Obstinate Toddlers, 1935 - Ursula Wise talks in depth about the child's struggle to move from self-defensiveness to assertiveness - an important developmental process that cannot happen overnight.

October 2, 1935 in The Nursery World, 

Obstinate Toddlers 

Somewhere between the first year and the end of the fourth every child who is not too frightened … to develop naturally has a phase of sheer obstinacy. 

This week I am dealing with letters about children of the toddler age who are obstinate or liable to tantrums. 

“E.C.P.” writes“My little girl of four and a-half years old, a very exceptionally healthy and vivacious child, and of very happy disposition, but an ‘only’ child who gets a lot of grown-up admiration and company and not a great deal of other children’s company, except for a dancing class once a week and an occasional child to tea, as I live in a district with very few children near. I am, and always have been, very firm with her, and when I tell her to do anything I will have it done. Lately, she has become so stubborn I don’t know what to do with her. If I tell her to do anything of any description, she would rather undergo any punishment than do it. In fact, I find it difficult to find anything that is a punishment, as she is so full of spirits she just doesn’t worry about anything. I hate to think I am breaking her spirit, and perhaps I am doing her harm by keeping on at her, but she will be unbearable if I cannot get her to understand she must obey me. For example, at breakfast she has a glass of Ovaltine, which she likes really, but this morning she played about for so long that at last I told her she must drink it. She just sat and looked at the glass for an hour, knowing that she only had only got to drink it to get down and play in the garden. I put her to bed with the glass of milk there, and she cried for a little and then started singing without a care in the world. Then she decided, I suppose, she’s had enough of it, and said she’s drink it. She started drinking it, and then tipped some out on the bed and told me, ‘I did it on purpose.’ I have never spoilt her, and my principle has always been to tell her a thing and stick to it. I have given you an instance to do with food, but it is just the same with anything else. She is a child with a great deal of character, but is not difficult in any other way, just a sweet, sunny temper.”

“Hotel Baby” writes: “Your advice has been so helpful in the past that I am writing to ask you for further help. M. is now just four and very intolerant of discipline. He will obey in his own good time, but refuses to be promptly obedient indoors. When he is out for a walk he is quite good and will obey quickly, but in the house he resents an order and takes his time in complying with a request, always wanting to know the reason why. Punishment of any sort makes him defiant - ‘If you punish me I will never do anything for you at all,’ he said today. I have never given in to him and my word has always been law, but I have given the reason, and up till recently I had no trouble with him, though he was leisurely. We live among too many ‘grown-ups’ who criticise his lack of obedience and my handling of the situation, considering that I should have him in subjection by punishment. This rather aggravates things. How can I best tackle him? If I carry on as before, giving the reason and being content with mere obedience, will this phase pass and prompt obedience gradually develop? The defiance is only when I insist on promptness. M. is a good and reasonable boy and easy to handle though highly strung. Also I should be glad if you could tell me of a book which would help me to answer his questions - a child’s book of general knowledge?

“Seamy Side” writes: “It may interest you to know that our daughter of three and a-half has survived many of the troubles which have been discussed in your columns. The ‘pot problem’, screaming in the night, and jealousy of baby sister, are some of these, and I am pleased to say that in each case your advice has been adopted and has been successful. Unfortunately tantrums are still with us and seem almost to get worse. Often there are fits of uncontrollable screaming when we have visitors in which case it is due to over-excitement. More often, J. walks about the house whining and looking for something to make a scene about. If things do not go quite as she wishes, there is a tantrum unless we are able to ‘get in first’ with an explanation, when she is usually very reasonable. Sometimes she stands still when we are out and refuses to go any further for a while. When asked what she wants, she sometimes gives a feeble explanation, such as ‘I don’t want to wear this frock’ (there having been no previous conversation about it) or else whines so that I cannot tell what she is saying. These tantrums, etc. used to occur for a few days and then she would be quite happy for weeks, but now they are much more frequent. Occasional attacks of acidosis complicate matters as it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between ill-health and ill-humour. We have just had a much-needed seaside holiday, but this was completely spoilt by J’s whining and crying. The cause was probably over-excitement, etc., but knowing this didn’t improve matters. Other people simply think that she’s a very spoilt child badly in need of a smacking, and I have to confess that I resorted to this when we returned home and the tantrums still continued. It seemed that J. was taking advantage of our apparently endless patience. This seemed effective to some extent, but as you have often warned readers, it gave rise to continuous wakeful nights and bed-wetting. Both these have often occurred before, but not continuously. I can only suggest that all this is caused through boredom, as we rarely have visitors and J. has no playmates. Baby is only one year old, and although they enjoy one another’s company, there is little satisfaction in this for J. We have provided a sand-pit and she spends many happy hours in the garden and helping in the kitchen. J. was kept very quiet until baby was born, as I knew very few people, but she is not at all shy and loves other people’s society. Often she spends a morning happy and cheerful next door and then begins to whine as soon as she gets home. Do you think it essential that I should have more visitors, or would some definite line of instruction be of use - such as half an hour each day learning some handicraft? J. is very interested in daddy’s tools, and perhaps you could suggest a book which would show us how to guide her in this respect.” 

