Читать книгу The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young - Margaret Warner Morley - Страница 9

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This is the most difficult question to answer, and one that requires time. Indeed, one might say it cannot be answered excepting in a general way, and that any effort to tell the truth sacredly is better than not to tell it at all. Where the children are still young the task is comparatively simple when once begun. It develops naturally, with time for thought on the part of the teller; and the steps are easy and convincing.

One of the questions most frequently asked is this: Does not talking about these things fix the child's mind unduly upon them?

As a matter of experience it is just the other way. The child who has always known the facts is not curious. Why should he be? There is nothing to be curious about. It is all as much a matter of course to him as the rising of the sun. And he is safeguarded against a certain pruriency that comes from wrongly stimulated and vilely fed curiosity. Instead of causing the child to think more about the subject, the tendency of good teaching is to prevent his thinking of it.

Another question frequently asked is, Does not talking on this subject arouse curiosity in children who otherwise would not be curious?

The answer is that it does not arouse harmful curiosity. The right kind of curiosity on any subject is of course good. Indeed without the desire to question and investigate everything about him man would be yet a savage living in a hole in the ground, and the starting-point of all the child's after-knowledge is curiosity. There are two kinds of curiosity, a good kind and a bad kind. The good kind is interested in finding out things for the sake of understanding them; the bad kind serves a bad end—in connection with this subject it leads to investigations which produce wrong thoughts and feelings, and is gratified for the sake of producing those thoughts and feelings. The same subject may give rise to either kind of curiosity, according as it is presented.

To-day we take every pains to stimulate the curiosity of our children. We teach them to observe carefully the flowers, the insects, the animals—everything about them. We cannot expect them to exercise their stimulated minds on all other subjects and turn blind eyes upon this one which is obviously so important and so interesting. No, the more they learn to look and ask about other things the more they will look and wish to ask about this.

That children differ in curiosity is very true. Some children seem to have very little curiosity about anything. Yet such children are sent to school with as much care as are the children eager to know. A child might show no interest in books, might find the reading lesson irksome; but the mother would know he was learning to read for the use that reading would be to him later, not for the sake of the things in the reading-book. It is the same here, the child learns the facts for the sake of his future. There are good reasons which will appear later why every child should have the right information on this subject whether he seeks it or not. If he is indifferent, one can be sure the proper kind of information will not hurt him; if he is eager, one can be sure he ought to be carefully and thoroughly instructed.

As a rule the most active and eager children and those with the quickest minds are the ones most curious to understand the origin of life, though there are exceptions. It is not legitimately gratified curiosity that harms, but suppressed curiosity, which in this subject is almost sure to result in the acquisition of wrong and often of perverting information. The surest way to arouse curiosity is to try to conceal something. The only thing, then, is to be ready to gratify honest curiosity by helpful information.

Nor is it safe to defer too long. What the mother wants her child to know in a certain way she should tell him herself, before he has a chance to hear it elsewhere. The moment he leaves her presence, the moment he starts alone to school, he may receive information which she would give the world to prevent his receiving. Not that her telling will necessarily keep him from hearing what others say, but to have his mind preoccupied will tend to prevent the wrong ideas from taking firm root.

Another question very often asked is, Will teaching this subject not encourage children to talk about it with other children?

On the contrary, the tendency is to prevent talk. The children of a family equally instructed will not find it worth talking about. They know what they want to know, and understand that the only person who can really tell them anything more is their mother, or whoever takes her place in this. If they do talk of it in the spirit in which they have been taught, such talk can do no harm, excepting in the presence of children not equally well instructed.

To meet this danger the mother can take certain precautions. Having won the confidence of her child, she can generally trust him to keep these matters confidential with her. She can explain that children do not always know the truth about these things, and sometimes do not know about them at all. That some mothers do not tell their children, but that she wants her child to understand everything just as it is, and to feel that she can trust him not to talk on these matters excepting when alone with her.

Of course there will be instances where this does not succeed, and the children eager and pure will speak in the presence of the neighbors' children and make trouble. Then the question is, Which is better, to run that risk and take the consequences, or to run the risk of allowing the child to remain ignorant? If the child could really remain ignorant, there might be room for argument against enlightening him, but there is great danger that he will be enlightened in a very unenlightened manner, and possibly by those same neighbors' children who are truly ignorant, though they may not be ignorant in just the way their fond parents believe them to be.

Many people still confound ignorance with innocence, though these are by no means related. The most ignorant person in the world might be the least innocent, and the most innocent might very well be the most enlightened. It not infrequently happens that the very children whose mothers are most opposed to enlightenment on this subject are dangerous companions for good children.

To guard against unprofitable or otherwise harmful teaching, the mother should instruct the child not to listen to talk on this subject and not to join in it, and at the same time tell him that in case he does hear anything that troubles him he should come to her and she will talk it over and explain, so that he may know what is right and what wrong. She should promise to tell him the truth about whatever he may want to know.

Having made this promise she must keep it. There is nothing more dangerous than to put a child off with evasive answers. He immediately jumps to the conclusion that there is some reason why his mother is afraid or ashamed to explain things to him, and if he has heard evil rumors it is quite natural for him to suspect that what he has heard is the truth and the whole truth, else why should his mother not help him? He soon feels ashamed to ask her questions which she refuses to answer, and he ceases to confide in her. There is nothing easier than to win and keep the confidence of a child, and often there is nothing more difficult than to regain it when once it is lost, particularly in this direction. It is a loss the mother can by no means afford to sustain.

Mothers sometimes object that their young sons bring them the most shocking or absurd stories which they have heard in school or elsewhere. The mother who gives one moment's serious thought to such a situation will be forced to the conclusion that for her to hear such tales is nothing compared to the child's hearing them, and that his coming to his mother is proof of his own innocence. It is surely her first duty, no matter how difficult or unsavory the task, to sift out the wrong from the right, to show the child wherein the story is absurd, wicked, and harmful. At such a crisis the mother should be very careful not to show any offence because the child has brought her the story. She may condemn the story as severely as she likes, but she must be careful that the child does not feel himself included in the condemnation. She must also be careful in denying the story not to deny the germ of truth which it will contain, or the child may conclude that she is talking against the facts, and is either ignorant or trying to conceal the truth. Many a mother has said in despair, "My boy of nine knows more about these things than I know myself."

It would be a great mistake to let the boy hear such a confession, as his very best safeguard is his confidence in the knowledge of his mother, or whoever assumes the duty of instructing him in these matters.