The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1939-09-22
Urge Children
To Help Plan
Own Activities
81 N DIVTD u Atty
should be recognized. Parents
should ALLOW children to de-
velop oiUn tastes without i'm
posing their oiUn. Too much
supervision duIls the edge of
the greatest enthusiasm.
By RUTH ARNOLD NICKEL

4
4 won't be at the meeting, to-
morrow" said Mrs. Mitchell, as her
neighbor came out on the porch to
greet her. "I'm going to take Lii
liam to the museum"
''How NICE" commented Mrs.
Oracle, giving her chair.
"Well, it's rather a hot trip" Mrs.
Mitchell admitted, land Lillian isn't
very enthusiastic, but l think she
ought to take advantage of such
things. Besides, she never knows
what to do with herself during vaca-
tions. / simply have to arrange
program for her, or she would waste
her time or NOPE. How did you
manage to get Gladys interested in
SO many worthwhile things?"
Mrs. Oracle smiled. GLADYS? Oh,
she and take turns in choosing
special undertakings now. used to
insist that she work out certain prof.
ects. When she was IL years old
that was two years ago-I decided
that the time had come to teach her
all sorts of things. She had learned
to sew a little and loved to make
dolls clothes, but ! wanted her to
make something useful I bought
some fine white cloth and started
her on a Slip"
"Gladys never wore the Slip" said
Mrs. Oracle ruefully, eat least not
until / had made it over. She dis
liked working on it. This started
kind of struggle between u.s."
''But she sews now, doesn't she?"
"Yes, she sews beautifully" said
Mrs. Oracle. "When the slip was
finally finished, ! said nothing more
about sewing. I didn't want to fix
the dislike that I had started. Then
the next summer she begged me for
a pink tennis dress. It was early in
the season and the ones she liked
were too expensive. Then she said,
Mother, I think I could make one, if
you'd help me with the binding
around the neck tried not to show
my delight! We found remnant Of
goods and she made the dress with
very little help from me; you see
she wanted it. She read the direc-
etions and made it carefully"
''But that implies that mothers
shouldn't try to direct their chill
dren," objected Mrs. Mitchell.
Imposing Their Own Views.
81 wondered about that" said
Mrs. Oracle, "and l talked it over
with Tom. He had been trying to
improve her reading, but when he
brought books home from the Ii
brary she never seemed to care for
them. Then we concluded that we
weren't accomplishing our purpose.
Maybe you are right" said Mrs.
Mitchell. "Tell me what you did"
"We decided to stop imposing our
tastes upon Gladys and let her de-
velop her own. We had kept her
too busy. AS I thought about it, I
remembered my own early summer
vacations. I had regular work to do,
but was allowed to create most of
my own pleasures. / remembered
long hours of reading-discovering
books that I learned to love, hours
of play, and gardening in the back
yard. Whenever / got bored, / be-
gan to look around for something
new and interesting to do.
81 told this to Tom and he remem-
bered the same conditions with re-
gard to his own childhood. We de-
cided that we had been supervising
Gladys too much. So we planned
to be ready to share experiences
with her part of the time, but to
leave her many hours each week
when she would be entirely free.
"Gladys had to do some house
work, of course, and that kept her
busy in the mornings. During the
first week she seemed little bored
in the afternoons. Then one day she
asked me to teach her to knit a
sweater! The next week she began
voluntarily looking for something to
read and before long she was inter-
ested Of her own accord in some of
the very subjects her father had
hoped she'd like!"
"But wasn't she ever idle?" asked
Mrs. Mitchell.
"Yes, she used to lie in the ham,
mock on the porch sometimes for
hours. One day she said to me,
Mother, I love to lie and look up
at the sky in the summertime. In
the winter I'm too busy to think and
get things Strengthened out in my
mind"
"Gracious!". said Mrs. Mitchell,
rising-"I think TIL drop the muse
UNI outing. Perhaps if I drag Lii
liam there on a hot day when she
doesn't want to go, she will dislike
it,"
"I'm afraid Gladys would"
laughed Mrs. Oracle sympathetical-
ly. "She often joins me in my en-
thusiasms if ! don't try to force
them on her. But she's an individ-
ual, too, and ! can't expect her to
be exactly like me. We take many
trips together and take turns decid-
ing where to go. A museum trip is
always the result of an urge to see
some special thing. Both of US en-