Behaviour to animals, 1933 – Ursula Wise references one of her correspondent’s advice to address a problem of animal cruelty and general destructiveness.

 17 May, 1933 in Nursery World

Behaviour to Animals

Retaliatory Punishment is not a good method of dealing with cruelty to animals

“E.T.”  writes: “Could you give me your advice as to the best method of dealing with a three years old boy who will kick and beat his pets the cats and dogs. He is really very fond of them, and until recently treated them very kindly, but now seems to delight in making them run away from him. I would like to know particularly what you think of treating this kind of behaviour (and also of throwing stones playfully at his father) by mild retaliation of a like nature, i.e., kicking the small boy lightly but hard enough to be uncomfortable on the leg when he kicks the dog, and throwing a stone at him gently when he throws one at father, to show him that it hurts and that if he hurts others he will be hurt himself. I feel very strongly against this method personally, and would like to know if there is any justification for adopting it. He is a very easy child to deal with, but I am not quite sure of the best line to take in this case. .”

I don’t think it is at all good to kick or pinch the child for doing this to a dog or to a human being, or in any way to use retaliatory punishment. I don’t say this from mere theory, but from having tried it myself with a group of children. I found that it had no educative value at all, since it simply demonstrates to the child that the grown-ups will behave exactly as he does if only he gives them enough provocation, and does not show to the child any other ideal of action than that he had developed spontaneously. It is not really possible to pass on from this idea of punishment to the more desirable idea of refraining from hurting others out of love and kindliness. It dos not create a wish not to hurt, but only the desire to avoid the punishment. Those cruel actions of little children do not spring (after infancy) from a mere want of realising their effects. The children know quite well that kicking and pinching and throwing stones hurts the other person or animal. The only way to help the child is to deflect the desire for power which now expresses itself in this particular way into some other activity. If he were really cruel to the dog I should deprive him of the opportunity, taking the dog away from him, even refusing to have one in the family. But it is not necessary to go to these lengths with a small child, though it might be with an older boy who is persistently cruel.

The letter which follows shows very clearly how possible it is to deflect children’s activities from an undesirable to a more desirable direction. I am very glad to be able to print this next letter along with yours, because it does directly answer the particular problem which you raise. I am sure that the suggestion of giving the child an inanimate object to kick, so that when he feels he must hit out he can get some satisfaction for that impulse, and yet know that he is not hurting a living thing, is an excellent one. I have found a punch-ball satisfactory in the same way for older boys, just as competitive games of tug-of-war or even learning to box are a very excellent outlet for their aggressive impulses.

“Bridget” writes: “I had been meaning to write to you about a problem with regard to the behaviour of my small son of two and a half years, but I have now found a solution myself and am writing to you in the hope that it may be of help to your other readers. We have a dog, a gentle but highly nervous terrier. My small son early discovered that he could, by squealing in the dog’s ear, make him burst into hysterical howling. I tried slapping without the slightest effect. T. enjoyed his own performances so much that he inflicted them on us as well as on the dog till he succeeded in making us all, dog, maid and me, highly irritable – nothing we could do stopped him. At that time T. had no playroom of his own. He liked to trot around the house beside my maid or me or play beside us. As he grew older and accumulated more and more toys my husband and I decided that he must for his own sake and ours have a playroom. We converted our biggest bedroom into a day and night nursery, moving ourselves into a smaller room (after all space is not so much a pressing need to an adult). With the advent of the nursery the squealing problem (and others) was solved. T. was told that the sitting room was Mummy’s room –he mustn’t squeal there. The dining room was Daddy’s room, the kitchen the maid’s room  - he mustn’t squeal in either of those. The nursery was his room – he could squeal there as much and as often as he liked. Each time thereafter that he began to squeal he was led gently but firmly to his nursery and told to squeal there.
Occasionally he did, more often than he did not. Anyway, he seemed to recognise the fairness of the arrangement and we have had no further trouble.

