it is all the more the task of the
elder not only to put up with all these vagaries, but also with great sympathy
and patience to appreciate and understand what the child attempts to express.
If you get irritated or angry and try to snub or brush him away, it would mean
the end of all cordial relation between you and him. Or, again, if you try to
hoodwink him, give a false answer to hide your ignorance, in that case too the
child will not be deceived, he will find you out and lose all respect for you.
It is far better to own your ignorance, saying you do not know than to pose as
a knowing man; although that may affect to some extent his sense of
hero-worship and he may not entertain any longer the unspoilt awe and esteem with which he was accustomed
to look up to you, still you will not lose his affection and confidence.
Infinite patience and a temper that is never frayed or ruffled are demanded of
the teacher and the parent
Page – 196 who wish to guide and control successfully and happily a child. With that
you can mould in the end the most refractory child, without that you will fail
even with a child of goodwill.
Page – 197
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