“Ella” writes: “I have two small children aged five and two and a-half. The elder one has become increasingly difficult to deal with lately, but the trouble of the moment is that absolutely everything goes straight to her mouth, and of course the little ones copy her. As they both run wild in our garden (we live in the depths of the country) I am afraid, one day something may go in to harm her. Her lower lip is already swollen from this constant sucking. She has been a slightly difficult child to rear (not physically, as she is the picture of health) and has always been through awful phases of wetting and dirtying after the arrival of the second. She has always been a thumb-sucker, and `I finally left it alone, hoping it would cure itself (which I hasn’t). She went through a phase for years of not eating, but that has cured itself now. She has had two bouts of nail-biting, but is better of that now. She is a wildly untidy and destructive child and ruins all her toys and leaves everything about. I’ve tried hard to teach her to be more careful and to out things away, but it is always a struggle, and does not come naturally. She is very good friends with her sister, but her jealousy takes the form of wanting to have everything like the younger one. This has now spread, and the baby must do and have everything like her, which causes a considerable difficulty. I have very good reports from the little class she goes to. Though one of the youngest, she is said to be quite the most promising and a delightful child to teach. But with me she is hopeless. I admit I am bad and lacking in patience, but I do try and do the best I can for her. The little one gets all the attention from the outsiders, but how can this be avoided? I explain to the elder one that this is because she is so much smaller, in the same way that she gets noticed when she is with me, but I doubt if she has grasped it. I do not smack her now. I used to, long ago, but realise now that this is only harmful. She gets punished very occasionally. I try on the whole to reason with her and appeal to her to help me. The line I have taken with putting things in her mouth is to point out how ugly it is going to make her look and get her to help me cure it. I’ve threatened to confiscate everything that I see in her mouth. Do you think this is a good plan? “

There is much in common between these four problems, although there are many differences in detail. All these children seem to have developed a defensive attack against their environment, which suggest that there is some general factor in their handling needing consideration. In the first instance, it has to be said that some degree of obstinacy and self-assertiveness against the environment is a perfectly normal thing in this period of life. Somewhere between the end of the first year and the end of the fourth every child who is not too frightened or too inhibited to be able to develop normally has a phase sheer obstinacy. With some children it comes earlier. I have often quoted letters which describe an extreme degree of obstinacy in the second and third years. Sometimes it comes later. The degree of it and length of time it lasts vary very much from one child to another. In a milder degree it is part of the ordinary child’s adjustment to the social world and his discovery of himself as an independent person. After all, how would he develop courage and independence later on in life if he never asserted himself against the grown-ups in the early years? It takes time for the child to discover that there are ways of real assertion which fit in with the family life and open new avenues of skill and pleasure to him, and that he need not to be defiant all round in order to prevent himself from being overwhelmed by grown-up demands.

The passage from the mere obstinacy of self-defence to a reasonable courage and independence of the kind that the happy child shows at four and five and six years of age cannot be made in a day. It is a matter of growth and learning and experience. But the way the grown-ups behave, the demands they make, the conditions they create, can certainly make it more difficult for a child to discover the satisfactory forms of asserting himself as an individual and to discard the unsatisfactory ones that make for unhappiness.  

