Naughty Children

Children are naughty solely because they are ill, unhappy or untrained. This simple explanation of the most colossal of parents' domestic problems underlies the first textbook in English on the personality disorders of children. In Child Psychiatry* published last week, Professor Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins, a rosy-cheeked, studious man of 41, married and genuinely fond of children, prepared his explanation for the immediate use of parents, uncles, aunts, doctors, judges, sociologists, teachers.

To correct a naughty child Dr. Kanner advises the parents, doctor or other supervisor first to learn what physical ailments the child may suffer from. Tuberculosis may make a child cranky. Dr. Kanner mentions a little boy who flew into "violent passions" after he had been run over and hurt by a heavy wagon.

A greater task is to get the troublesome child to tell what troubles him. The child will do this most readily if questioned apart from his parents, especially apart from his mother. Says Dr. Kanner: "The mother is often apt to quote diagnostic terms obtained through reading or from previous medical, osteopathic, or chiropractic consultations cr from some supposedly enlightened relative or neighbor. How much harm may be done in this manner was perhaps best demonstrated by the 13-year-old, slightly retarded girl who was wheeled into the office in an attitude of extreme weakness and helplessness and with the most pitiful facial expression that can be imagined. When questioned as to her complaint, she stated whiningly: 'I have an auriculo-valvular disease,' a 'diagnosis' which, in conjunction with the attending parental apprehensions, had made a chronic invalid of the child."

In a great many cases a child misbehaves because that is the only way he knows to defend himself from unpleasant household situations. And in many cases a child misbehaves because his mother spoils him or puts naughty notions in his head. Dr. Kanner gets children to talk their hearts out to him by being friendly and sympathetic, by never startling them or lying to them or belittling their intelligence.

As the result of long, painstaking study of thousands & thousands of children in Berlin, Yankton, S. Dak. and Baltimore, Dr. Kanner decided that the cause of a child's misbehavior is more fundamental and important than the way that child misbehaves. By isolating the cause he can accomplish a cure in most cases and ameliorate the child's condition in all cases. He classifies such causes in three broad groups: 1) those due to physical illness; 2) those due to involuntary dysfunction of some organ of the child's body; 3) those due to derangement of the child's body & soul.

A physical cause can usually be cured. Bad tonsils which make a girl nervous can be removed. If a child is a helpless, mute, untidy idiot because he is oxycephalic (cone-headed), nothing remedial can be done.

Wetting the bed after he is three years old is a habit no child should have.** Yet a tremendous number of children suffer from enuresis. Adenoids, flat feet, thyroid deficiencies and a score more reasons have been presented to explain bedwetting. Dr. Kanner says it is almost always due simply to lack of adequate training, general carelessness concerning the regularity of the child's habits. To cure a child of wetting the bed Dr. Kanner simply tells him that he can be cured, that he should not be ashamed, that he should help with all his might. Almost invariably children cooperate. If two or more children in a family are afflicted, they may well be set to keeping score on one another's dry nights. Most children who wet themselves do so regularly about two hours after going to sleep. Such children should be roused and relieved half an hour before the critical time.

Tics, or habitual spasms of certain muscles, are another nervous derangement of childhood. The child may shake his head, nod, frown, scowl, blink, grimace, twist his mouth, sniff, hack, swallow, cough, sigh, hiccough, wiggle his ears, jerk his limbs, scratch himself. Tiqueurs are seldom less than six years old. They usually also suffer from personality disorders--restless-ness, self-consciousness, over-ambitiousness. Curing a child of a tic, Dr. Kanner finds is a difficult task. The more a child's attention is called to his tic, the less likely the tic will disappear. Overactive children should be given quiet recreations. Dr. Kanner insists that every cause which disturbs the child emotionally should be removed--family quarreling, fear of a drunken father, a whining mother, oppressive brothers and sisters. Often peaceful, regular life in a boarding school or summer camp will cure such children.

Dr. Kanner devotes half of his book to dealing with personality disorders which develop when the child's body and soul are thrown out of order. Such children are the really naughty ones.

Temper tantrums are one of the most common forms of naughtiness. The youngster works himself into a rage. He yells, stamps his feet, rolls on the floor, strikes at everyone in reach, curses, bites, bangs his head against the wall. Best way of curing a child of tantrums is to leave him alone during his spells, never argue or give in to him. No child has ever become sick or died in a tantrum, says Dr. Kanner.

Babies have been born sucking their thumbs and the habit during the first two years of a child's life is no cause for alarm, provided the baby is healthy and well-developed. Thumbguards, says Dr. Kanner, do not break a child of thumbsucking. He will stop the habit if he has toys and other children to play with.

A child may make a fuss about eating because he is actually sick, finds this a good way of bullying his family, or is overstuffed. To break the habit, says Dr. Kanner: "Simply put the food before the child at the regular meal time (and always in the same place) and then withdraw. After 30 minutes the dishes should be removed without the slightest comment. No nourishment of any kind should be given between meals. There is no danger if the child misses one meal or even several meals."

Until he is three or four years old, no child tells a willful lie, although he may make mistakes simply because he does not know how to state a particular fact. After that age a child may lie to gain some advantage or to avoid some unpleasantness.

Children steal. Dr. Kanner finds, because they have not been taught that what they want is not always theirs to have, because other children date them to steal, because (particularly in adolescent girls) a momentary impulse prompts them to. Dr. Kanner advises against punishing such children for their first offense. Good associations and organized recreational activities will keep them from becoming habitual thieves.

Cruelty is a very serious trait in a child and should, say's Dr. Kanner. "be examined and treated with no lesser care and expertness than one would examine and treat pulmonary tuberculosis or rheumatic endocarditis."

In dealing with sexual difficulties Dr. Kanner gets best results by frankly and truthfully answering all the child's questions in words which the child can understand. However, he carefully avoids telling the child anything which the child cannot understand. The answers should be intellectual, not moral, because the healthy child is not naturally moral.

With this point of view, Dr. Kanner does not get excited about a small child exploring its genitals. Such explorations usually pass just as soon as the child has something else to occupy its unfolding intelligence.

Dr. Kanner does not believe that Alfred de Musset fell in love at 4, Byron at 8, Dante at 9, Goethe at 10. He believes that they, like many another very young child, had a "crush" on someone. Crushes are not reprehensible, says Dr. Kanner. But they may occasionally lead to sexual affairs, especially if the person adored is not well balanced emotionally.

Peeping may be a sexual aberration, the result of a child accidentally seeing adults at sexual acts and then trying to find out what it all means. When children display their naked bodies to one another, they do so to satisfy curiosity.

Dr. Kanner urges parents to be patient with bothersome children, to tell them all the truth they can understand, to lie never, to beat them never, to show them a composed, orderly example ever. If a parent provides such a common sense environment for his child to grow up in. and if the child is kept well and cured of physical imperfections, then Dr. Kanner promises the child will naturally grow up to be a perfect, healthy little lady or gentleman.

* By Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, 111. Price: $6.

**Approximately 10% of children learn to control their bladder before they are one year old; 30% by their 18th month; 65% to 80% by the end of their second year.

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