Evening star., 1942-10-07
Young Parent Is
Too Impatient
With Child
Failure to Impress
Youngsfer Is Due
To Urgent Rush
By Leftice Lee Street,


Does a 2-year-old object to mussy
hair, smudgy face, hands and
clothes? Certainly not! He enjoys
them! Does he become annoyed at
din, confusion and excitement? Oh,
no; the more the funnier, thinks he.
Does he care whether or not the
living room is neat? No, indeed;
given his choice he would drag all
OF the ornaments on the floor and
jump up and down on the sofa and
chairs. Does it make any differ
ence to him if an object that catches
his rowing eye is expensive or
precious? My, no! It's value, to
him, lies in its breakability, its
shininess or how much noise it will
make.
Little children obey their in
stincts only, and they do exactly
what they want. But this does not
mean they are naughty, only that
they are little and normal. AS de-
scribed above, their wishes are often
exactly opposite to grown-up's
tastes, or to the dictates of custom,
and enough to drive young mex
perienced parents crazy if they fail
to realize that tot-sized people SIM
ply do not think the same way
adults do.
Consider this: The young child has
to acquire knowledge of every detail
of our complicated civilization from
learning regular habits of elmina-
ton. cleanliness. chewing of foods.
speaking of words and control of
the body as we'll as emotional con-
troll, politeness, honesty, sportsman
ship. property rights and on and on.
That is large order! And baby
simply cannot learn everything at
once, or even very quickly.
The nerves of a young mother and
father. as well as the baby's, will be
spared many Jingle jangle" if the
parents understand their child's
truly enormous task and if they do
not demand the impossible of him.
Each and every lesson takes time,
and the grave mistake so many
young mothers make is shown in
their flurried hurry to push their
little people into learning each task.
When baby is so treated, he
strenuously rebels.
Little people sense a great deal
from facial expressions and tone of
voice. Asking too much of them,
with impatience. can make them
nervous and full of feelings of in
security about themselves and their
parents, too. Good and needed foods
are often omitted from diet lists
because an inexperienced mother
thinks distractedly that her baby
will never accept them. She has
urged or forced one new food after
another upon her child without al
lowing him time to learn to like
any of them. Results: The baby
looks forward with dread to meal
time and refuses almost everything.
If only such impatient young
mothers could slow down their
quick strides and adult brains to
fit the tempo of small, fumbling
feet, hands and minds! If they
cannot do so, if they cannot un-
derstand and plan for their child S
as we'll as their own, their homes
are invariably the scene of con-
tinual emotional stress and dissen-
sion.
The normal child cannot behave
like an adult, he should not be
asked to. He cannot be happily and
peacefully trained toward good
habits by haste. urging, scolding and
forcing. He can be, and easily. by
parents who sincerely understand
his world, who like his company
make him feel wanted and appre-
ciated and who give him time to
| learn.