It seems that these letters illustrate different modes in which the environment of these children has made it harder for them to get over the contrariness that springs from the need to asset oneself anyhow and somehow, and to learn the useful, co-operative, happy ways of independence.In the case of “E. C. P.’s” little girl, the first thing that it would be as well to remember is that firmness and determination in the mother will very naturally result in firmness and determination in the child. We often talk about the influence of example, but we forget that we are giving the child an example all the time, not only just when we mean to, and when we ourselves say, “I will have it done,” we are, of course, setting that as a standard of behaviour to the child, who naturally herself says, “I will have it done” - but her way, not ours. I cannot help feeling this in this case the stubbornness of the child partly reflects the unbending firmness of the mother. When a child, however, gets on into such a state of mind that she will rather undergo any punishment than do anything of any description which the mother asks her to, then there is something that needs to be looked at, something in the general handling of the child which has exaggerated in her the normal self-defensiveness of the ordinary child. Now it sounds, on the evidence of this letter, as if the mistake that “E. C. P.” has been making is to demand obedience all round, even in situations where it is not appropriate. I fully agree that there are situations and occasions when one must demand it and it is right to do so, but to approach the whole problem of ones relation with a little child as if the sole key to it were command and obedience is not only desirable but often disastrous. It seems to me as if “E.C.P.” is turning every situation into one of obedience or disobedience. For example, why should drinking a glass of Ovaltine or not be treated as a matter of obedience? The appetite of grown-ups varies; why should why should not the appetite of children vary, without it being an issue of mere naughtiness and disobedience? It is such a pity to take one’s stand on the wrong things. It would have been far better to let her go without the Ovaltine if she did not want it, and let her understand that it would be taken away after a certain time is she did not drink it. When it is taken away, this should not be done as a punishment, but as a simple matter-of-fact recognition of the fact that the child does not want to drink it. 

            The source of the trouble with “Hotel Baby” seems to be rather different. As the writer suggests, there are too many grown-ups who criticise the child and his mother, and make contrary demands upon him. This situation is always a difficult one. There is a hint that the mother of “Hotel Baby”, too, is too rigid, in her demands. To take the attitude that one’s word must be “law” creates an atmosphere that is not always helpful to the child. one should want things to be done for good objective reasons, rather than because one’s own word has to be law. With regard to prompt-ness which is the special difficulty with “Hotel Baby,” it is surely demanding a very great deal to ask the child that he should not simply do what one wants but do it in the instant, without giving the slightest expression to his contrary wishes! It is a great help to the child if we do allow him a few moments of unwillingness; even saying, when he asserts “I shan’t,” “Perhaps you will do it in a minute or two,” or “Perhaps you will do it later.”

            (As regards the query about the book, I would suggest “The Parents’ Book,” which answers children’s questions, published quite cheaply by T.C. and E. C. Jack, Ltd.).

            

            In the case of ‘Seamy’s Side’s” little girl, while she is doubtless right in the thinking that over-excitement and the acidosis all come in as factors, it seems to me very likely that these tantrums and screaming fits are largely the expression of the child’s attempt to deal with the jealousy of her baby sister. It is a pity that the child cannot have some companions of her own age as often as possible, but in addition the suggestion that she should have some definite learning is a very good one, not so much because of what she would learn, as because of the sense of special privilege and the promise of later skill that this would bring her. She would feel that she was learning how to be grown up and sensible. I would suggest that “Seamy Side” gets the book, “The Child at Home: His Occupations and First Lessons,” by Nancy Catty. This would give her many suggestions that would help the child. 

            The elder daughter of “Ella” seems to be in very considerable psychological difficulty. There are so many different aspects of her difficulty that I would like to suggest to “Ella” that she gets first-hand diagnosis and advice. The smacking of course cannot have been helpful to her, and it will not cure her sucking habits to scold or punish or take away everything she sucks. This need to have something always in the mouth, however, is simply one of the many symptoms which suggest a considerable degree of emotional conflict. There may be some general change of handling that could be made, but I feel that a good deal more information is needed before one can tell exactly what the source of the trouble is, and I would like to urge “Ella” to bring her little girl up to London to see a good psychological specialist for children.