Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-09
TRAINING IS HELD
NEED OF PARENTS
Child Guidance Authority
Tells World Congress of
Specialization. q
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.


edge now required to rear children ade
cuately, Dr. Lawson G. Lowry, director
of the New York Institute for Chile
Guidance, told the World Congress OF
Mental Hygiene here today.
Child guidance clinics, he said, con
tinually are encountering "infantile
parents. The most frequent complain
Of this type is that their children dis
obey them. They do not seek help II
instilling desirable qualities.
I'm an attempt to analyze the mos
desirable attributes of personality" HI
said. II have collected from 263 persons
mostly not parents, lists of those traits
which they regard as most desirable
and most undesirable. The 10 trait:
which appear on the largest number Of
lists as desirable are honesty, sense Of
humor, cheerfulneSS, tolerance, sim
certify, intelligence. sympathy, courage
reliability and loyalty. The 10 traits
placed on the largest number of lists
as undesirable are selfishness, egotism
deceitfulness. dishonesty, jealousy, lazi-
borneSs. 1t is noteworthy that obedience
and disobedience, as such, do not occur
in these two lists.
1.-THE contrast with the interests OF
parents emphasizes the fact that par
ents are most likely to be concerned
about the problems of the present in
stead of the future behavior and sue
cess of the child"
America is becoming Nation oil
adults, said v. r. Thayer, director OF
the Ethical Culture School of New York
Change in Proportion.
In 1890, he said, there were $50 adult.
for each 1000 children; whereas in 1900
there were 1880. Today, he said, the
proportion is about 2 to /.
Children, he declared, are in danger
of becoming swamped in an atmos-
phere planned mainly for convenience
of adults The home, former stronghold
of the child, is breaking up and being
replaced by the school.
People move oftener from house to
house." he said. Members OF the family
work and play more outside the family
circle. There is a steady diSintegration
of family bonds and constructive family
influences Labor-saving devices and
the necessary crowding of families into
small living quarters combine to take
out of the home the activities which
formerly gave the child first-hand
knowledge of the ways human beings
secure for themselves the basic essen
tials of food, clothing and shelter.
mo matter how widely the tenement
house and the luxurious apartment hotel
may differ in the comforts Of life, they
are at one in their disregard for the
needs of child life. The former drives
the child into the streets, while the
latter restricts his activities to an en-
vironmen dominated by adults"
Tantrums and queer behavior Of chill
dren may be seriou. symptoms, DR.. Mary
Chadwick of the British College of
Nursing told the conference.
The child, she said, seeks to crafty
infantile impulses by the most rudimen-
tary means at hand, such as cries, an
effectual movements Of the limbs and
trembling I'm these actions" she said.
I'VE see reflected the first baby be-
havior. The little girl, by her historical
attack, Is able TO call her mother away
from guests downstairs because her
mother alone can quiet her excited con-
dition."
Conversion Hysteria."
The next step in neurotic child be-
havior she characterized as conversion
hysteria." The child has learned to be
ashamed of the tantrum, but, instead OF
something else. Thus a sudden cramp
may appear as q defense against the
impulse to kick or a headache cancel
parties at which child feels lonely and
unpopular. This, she said, accounts for
many of the pretended illnesses OF child
hood for which no real physical cause
can be found.
Then, DR.. Chadwick said, comes the
more complicated anxiety hySteria when
some harmless thing becomes an object
Of fear. 1t generally can be found, she
said, to have been set up as a symbol
for something else, and the real cause
must be found before it can be cured:
Thus a child originally has a fear OF
being lost by the mother, and so de-
velops a fear of being left alone in the
garden or Of going for walks with the
nurse.
The next step, she said, sis the OBJ
seasonal neurosis, which represents TO
q marked degree the childs own connlct
with the infantile impulses. 1t does not
appear as early in life as hysteria, and
is the outcome of too severe assistance
upon self-control, allied with strong
sadistic impulse on the part OF the
child. The symptoms often appear trivial
to the onlooker. A special word must be
used or avoided at all costs. Rituals OF
dressing and undressing are arranged
An endless series of similar compulslons
hem in the lives of these children, often
accompanied by torturing doubt as to
the consequences should any be omitted.
fict against :eality, the most serious
form of child neurosis. Unless some
radical treatment is instituted at ar
early stage it is hard to prevent the
morbid condition from becoming perma-
nent In the first type Of this neurosii
the child remains fixated at a very
early phase of development, resisting
attempts to awaken intelligence and in
terest in outside objects. The other type
81 Let haa nf 1Rn
and presents phantasies OF private king
dons and magic islands, where no one
else can enter"
Would Not Stress Defects.
More sensible procedure in the edu-
cation of physically handicapped chill
dren was urged by Dr. Bronson Crother'
Of the Boston Children's Hospital. He
protested against classifying them as
''blind. deaf or paralytic," thus calling
everybody's attention to their defects
and inpressing on them that they are
not like other persons.
The conventional procedure" he said
dis to abolish activity by putting thu
child to bed and isolating it from edu-
cational procedure. The effort to teach
is not made ordinarily until the han
dicapped child is thrown, without pre-
liminary investigation OF any effective
sort, into competition with ordinary
children at school age. The stage Is SCI
for stress and disappointment.
THE way out seems evident enough
We all know that the years between
birth and are important. Almost any
child with gross disturbance OF the mo-
tor or sensory machinery is under som'
sort of supervision long before schoo
age. At this time plans should be made
to solve the educational problems b.
study of the individual"
An Intelligence box" the latest i'm
provement in intelligence testing wa
described by Prof A. G. Christiaen
(cq) of the Institute des Hautes Etude
of Belgium.
The Binet-Smon tests, variations o
~.,I,icl, ara mead uanSp0lly I'm AemripaI