Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-06-24
SELFISH CHILDREN
BV H. AddinqtOn Bruce
Dy 7UUTIISrOH
TT you want your child to grow to a
healthy, happy, efficient manhood or


TF you want your child to grow to a
l healthy, happy, efficient manhood or
= womanhood there are many precau-
tiOnary measures you will have to take. One
of the most important is to train your child
not to be selfish.
fortunate later life If his selfshness does
not bring misery on others, it is bound to
bring misery on himself.
1t may do more han this. 1t may mean i'll
health, perhaps outright invalidism, prolong-
ed through years.
Selfshness, modern medical specialists are
agreed, is in one way or another at the bot
tom Of many of the nervous maladies of
which we hear so much nowadays.
In proof whereof is the striking fact that
these maladies have often been cured by the
simple device of educating the nervous suf-
ferer to think less of self and more of other
people, and to engage IN activities that es-
sentially altruistc.
So frequently, in fact, has seltishress been
found to underlie nervous nvalidism that an
increasing number of specialists affirm, with
an eminent New England medical psychology
ist
There is no greater egotism to be found
than in typical cases of psychopathic affec-
tons. Even when the psychopathic patient
does some altruistic 1T it is only in so far as
he himself can benefit by that deed.
He is ready to drop it the work
self first and -ast-that is the essence of
pSychOpathic life"
Here of itself is sufficient reason for every
parent to watch for the first signs of selfish
ness in his children md to nip it in the bud.
Better still, let him so train his children that
unselhshness will become characteristic of
them.
He cannot do this by INDUCING the chill
drens every whim, as so many parents fool
lshly do He cannot do it by perpetually
sacrificing himself for his children and ask
ing the children to make no sacrifices what
ever.
This only tends to breed selfshness in the
overlndulged little ones. 1t fills them with
false ideas of their Importance. 1t leads
them to feel that their wishes should forever
be granted, their desires paramount
On the opposite, thoroughly selfish par
ent need not expect to have an unseIfish
child. Like breeds like. Imitation will de-
termine the child to be selfish as the parent
is selfish.
Always it is the psychic atmosphere of the
! home that counts for most.
If father and mother are unselfsI. in their
| dealings with each other; if they set their
children an example of altruistic living: if
they give the children ample opportunity for
set-forgett1ng deeds, and lovingly praise
such deeds, the future may pretty safely be
left to itself
In after years these wise parents will have
nothing to regret.
The children grown to manhood and
Womanhood, will repay with interest the en-
I9htened devotion with which they have been
reared
They will not be too absorbed in their own
aiTairs to forget their parents in the atter's
old age. They will oe neither neurotic in
competents nor animated specimens of
granite.
Worthi1y acquitting themselves in the
world of adult efftr. they will cherish to The
end the parents to whom they owe so much,
and the debt to whom they fondly and proud
ly acknowledge.