The Nervous Child : Part 2

The Mother and Her Child
by William S. Sadler, M.D., Lena K. Sadler, M.D.

(Page 31 of 44)

When the little fellow wakes up in the night and cries, see if he needs anything and administer to him. If you have previously tried the method of letting him "cry it out," which is usually entirely sufficient in the case of a normal child, and if such treatment does not seem to cure him, then spoke to him firmly, give him to understand that he must stop crying, and if he does not, turn him over and administer a good spanking - and repeat if necessary to get results. In dealing with a nervous child we must follow the directions on the bottle of the old-fashioned liniment "rub in until relief is obtained."

No "spoiling practices" should be countenanced in the case of nervous children. They should be taught to sleep undisturbed in a room in the presence of usual noises. They should not be allowed to grow up with a sleeping-room always darkened by day and a light to sleep by at night. They should be taught to sleep on without being disturbed even if someone does enter the room; they should be taught to sleep normally without having to quiet and hush the whole neighborhood.

Playmates

The early play of nervous children should be carefully supervised and organized. Under no circumstance should they be allowed exclusively to play with children younger than themselves. They must not be allowed to dictate and control their playmates; it is far better that they should play at least a part of the time with older children who will force them to occupy subordinate roles in their affairs of play; in this way much may be accomplished toward preventing the development of a selfish, headstrong, and intolerant attitude.

When the nervous child is miffed or peeved at play and wants to quit because he cannot have his way, see to it that he quickly takes his place back in the ranks of his playfellows, and therefore early teach him how to react to defeat and disappointment. The nervous child must not be allowed to grow up with a disposition that will in some later crisis cause him to "get mad and quit."

If the nervous baby has older brothers and sisters, see to it that he does not, through pet and peeve and other manifestations of temper, control the family and therefore dictate the trend of all the children's play. Early train him to be manly, to play fair, and when his feelings are hurt or things do not go just to his liking, teach him, in the language of the street, to be "game." It is equally important that the little girls be taught in the same way how to take disappointment and defeat without murmur or complaint.

Teaching Self-Control

When nervous children grow up, especially if their parents are well to do, and they are not forced to work for a living, they are prone to develop into erratic, neurasthenic, and hysterical women, and worrying, inefficient, and nervous men; and in later years they throng the doctor's offices with both their real and imaginary complaints. These patients always feel that they are different from other people, that something terrible is the matter with them or that something awful is about to happen to them. Their brains constantly swarm with fears and premonitions of disease, disaster, and despair, while their otherwise brilliant intellects are confused and handicapped because of these "spoiled" and "hereditary" nervous disturbances - with the result that both their happiness and usefulness in life is largely destroyed.

The fundamental abnormal characteristic of that great group of nerve-patients who throng the doctor's office is sensitiveness, suggestibility, and lack of self-control. Sensitiveness is nothing more or less than a refined form of selfishness, while lack of self-control is merely the combined end-product of heredity and childhood spoiling. I am a great believer in, and practitioner of, modern methods of psychological child culture, but let me say to the fond parent who has a nervous child, when you have failed to teach the child self-control by suggestive methods, do not hesitate to punish, for of all cases it is doubly true of the nervous child that if you "spare the rod" you are sure to "spoil the child."

Let me urge parents to secure this self-control and enforce this discipline before the child is three or four years of age; correct the child at a time when your purpose can be accomplished without leaving in his subconscious mind so many vivid memories of these personal and, sometimes, more or less brutal physical encounters. Every year you put off winning the disciplinary fight with your offspring, you enormously increase the danger and likelihood of alienating his affections and otherwise destroying that beautiful and sympathetic relationship which should always exist between a child and his parents. In other words, the older the child, the less the good you accomplish by discipline and the more the personal resentment toward the parent is aroused on the part of the child.

Crime and Intemperance

While it is generally admitted that feeble-mindedness lies at the foundation of most crime, we must also recognize that failure on the part of parents to teach their children self-control is also responsible for many otherwise fairly normal youths falling into crime and intemperance. The parents of a nervous child must recognize that they will in all probability be subject to special danger along these lines as they grow up. The nervous child, as it grows up, is quite likely to be erratic, emotional, indecisive, and otherwise easily influenced by his associates and environment.

Nervous children are more highly suggestible than others, and if they have not been taught to control their appetites and desires, their wants and passions, they are going to form an especially susceptible class of society from which may be recruited high-class criminals, dipsomaniacs, and other unfortunates.

It is true that any spoiled child, however normal its heredity, may turn out bad in these respects if it is not properly trained; but what we are trying to accomplish here is to emphasize to parents that the nervous child is doubly prone to go wrong and suffer much sorrow in after life if he is not early and effectively taught self-control.

About the Author

Dr. William S. Sadler M.D. was a well-known American psychiatrist and college teacher in the school of medicine at the University of Chicago. For over sixty years he practiced his profession in Chicago, thirty-three years being associated in practice with his wife, Dr Lena Kellogg Sadler. The doctors were pioneers in the research on the mysterious Urantia Papers.