A Child’s Wonder of Life, 1930 - Ursula Wise addresses the young child's questions about birth and death

April 23, 1930 in The Nursery World

A Child’s Wonder of Life 

How to answer your child’s questions about birth and death

A week or two ago I promised “A.E.G.” and “E.M.M.” to take up again the points of their letters on the subject of children’s questions as to “where babies come from,” and I should like to go into the problem more fully now. 

It cannot be denied that the problem of how best to deal with little children’s questions on these matters is one that demands a good deal of honest thought. It cannot be settled off-hand by anyone. The difficulties that my correspondents and the letters in “Over the Teacups” have raised are perfectly genuine ones, and have to be frankly faced from the outset. No one can offer simple ready-made advice which clears away all future difficulties and makes everything quite easy and straightforward. After all, we are in contact here with some of the most intimate aspects of human relationships, ones that have always been fraught with the most significant emotions, and the deepest moral and personal issues. It is very hard for us to be as calm and objective when the child touches upon these things as when he asks about engines or birds or butterflies. It is a great help if we can be equally calm and dispassionate; but not easy for the ordinary parent to be so. The trained biologist can look upon birth and marriage, life and death in human beings as objectively as upon any other facts of the science of life- when he is dealing with them asscientific questions. But I have known even trained biologists, with a great store of knowledge at their command, feel embarrassed and hardly know what to reply on the spot when their own children asked for information about their own origin. So that we must not pretend there aren’t any difficulties, or that one or two easy instructions to parents will sweep them away all together. 

            The one thing that has to be remembered, however, is that the child’s difficulties are even greater than the parents. His questions are not a matter of idle curiosity, nor of pure desire for knowledge as such. They spring from deep ponderings about his relationship to his parents and his brothers and sisters, and the relationship of his parents to each other; and from a groping and searching after some meaning in what he dimly senses of his own history and growth, his own past and future.

Slow Development - Ursula Wise reiterates that development cannot be hurried - it is individual to the child.

April 8, 1931 in The Nursery World

Slow development 

 “K.P.H.” writes: - “Sometime ago I wrote to you about my little charge, who is now three years and three months old, and I wish to thank you for your advice. I am very pleased to say that since then he has greatly improved; although he is still rather wilful, he is much more obedient, and will do things now with little fuss, so that for almost three months I have had no reason to shut him up alone in a room. Once again, I need your help, but this time I am worried about his being so backward. Of course, some children are not so clever as others, I know, and I must not forget to add that. ‘D.’ was very ill at the age of eight months and that same illness lasted until he was about eighteen months old, which, of course, put him back almost a year. (I was not with him then, but I have heard all about it from his Mummy and Daddy.) But even so, putting him back one year, he is still a backward, because a child of two says more than ‘D.’ He is just beginning to talk now and make short sentences. His Daddy suggests giving him about ten minutes’ ‘object lessons’ every day, and gradually working up until we get to the stage when he could be taught his alphabet. I am starting tomorrow, so must hope for the best possible results. The thing that distresses me most is the fact that he simply will not ask for attention. He is attended to at 6.30 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 noon, between 3 and 6 p.m., and at 10 pm., but if he does want anything between those times he will just walk round and round and up and down until someone happens to see him. If nobody is about he never thinks of coming in to ask (he won’t ask even if one is right next to him), and the result is fatal. I have tried any amount of ways to teach him to ask, but have found nothing that will succeed. My last effort has been to send him to the bathroom to attend to himself (this he can do perfectly well), thinking that perhaps in time he would go off by himself; but even that he has failed, and now I am puzzled as to what to do next. His bladder is not weak, and I’m very much afraid that it is laziness on his part. He can ask for things like milk and chocolates and toys – anything that is nice! – but I do hope you will be able to answer - your suggestions are s helpful. P.S. – it may interest your readers to know that I have had the same trouble with ‘D.” and his small brother over hair-washing, but we have just recently overcome that fear by playing ‘wow-wows’ – having a bath, kneeling in the bath on hands and knees. I carefully soap, and rinse their hair, and they think it is great fun; barking and growling goes on all through the performance. I wonder if this one will help some mother or nanny with wee ones?” 

First, with regard to the question of backwardness. It does sometimes happen that an intelligent boy speaks very little at three years of age, so that I should not feel worried about it. On the other hand, I agree that everything should be done to stimulate his interest in the world and to foster any inquiring tendencies that he may happen to show. But I don’t think that definite “object-lessons” of any formal kind will be the best help. Free and lively talk about things you are yourself interested in, or things to which he shows any spontaneous attention will certainly be useful; for example, things you see on your walks together, flowers and animals, or motor cars and shops and people, or the child’s own playthings in the home and garden. I should share in his play and follow up any game that he starts, enjoying it with him, being ready to answer any questions, and in general letting him have as lively and free a companionship with you as you can possibly give him. But I should very definitely avoid anything formal or anything in the shape of lessons. Nor would it be desirable to introduce the alphabet for a year, or even two years to come. Let the child do things with his hands and find out by actual experience and actual play. He will then develop a wish to read and write in the normal course. 

