Pedoculture

A meeting of intelligent parents and informed advisers at Orange, N. J. last week indicated that there is no saturation point at which parents cease to ask questions about what to do for their children. That sort of questioning and professional advising has been going on since 1888, when the Child Study Association of America was founded. It has been going on with special intensity since 1921, when intense, Austrian-born Mrs. Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg became the Association's director. Within the past decade the Laura

Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, the Elmhirst Fund and the Alice Morgenthau Ehrich Memorial Fund have provided some $38,000 a year to improve the quality of the answers.

News to many a parent last week was this dictum by Mrs. Theodore Miller Edison, daughter-in-law of the late inventor: "In the minds of some, preparation for marriage too often is associated with the physical aspect of sex, whereas the philosophical and spiritual considerations are equally important. All three should develop together in the mind of the child. Erroneous [is the] belief that knowing the facts of life would destroy the innocence of their children. Certainly ignorance is a flimsy guaranty of innocence. Accurate knowledge can provide a much firmer foundation for a wholesome attitude toward life."

Declared Dr. Valeria Hopkins Parker, social hygiene specialist: "If a child is old enough to ask questions, it is old enough to get an answer. ... A girl undoubtedly is more popular with boys if she pets; and we must remember that even a feeble-minded girl can pet; she may also become popular, for the boy need never find out she is feeble-minded."

To a question Margaret Wells Wood, another social hygiene specialist, replied: "Yes, the whole family should undress together. Modesty can be harmful by causing children to be too aloof in later relationships.'"'

Dr. Parker broke in: "Parents should undress with their children only if they can do so naturally, completely without self-consciousness."

Mrs. Gruenberg advised that children should begin to receive spending money between the ages of 5 and 7, because one "must learn to spend before he can earn." The allowance should be given as something due the child, not as something for which he must work.

Of the same nature were the points made in Parents' Questions* a book presented last week by the Child Study Association of America after 48 years of pedocultural specialization. That experience enabled Mrs. Gruenberg & staff sagely to say: "Malformations of the jaw and malalignment of teeth as a result of [thumb sucking] are not so frequent as commonly supposed. . . . Head-banging is not unusual and not really so dangerous as it looks. Beyond a bump or two the child is almost certain not to injure himself. But the causes of such behavior do deserve consideration, since it is usually an expression of rage and frustration. The first essential in the mother is a calm, undisturbed attitude. . . . There has been a definite reaction against the practice, so in vogue until about five years ago, of beginning to train infants to bladder and bowel control during the first weeks of life. . . . Specifically we suggest that mothers should not begin trying to train their children in bowel control much before the age of eight months. . . . Bladder training should be undertaken even later than bowel training. Fifteen to seventeen months is early enough. . . ."

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