Читать книгу Study of Child Life - Marion Foster Washburne - Страница 6

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Condition at Birth

Let us see, then, exactly what his condition is. In the first place, he is, as Virchow, an authority on physiological subjects declares, merely a spinal animal. Some of the higher brain centers do not yet exist at all, while others are in too incomplete a state for service. The various sensations which the baby experiences—heat, light, contact, motion, etc.—are so many stimuli to the development of these centers. If the stimulus is too great, the development is sometimes unduly hastened, with serious results, which show themselves chiefly in later life. The child who is brought up a noisy room, is constantly talked to and fondled, is likely to develop prematurely, to talk and walk at an early age; also to fall into nervous decay at an early age. And even if by reason of an unusually good heredity he escapes these dangers, it is almost certain that his intellectual power is not so great in adult life as it would have been under more favorable conditions. A new baby, like a young plant, requires darkness and quiet for the most part. As he grows older, and shows a spontaneous interest in his surroundings, he may fittingly have more light, more companionship, and experience more sensations.

Weight at Birth

The average boy baby weighs about seven pounds at birth; the average girl, about six and a half pounds. The head is larger in proportion to the body than in after life; the nose is incomplete, the legs short and bowed, with a tendency to fall back upon the body with the knees flexed. This natural tendency should be allowed full play, for the flexed position is said to be favorable to the growth of the bones, permitting the cartilaginous ends of the bones to lie free from pressure at the joints.

The plates of the skull are not complete and do not fit together at the edges. Great care needs to be taken of the soft spot thus left exposed on the top of the head—the undeveloped place where the edges of these bones come together. Any injury here in early life is liable to affect the mind.

State of Development

The bony enclosures of the middle ear are unfinished and the eyes also are unfinished. It is a question yet to be settled, whether a new-born baby is blind and deaf or not. At a rate, he soon acquires a sensitiveness to both light and sound, although it is three years or more before he has amassed sufficient experience to estimate with accuracy the distance of objects seen or herd. He can cry, suck, sneeze, cough, kick, and hold on to a finger. All of these acts, though they do not yet imply personality, or even mind, give evidence of a wonderful organism. They require the co-operation of many delicate nerves and muscles—a co-operation that has as yet baffled the power of scientists to explain.

Although the young baby is in almost constant motion while he is awake, he is altogether too weak to turn himself in bed or to escape from an uncomfortable position, and he remains so for many weeks. This constant motion is necessary to his muscular development, his control of his own muscles, his circulation, and, very probably, to the free transmission of nervous energy. Therefore, it is of the first importance that he has freedom to move, and he should be given time every day to move and stretch before the fire, without clothes on. It is well to rub his back and legs at the same time, thus supplementing his gymnastics with a gentle massage.

Educational Beginnings.

By the time he is four or five weeks old it is safe to play with him, a little every day, and Froebel has made his "Play with the Limbs" one of his first educational exercises. In this play the mother lays the baby, undressed, upon a pillow and catches the little ankles in her hands. Sometimes she prevents the baby from kicking, so that he has to struggle to get his legs free; sometimes she helps him, so that he kicks more freely and regularly; sometimes she lets him push hard against her breast. All the time she laughs and sings to him, and Froebel has made a little song for this purposes. Since consciousness is roused and deepened by sensations, remembered, experienced, and compared, it is evident that this is more than a fanciful play; that it is what Froebel claimed for it—a real educational exercise. By means, of it the child may gain some consciousness of companionship, and thus, by contrast, a deeper self-consciousness.

First Efforts

The baby is at first unable to hold up its head, and in this he is just like all other animals, for no animal, except man, holds up its head constantly. The human baby apparently makes the effort, because he desires to see more clearly—he could doubtless see clearly enough for all physical purposes with his head hung down, but not enough to satisfy his awakening mentality. The effort to hold the head up and to look around is therefore regarded by most psychologists as one of the first tokens of an awakening intellectual life. And this is true, although the first effort seems to arise from an overplus of nervous energy which makes the neck muscles contract, just as it makes other muscles contract. The first slight raisings of the head are like the first kicking movements, merely impulsive; but the child soon sees the advantage of this apparently accidental movement and tries to master it. Preyer^[A] considers that the efforts to balance the head among the first indications that the child's will is taking possession of his muscles. His own boy arrived at this point when he was between three and four months old.

Reflex Grasping

The grasp of the new-born baby's hand has a surprising power, but the baby himself has little to do with it. The muscles act because of a stimulus presented by the touch of the fingers, very much as the muscles of a decapitated frog contract when the current of electricity passes over them. This is called reflex grasping, and Dr. Louis Robinson,^[B] thinking that this early strength of gasp was an important illustration of and evidence for evolution, tried experiments on some sixty new-born babies. He found that they could sustain their whole weight by the arms alone when their hands were clasped about a slender rod. They grasped the rod at once and could be lifted from the bed by it and kept in this position about half a minute. He argued that this early strength of arm, which soon begins to disappear, was survival from the remote period when the baby's ancestors were monkeys or monkey-like people who lived in trees.

