April 6, 1932 in The Nursery World
Growing up
“M. K. W.” writes: I wonder of you could help me with my two children, John, aged seven, and Mary, six years? They are the only children on both sides of the family, and consequently have lots and lots of nice toys, but they always seem to lose interest in them after the first day. They are at school all day now, but when they have had tea and time to play before bedtime they want to rush about in some noisy fashion. As I have to wash and feed baby in our common nursery-sitting-living room in a very small flat, I could get on much better if they would settle down quietly with their toys. As they have a good walk to school and back twice a day, plenty of exercise in school – a council school - and I usually take them shopping or in the park before returning to tea, I would like them to settle down to something quiet after tea, but do not wish to deprive them if they really need the exercise. When they have a holiday or are at home for any reason they get lots of toys out all over the floor, but they do not seem to know how to play with anything, and as I do everything myself have little opportunity to play with them. Drawing is the one thing that holds John’s interest for any time; he really seems unable to concentrate on anything else. Do I expect too much from them yet, and do you think the fault is partly mine as I have been unable to supervise and direct their play? Also, could you suggest any way by which their many relatives could remember birthdays and Christmas other than by adding to their large collection of toys? They are both bright, intelligent children, and are getting on very well at school.”
It is very trying, I am sure, when two such big children insist on rushing about noisily in your small flat, and you must long for them to settle down to some quiet occupation. They are obviously not short of exercise, and I understand that it must seem like sheer perversity to you. And yet one has to remember that in their school hours they will certainly have a good deal of sitting still – probably far more than is really desirable at six or seven years of age. It is astonishing how much vigorous fee movement children of these years can do with and really need. They need it for physical health, and they seem to need it psychologically, too. There are children of a quitter and more sober temperament, of course; but most children of that age do seek an almost unlimited amount of active movement of one sort or another. And if one is at liberty to plan the conditions of their life and education one follows the line of providing for such ample movement and making it fruitful in skill – in dancing and rhythm, in outdoor games and in handicrafts. Then it becomes easy to train the children to order and control. But when one is simply obliged by circumstances that one cannot alter to deny the children this liberty of movement as a means of education, the problem of training then becomes much more difficult. I wonder whether a compromise as regards time would not help in your special case - to offer them, say, half an hour after tea in which you leave them free to be as boisterous as they like in the understanding that after that time they do occupy themselves in some other way? If through this suggestion they got a clear sense that you understood their impulses and appreciated how much they long to run about after sitting still as many hours as children do in school and that you were not labelling them naughty, but were yourself bound by reasons of circumstance and common-sense then I think they might be able to show more consideration and more willingness to fit in with the common needs of the home.
As regards toys, I should suggest to all the kind relatives that they give the children materials for making things, rather than ordinary toys – carpenters’ tools, modelling clay, painting and drawing materials (of a large kind, not niggly little boxes and brushes) – or, of course, god children’s books, such as the classic fairy stories or tales of animals. And I think you might find H. G. Wells’ book on “Floor Games” very useful; the children might well become absorbed in such games. Children of six and seven, by the way, do not yet show much “concentration” of the adult type, and are often very momentary in their interests. But especially will this be true of children who are working hard in school and getting on well; they need the relaxation of flitting about from one thing to another out of school hours. In a few years’ time it will be different. Then, if they take to reading, they may come to the stage when it is only too difficult to get them to take notice of anything in the world but the book they are absorbed in!
No comments:
Post a Comment