“Now, when he kicks the furniture, he is told that the furniture in the rest of the house is not his, but that he may go up and kick the furniture in his nursery if he likes. That also he understands. When he kicked the dog I used to kick him gently to show him what it felt like, and that had no deterrent effect. He was annoyed with me and took it out on the dog. Then it occurred to me to suggest that he should kick one of his woolly dogs instead and as it couldn’t feel and didn’t mind. That helped. He does still occasionally hit our long-suffering terrier, but always stops when we suggest that he should kick something inanimate instead.

“There is one problem which still worries me and with which I should be most grateful for your help. How can I prevent T. from running about with the end of a stick in his mouth? I am afraid I have to let him see that it worries me, and he does it partly, I am sure, to tease. I have known two children who have fallen, one with a stick, the other with a tin trumpet, and in both cases the roof of the child’s mouth was pierced and had to be sown up under chloroform. T. has himself cut the back of his throat with a stick which he was sucking when he knocked into a chair, but he still persists in the habit. As preventing him doing it while I am there seems to make him want to do it all the more when my back is turned I am rather at a loss as to how to proceed. He also likes to suck stones of all shapes and sizes and enjoys a good mouthful of sand! Various correspondents have written to you worried because their child was late in talking. T. did not use words to make himself understood till he was two. At two and a quarter he knew all his letters – the result of persistent questioning on his part as to the names and letters on large notices outside, letters in the names of houses on garden gates, etc. Now at two and three quarters he knows the names of all garden flowers out at present and of about sixty to eighty British birds (we have a good selection of books on birds with good illustrations, and these keep him happy for hours). Is this passion for identification normal at his age?

“May I add to your suggestions to correspondents of constructive toys for two-and-a- quarter years olds simple jigsaw puzzles? My husband has made half-a-dozen of these for T. (about thirty pieces in each cut out with a fret-saw from three-ply wood on which a picture has been glued), and they have given him hours and hours of absorbed play. I have known him spend three- quarters of an hour at a stretch doing nothing at else but one puzzle. A rather trying development of this interest arose through his application of it to such things as his toast at breakfast. He refused to eat the toast because all the cut parts had to be fitted together to make the original whole! Do you know ‘Crazy Ikes” – another constructive toy? T. has not yet got sufficient manipulative skill to make full use of it, and he gets a little fretful at times when he can’t do what he wants with the pieces,  but it caught his interest, and in a week or two it ought to give him full satisfaction. I have so appreciated your articles and have got so much help from them that I felt impelled to add a little to the data on which you base your replies. “

I am very glad to be able to pass on so many excellent suggestions to my other correspondents. I am sure it is often a special help to my readers when they get confirmatory experience from other parents.

The particular problem you put is a very difficult one. I remember as a child myself falling off a swing with a stick in my mouth and learning a very bitter lesson in that way. I am inclined to think that it would be wisest to leave the boy alone about it. What you are concerned with is the real practical question of avoiding any danger to the child, not the theoretical question of his obedience, and as you have found that your interference makes him want to do it all the more when your back is turned, you might really be increasing the risk of a real accident by trying to prevent it. I would try to find some way of diverting the impulse as you have done successfully in all these other problems; for example, finding something else for him to hold in his hand when he runs. Has he got a cart that he could push or trundle? Or a little pedal car? You could suggest to him the game of being an engine when he runs, and moving his rams like the cranks. Or give him a flag that he could wave about o the stick. You might be able to take up some spontaneous suggestion of the child himself that would solve the problem if you are on the look-out for some such indirect solution.

Quite a number or ordinary little children go on putting various objects into their mouths in the way your boy does, and in itself this does no harm. The real risk is the one you are concerned with, and that only arises in such situations as when the child is running. Has he got things to climb on? That would be another help in diverting his interest.

Thank you for your other suggestions. The passion for naming which you describe in your little boy at present is quite normal. With some children it comes rather later, but with intelligent children it often appears as soon as language is mastered. I have known little girls of about that age who could identify a very large number of both garden and wild flowers. It shows a very active interest in the world, and promises excellently for future intellectual development.