The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-22
Is Always i, Way T o Handle
 Bad Child
By L. s. BRADY

w merely one who conflicts with
 the parenfs-or society's-com- fort. Children are judged by adult standards of conduct. What is GUS tomary is right. Morals are simply group customs. What is right today IS wrong tomorrow-and what we call wrong today may seem perfectly proper ten years from now.
 Adults-people who are old enough to be parents--have gone through a hardening process which leaves them with little remembrance of the time when they were restless, curious, eager and optimistic little explorers in world placed full of surprising wonders. But most grown-ups can at times catch a fleeting memory of the time when Santa Clause was real, when toadstools were fairy pavilions where the elf-children made merry in the moonlight, and when watches planted in the sand pile grew up into a bush full of grandfather clocks.
 So the curious child, who punches holes in her best dollie's head to see if it has blood just like she has, is far more likely to become second Mime. Curie than is the angelic infant whose greatest claim to goodness is that it alphabetically accepts its environment much as a COW reacts to it's pasture unquestioning, minimizing, content.
 The good child will grow up into the leverage citizen" who believes i'm plicity in what his parents tell him, and who accepts the statements of his min isters, his professors and his employers as absolute truth. But the bad child, so-called, may dare to try to find out for himself if what people say is really truesand a Franklin, Houdini or an Einstein may develop.
 A few years ago only "bad" child would have asked .'Why is the night air bad for meg' Today we take every op- portunity to stimulate such questions as this, for they lead directly to scien- tific understanding of the universe in which we are forced to spend our lives. Even now many child is considered bad because he does not unresitatingly accept his parents ideas on religion or dancing or sex. d
 There are still parents who are viciously prejudiced in matters of re- ligious dogma who seek to build up in their children absolutely closed minds regarding all manner of subjects-from race prejudice and hatred of foreigners to business is business" and "do the other fellow before he does you"
 One mother wrote to me not long ago wanting to know what "science'' had to say about the terrible conduct of her sixteen-year-old daughter, who was a stenographer. The girl had taken her slender pay and invested most of it in pretty clothes with which to go off on a well-earned two weeks vacation in- stead of contributing to the family in come" Imagine thats This mother wants to know if Il consider that "heart- less. She goes on to say that ''the em- ployers, the welfare workers, the church, the school, even the beauty pages. of our daily papers, are all working against the plain father and mother at home Some one or something is to blame for this. Could you not let us know how science views this sort of thing?
 The girl is pretty, she is useful, she is healthy, she is happy. Is this enough all we should expect or dream of in tour children?"
 Ny point is, that there are thousands of parents who judge their children by standards that they have evolved for themselves after years of experiments and experiences, and who expect young people to conform to their elders ways of thinking and acting. know a young man who refused to agree with his father on the matter of prohibition The father became very dogmatic, high ly excited and somewhat abusive and the son left home.
 Why do we call such children badi They are displaying an earnest desire for the truth-yes, even the child who dissects the family clock with a hatchet to see what makes it tick. Their judgment needs to be improved, but their unprejudiged and open-minded attitude is to be praised.
 Consider the case of the lady who ordered her twenty-year-old son never never to say again, in my presence or out of it, that there is no God" What attitude will this boy have toward au. thority from now on? Thoughts and feelings bottled up are dangerous-they need to be talked over, frankly and sym pathetically and with no shadow of bitterness, or animosity.
 Speech and action are not totally unrelated phenomena words are form of action, and may often help to al leviate injured feelings. The radical whether he be the soap-bix orator or thC rebellious youth-if he be encouraged tC express himself fully, will rid himself !of nine-tenths of the restless energy which might otherwise result in reck less acts.
 Then, after the outburst of speech with the attendant relief of inner ten sion, the wise parent will know the time is ripe efor a calm discussion oi the ways and wherefores of the case Nine times out of ten, the so-called baC child is merely full of energy; and tht problem is not to repress this energy but to divert it to channels in which il may work for the good of the child anC of society.
 Show me a "bad" child, and I vii show you parents who are not properly trained. Even a sick child is in the las analysis due to the fault of the par tents. The wonder is that more childrer