Beginnings Of Will Power

However this may be, during the first week the baby's hands are much about his face. By accident they reach, the mouth, they are sucked; the child feels himself suck its own fist; he feels his fist being sucked. Some day it will occur to him that that fist belongs to the same being who owns the sucking mouth. But at this point, Miss Shinn^[C] has observed, the baby is often surprised and indignant that he cannot move his arms around and at the same time suck his fist. This discomfort helps him to make an effort to get his fist into his mouth and keep it there, and this effort shows his will, beginning to take possession of his hands and arms.

Growth of Will

Since any faculty grows by its own exercise, just as muscles grow by exercise, every time the baby succeeds in getting his hands to his mouth as a result of desire, every time that he succeeds in grasping an object as result of desire, his will power grows. Action of this nature brings in new sensations, and the brain centers used for recording such sensations grow.

As the sensations multiply, he compares them, and an idea is born. For the beginnings of mental development no other mechanism is actually needed than a brain and a hand and the nerves connecting them. Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller, both of them deaf and blind, received their education almost entirely through their hands, and yet they were unusually capable of thinking. The child's hands, then, from the beginning, are the servants of his brain-instruments by means of which he carries impressions from the outer world to the seat of consciousness, and by which in turn he imprints his consciousness upon the outer world.

Intentional Grasping

The average baby does not begin to grasp objects with intention before the fourth month. The first grasping seems to be done by feeling, without the aid of the eye, and is done with the fingers with no attempt to oppose the thumb to them. So closely does the use of the thumbs set opposite the fingers in grasping coincide with the first grasping with the aid of sight, that some observers have been led to believe that as soon as the baby learns to use its thumb in this way he proves that he is beginning to grasp with intention.

Order of Development

The order of development seems to be, first, automatism, the muscles contracting of themselves in response to nervous stimuli; second, instinct, the inherited wisdom of the race, which discovered ages ago that the hand could be used to greater advantage when the thumb was separated from the fingers; and thirdly, the child's own intelligence and will making use of this natural and inherited machinery. This order holds true of the development, not only of the hand, but of the whole organism.

Looking

A little earlier than this, during the third month, the baby first looks upon his own hands and notices them. Darwin tells us that his boy looked at his own hands and seemed to study them until his eyes crossed. About the same then the child notices his foot and uses his hand to carry it to its mouth. It is some time later that he discovers that he can move his feet without his hands.

Tearing

About this time, three or four months old, the child begins to tear paper into pieces, and may be easily taught to let the piece, that have found their way into his mouth be taken out again. Now, too, he begins to throw things, or to drop them; then he wants to get them back again, and the patient mother must pick them up and give them back many times. Sometimes a baby is punished for this proclivity, but it is really a part of his development, and at least once a day he should be allowed to play in this manner to his heart's content. It is tact, not discipline, that is needed, and the more he is helped the sooner he will live through this stage and come to the next point where he begins to throw things.

Throwing

In this stage, of course, he must be given the proper things to throw—small, bright-colored worsted balls, bean-bags, and other harmless objects. If he is allowed to discover the pleasure there is in smashing glass and china, he will certainly be, for a time, a very destructive little person. When later he is able to creep throw his ball and creep after it—he will amuse himself for hours at a time, and so relieve those who have patiently attended him up to this time. In general we may lay down the rule, that the more time and attention of the right sort is to a young child, the less will need to be given as he grows older. It is poor economy to neglect a young child, and try to make it up on the growing boy or girl. This is to substitute a complicated and difficult problem for a simple one.

The Grasping Instinct

It is some time before a child's will can so overcome his newly-acquired tendency to grasp every possible object that he can keep his hand off of anything that invites him. The many battles between mothers and children it the subject of not touching forbidden things are at this stage a genuine wrong and injustice to the child. So young a child is scarcely more responsible for touching whatever he can reach that is a piece of steel for being drawn toward a powerful magnet. Preyer says that it is years before voluntary inhibitions of grasping become possible. The child has not the necessary brain machinery. Commands and sparring of the hands create bewilderment and tend to build up a barrier between mother and child. Instead of doing such thing, simply put high out of reach and sight whatever the child must not touch.

Another way in which young children are often made to suffer because of the ignorance of parents is the leaving of undesired food on the child's plate. Every child, when he does not want his food, pushes the plate away from him, and many mothers push it back and scold. The real truth is that the motor suggestion of the food upon the plate is so strong that the child feels as if he were being forced to eat it every time he looks at the plate; to escape from eating it he is obliged to push it out of sight.

The Three Months' Baby

But this difficulty comes later. Now we are concerned with a three-months-old baby. At this stage the child is usually able to balance his head, to sit up against pillows, to seize and grasp objects, and to hold out his arm, when he wishes to be taken. Although he may have made number of efforts to sit erect, and may have succeeded for a few minutes at a time, he still is far from being able to sit alone, unsupported. This he does not accomplish until the fifth or the month.

