The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-10-22
NY YOUR LOREN
ey oIiye Robert. esrsoo

|
 "Do manners ever set inferior ity?" asks mother. They can and do sometimes.
 We'll take polite, well-taught boy, for example, and see what happens to him out, in his rough and ready world
 John meets one Bill who is not troubled with any niceties of con- duct. John has four pieces of candy and Bill has perpetual ap- petite.
 It winds up by Bill getting three pieces as his natural right. Now this doesn't matter, but re- peated often enough and by other Bills, all unappreciative, of course, John in time loses his feeling of equity. And the attitude of others toward him will be colored by his own estimate of himself. Children soon learn to take advantage of a very polite and generous child. Generosity Is MiscO1lstrued
 Naturally I go to extremes to prove point. But I have found by experience that self esteem can oc- casionally be undermined by too thorough politeness which the world misconstrues as self efface- ment and lack of couraage. It Is the reaction of others that does the harm.
 Suppose John gets baseball for his birthday. His mothes admon- ishes him to be generous. The crowd goes over to the lot. Pete has the ball, Bud the bat, and Slim the glove.
 Johns instinct is to say, Here, fellows, give me one of them. " But something holds him back the inhibition Of constant reminder. He keeps quiet and finds himself out in the field. The incident does- nit matter in itself either, because ownership should not necessarily mean privilege-but the fact that he accepts second fiddle when, ac- cording to youthful ethics, he is entitled to pitch or catch with his own new present, places him just a shade behind the other ruthless youngsters in importance. Multiply such an incident and it leaves a mark.
 Start of Inferiority Again, by repetition, they learn to think he can't take his part they abuse his generosity; their att titude toward him says, We can do anything we like with you and you stand for it." He begins to
 wonder why he gets no credit. Then | he begins to think, T mustn't have
 any spunk." Self investigation
 means that inferiority has set in.
 At this stage the mannerly child
 meets up with a new enemy. Con. fiict. The fight begins between his
 own self-respect and his polite in
 hibitions.
 Nothing does me more good than | to see some small worm turn and ! beat up a bull-dozing rowdy who | has continually taken advantage. | The polite child who begs every. l body's pardon for everything in time begins to think he's always wrong. Dodging behind chairs is not conductive to self-respect
 Thank you' and Please" while gracious and likeable in a child can put mark on him in setting where no one else appreciates it. Teach Self-Defense Too In spite of this I prefer most
 emphatically the polite child, pro-
 vided he isn't getting to be mask
 of his own real self or an effacing
 little nincompoop. In that case
 prefer his Cor her) greedy, noisy
 selfish, rattlebang take-it-or-leavs
 it brother. If all children were mannerly l (but natura) what beautiful
 world it would be. The trouble i.
 that we train lambs to compete
 with lions. Then the lambs turr
 into mute little white rabbits.
 In teaching the rules of polite.
 ness we would do well to include
 the ethics of defense and assertion
 as we'll. A child has a right to
 that, without feeling too guilty or | too mean.
 Copyright, 1894, NEA Service, Inc.)