September 1938 in Home
and School “Readers’ Questions”
“B.B.” writes: “I read with great
interest the recent article in ‘Home and School’ on “What is the truth about
the young person?” and hope there will be further articles on the same subject.
It made me personally think a lot, and wonder how often in the day my own
children (of fourteen, eleven and eight years) have felt small, guilty or
frightened – and I fear it must be several times a day! At least for a boy of
eleven, who is very shy and dreadfully reserved.
I would very much like to give some
suggestions as to how to break through the barriers the reserved secretive ones
have built round themselves. (By the way have you found that shyness and
secretiveness always, or generally, go together?) How can we lessen the feelings
of guilt and fear; and especially how can we help back boys and girls to share
troubled thoughts? My boy of eleven will never tell me anything about himself –
I do not know what he is feeling or thinking about. He hides everything he can eg.
The twopennyworth of sweets he buys , and the comic papers – although he ought
to know I would not forbid them! He is so afraid of the slightest censure. He
is extremely intelligent and quick at learning, but he has little
self-confidence, and I am worried to think what will happen when he goes to
Public school, and when everything becomes increasingly difficult for him in
adolescence. He is a happy boy, sweet-tempered and liked – but unapproachable.
To any question about likes and dislikes, he answers, “I don’t know”. What can
I do about this?”
It is very natural that parents
should want to get behind the barriers of reserve and shyness, and gain the
full confidence of their children. Especially it is natural for those parents
who desire their children to feel happy as well as behave sensibly. It seems as
if we could not be of any use to our children unless we know their likes and
dislikes, share their secrets and learn what they are pondering about. And we
all feel easier with children (or with grown-ups for that matter) who are open
and frank. It is not merely what they
tell us, but the actual fact that they can tell us, which is so cheering. And
it is not merely the thoughts and experiences which the secretive child hides
from us, but the fact that he needs to hide them, which disturbs us so much. We
cannot altogether help suspecting that is wish to hide from us is a slur upon
our own good fellowship and understanding – as well as a possible sign of doubt
and pain in himself.
It is easier and pleasanter when children
are frank and simple in the expression of their thoughts and feelings. But it
takes all sorts to make a world, and nothing we could do, no way of responding
to them, could ever make all children alike in this respect. Even from birth
genuine differences of temperament appear. The child’s experiences may lessen
or encourage his wish to hide from us, but the readiness to share his thoughts
and feelings, or to deal with them alone, is in part a temperamental difference
which has to be accepted.
And the
(fortunate) paradox is that is we do
accept it, and grant the more secretive child his right to ponder and struggle
within himself he may open out the more to us! The one thing he resists and
resents, if nature has made him solitary, is poking and probing. Even the most
friendly and sympathetic questioning, especially from such important people as
mothers and fathers, may be felt as intrusion.
It isn’t
always that he deliberately means to
withdraw and hide. Sometimes the child would give everything to be able to
share, but sometimes deep in his mind, he hardly knows what paralyses his
tongue and his gesture, and shuts him up inside himself again. There are reasons for this, but usually they
are quite unconscious in the child’s own mind. And the more we seek to “break
through the barriers”, the tighter he holds on.
But often,
quite often, if we do not seek “to
break through”, if we accept, allow him his privilege of reticence, and remain
implicitly friendly and at ease ourselves, the barriers lose their rigidity,
the child’s tension relaxes, and he can come and tell us things of his own
accord.
Have you
ever noticed this with quite little children? With them, it is as with birds or
wild animals – if you look directly at them, they fear you and escape. The
direct glance means you are going to attack – so beware! Birds, in a garden,
for instance will come nearer and nearer to you if you are sitting still and
not regarding them, except from the corner of your eye. But turn your open eye
directly on them, and at once they fly off. (Gustav Eckstein, in his delightful
book Canary, has noted the same thing
with tame canaries flying free in his room. They would allow him close among
them if only he did not turn his look directly onto them).
So with the
child of two or three: if you gaze at him, or make a direct move to question
him, he shys off. But leave him alone, sit quiet, or move with restraint, give
only a casual smile, talk to someone else, or keep about your own business, and
he will come and shyly tell you some secret, share some pleasure.
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