Danger of Forcing

There is nothing to be gained by trying to make him sit alone sooner; indeed, there is danger in it—danger in forcing young bones and muscles to do work beyond their strength, and danger also to the nerves. It is safe to say that a normal child always exercises all its faculties to the utmost without need of urging, and any exercise beyond the point of natural fatigue, if persisted in, is sure to bring about abnormal results.

Creeping

The first efforts toward creeping often appear in the bath when the child turns over and raise, himself upon his hands and knees. This is sign that he might creep sooner, if he were not impeded by clothing. He should be allowed to spread himself upon a blanket every day for an hour or two, and to get on his knees as frequently as he pleases. Often he needs a little help to make him creep forward, for most babies creep backward at first, their arms being stronger than their legs. Here the mother may safely interfere, pushing the legs as they ought to go and showing the child how to manage himself; for very often he becomes much excited over his inability to creep forward.

The climbing instinct begins to appear by this time—the seventh month—and here the stair-case has its great advantages. It ought not to be shut from him by a gate, but he should be taught how to climb up and down it in safety. To do this, start him at the head of the stairs, and, you yourself being below him, draw first one knee and then the other over the step, thus showing him how to creep backward. Two lessons of about twenty minutes each will be sufficient. The only danger is creeping down head foremost, but if he once learns thoroughly to go backward, and has not been allowed the other way at all, he will never dream of trying it. In going down backward, if he should slip, he can easily save himself by catching the stairs with his hands as he slips past.

The child who creeps is often later in his attempts to walk than the child who does not; and, therefore, when he is ready to walk, his legs will be all the stronger, and the danger of bow-legs will be past. As long as the child remains satisfied with creeping, he is not yet ready either mentally or physically for walking.

Standing

If the child has been allowed to creep about freely, he will soon be standing. He will pull himself to his feet by means of any chair, table, or indeed anything that he may get hold of. To avoid injuring him, no flimsy chairs or spindle-legged tables should be allowed in his nursery. He will next begin to sidle around a chair, shuffling his feet in a vague fashion, and sometimes, needing both of his hands to seize some coveted object, he will stand without clinging, leaning on his stomach. An unhurried child may remain at this stage for weeks.

Walking

Let alone, as he should be, he will walk without knowing how he does it, and will be the stronger for having overcome his difficulties himself. He should not be coaxed to stand or walk. The things in his room actually urge him to come and get them. Any further persuasion is forced, and may urge him beyond his strength.

Walking-chairs and baby-jumpers are injurious in this respect. They keep the child from his native freedom of sprawling, climbing, and pulling himself up. The activity they do permit is less varied and helpful than the normal activity, and the child, restricted from the preparatory motions, begins to walk too soon.

Alternate Growth

A curious fact in the growth of children is that they seem to grow heavier for a certain period, and then to grow taller for a similar period. That is, a very young baby, say, two months old, will grow fatter for about six weeks, and then for the next six weeks will grow longer, while the child of six years changes his manner of growth every three or four months. These periods are variable, or at least their law has not yet been established, but the observant mother can soon make the period out for herself in the case of her own child. For two or three days, when the manner of growth seems to be changing from breadth to length, and vice versa, the children are likely to be unusually nervous and irritable, and these aberrations must, of course, be patiently borne with.

Precocity

Early Ripening

In all these things some children develop earlier than others, but too early development is to be regretted. Precocious children are always of a delicate nervous organization. Fiske^[D] has proved to us that the reason why the human young is so far more helpless and dependent than the young of any other species is because the activities of the human race have become so many, so widely varied, and so complex, that they could not fix themselves in the nervous structure before birth. There a only a few things that the chick needs to know in order to lead a successful chicken life; as a consequence these few things are well impressed upon the small brain before ever he chips the shell; but the baby needs to learn a great many things—so many that there is no time or room to implant them before birth, or indeed, in the few years immediately succeeding birth. To hurry the development, therefore, of certain few of these faculties, like the faculties of talking, and walking, of imitation or response, is to crowd out many other faculties perhaps just beginning to grow. Such forcing will limit the child's future development to the few faculties whose growth is thus early stimulated. Precocity in a child, therefore, is a thing to be deplored. His early ripening foretells a early decay and a wise mother is she who gives her child ample opportunity for growing, but no urging.

Ample Opportunity for Growth

Ample opportunity for growth includes (1) Wholesome surroundings, (2) Sufficient sleep, (3) Proper clothing, (4) Nourishing food. We will take up these topics in order.

[A]

W. Preyer. Professor of Physiology, of Jena, author of "The Mind of the Child." D. Appleton & Co.

[B]

Dr. Robinson. Physician and Evolutionist, paper in The Eclectic, Vol. 29.

[C]

Miss Millicent Shinn, American Psychologist, author of "Biography of a Baby."

[D]

John Fiske, writer on Evolutionary Philosophy. His theory of infancy is perhaps his most important contribution to science.