As regards the other problem, I think your plan of training him to attend to himself is the best. But you cannot expect it to succeed in a short time.

Two Year Olds are often Cruel, 1931 - Ursula Wise replies to a mother concerned at her child's cruelty to her dog.

July, 1931 in The Nursery World 

Two Year Olds are very cruel 

This week a mother asks what she can teach her little girl to be kind to animals. She has a dog whom she really enjoys hurting or teasing. 

“E. C. G.” writes: “I have two points upon which I should like to consult you with regard to my little girl, aged two years and four months. I do so want her to be kind and considerate to animals, but we have a dog and she is a positive little horror to him. He is devoted to her and most patient, but she really frightens him, either by pushing her wooden horse or doll’s pram into him and after him, or by chasing him with something that squeaks (which he hates at all times), or by treading on his paws or prodding him with sticks. This wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t serious about it, but seems to take a fiendish delight in plaguing him. I have talked to her. I have shut the dog away from her, and I have gone so far as to treat her in a similar manner, but without avail, and I am at a loss to know how to proceed with her. The other problem is the ever-present one of new foods, but with the difference that she has been really frightened. We went to a children’s party when she was twenty months old, and someone gave her an ice. She had taken a large mouthful before I could get to her, and I thought I should never stop her crying and shaking. Now when I give her anything new she puts the spoon to her mouth as though she is going to try it, gives a sudden shudder and puts it down again. I pursue the method of removing the dish at the proper time and producing nothing in its place, but she goes hungry rather than try it. Persuasion and making a game about it are equally futile.”

This problem of the little child’s cruelty to animals is a fairly common one, and I think it is rather surprising that (as far as I remember) yours is the first letter which has raised the question in my columns. Most little children in their earliest years show occasional impulses of what amounts to cruel behaviour to animals, although it is not always cruel in the sense that the child really wishes to inflict pain. Sometimes, and especially in the second and third years it is simply lack of understanding that certain actions cause pain. But it is not always this, at any rate, after the end of the second year, and it sounds to me from your description as if your little girl really did wish to hurt the dog. I happen to have made a fairly detailed study of this particular problem in my own observations of children between two and seven years of age, and I have found very few children who did not show the impulse to hurt occasionally, although some children do it so very rarely, and others much more often. But what is clearly striking is that one very rarely sees a child who has not equally strong impulses of tenderness and sympathy with animals. According as the mood takes them, they will be tender and cherishing or hostile and unkind.

Now, since these impulses are so general there is not any need for you to dread that the child will necessarily be cruel when she is a little older.

The Self-Reliant child, 1934 - Ursula Wise reply to a mother about her little boy exemplifies the friendly, co-operative attitude on the part of the grown-up which is of such great importance to the child’s development

January 31, 1934 in The Nursery World

The Self-Reliant child

       "G.R." writes:- "I have just been reading ‘P.J.’s’ problem in THE NURSERY WORLD. I feel I would like to tell you about my little boy, who was three years old last November. I am only a working-class mother and have no help whatever. When my little son was fourteen months old his sister was born, so maybe that is the reason he is so grown-up. Since before he was two he has gone to the bathroom and stood by a pail, by himself, whenever he wanted to do a little job, and every night when he goes to bed I put the pot on a stool right close to the bed and he looks after himself. In the morning he gets out, puts his dressing gown on, then sits on the pot and wraps a blanket around his legs. I go in to him at 7.30 (after I have seen my husband off to work) and he has usually done his duty. He takes the chamber into the bathroom himself and empties it and runs the tap in it and stands it in the bath for me to finish off. He also helps me with the baby. If I am busy, baking or washing up, and Maureen wants to sit down, he will get the pot and see to her for me. I do not know if you will think he is an unusual type of child. I would like your opinion on the subject – he really is very good. He has two hours’ sleep every afternoon, and goes to bed at 7 every night – a little late, perhaps, but I keep them up until Daddy comes home, as he does not see them in the morning. I am sending you some snaps so that you can see wat an intelligent looking little fellow he has been from the start.”

I was interested to receive this letter. G.R.’s little boy is obviously unusually intelligent and sensible and the photographs show him to be a perfectly happy land jolly child as well. His skill in handling utensils and looking after himself is certainly unusual. But it is quite clear from the expression of his face that he is not feeling these things to be a burden at all. G.R. must have had the gift of winning his co-operation in these things in such a way that they become simply problems of skill for him, and not duties or burdens. She is to be congratulated on her success in getting this friendly cooperation. I am sure that P.J. and many other mothers will be interested in this letter, and it will encourage mothers to believe that it is possible to allow little children to do things for themselves without any undue pressure, and that this is a much better solution than treating the child like a little automaton who must do what he is told, or stand still and have things done for him. G.R.’s letter confirms however, what I often feel when I am making practical suggestions about what to do – that in the last resort everything comes down to the personal skill of the mother or nurse, and that no advice can take the place of a really friendly co-operative attitude on the part of the grown-up – an attitude which takes pleasure in the child’s development of skill, without feeling shame at his mistakes on the basis of duty.