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.

She is just at that age when the impulse is often at its strongest, and when there is the least imaginative realisation of what she is doing to the dog. What I found was the best way to educate children in humane behaviour to animals was to encourage their interest in animals as independent creatures with their own lives and their own histories. This is, of course, easier with children a little older, but I think it could be done even with one so young as your little girl. I should, of course, forbid her to hurt the dog, and, as in so far as you possibly can, refuse to let her do it by shutting the dog away, by holding her hands firmly, or by depriving her for the time being of the wooden horse or the doll’s pram which she bumps into him. I should say to her, “If you use these things to hurt the dog, I won’t let you have them”; but I should not go beyond this, not should I treat her as she treats the dog. I have tried out this last method myself, and have definitely come to the conclusion that it does not help. So much for the negative methods. Now for the positive. I should tell her or read to her plenty of animal stories – e.g., the Beatrix Potter tales, which are suitable for her age, and any simple stories of animal mothers and children that you can get hold of. And I should let her have more pets to keep. This should be fairly easy as you live in the country. A rabbit makes quite a delightful pet for a child of this age, as the soft fur is so pleasing to touch and the child can help to feed the animals. Is there a farm anywhere near where the child can be taken to gain an interest in the sheep and cows and horses? Would it be possible for her to keep a hen and chickens, and be told about the eggs and the way the chickens grow and come out of the eggs? This, at any rate, is the sort of education which is most likely to win her from her cruelty by building up a lively sense of the personality of animals and the natural history of their lives. But with all of this you will, of course, have to give the child time to grow out of her love of power in hurting and not be too distressed if she does not respond all at once. 

The other problem is also a difficult one. At twenty months to receive a mouthful of ice cream all unexpectedly must have been a very frightening experience, and I don’t think one can be at all surprised that your baby was so disturbed and hat the effect lasted so long. I don’t think that I can suggest any ready way of getting over this difficulty. It is bound to take her some time to forget a horrid experience and to be able to trust again to the grown-ups not to give her a similar shock. I think that in this case I should be more inclined to try occasional persuasion than I would with a child who had not had an actual unpleasant experience, and when I tried to get her to taste new food I would put the smallest possible fragment into a spoon. I would also tell her that you understand about her having been frightened by that nasty cold thing, and that you would not give her any more like that. I would taste the new dish in front of her myself, and even let her touch it with the finger, so that she could be assured that it was not likely to give her the same shock. But it may take some considerable time before she regains her confidence and venturesomeness.