Too good (undated): Ursula Wise gives her advice to a parent concerned about her four year old son's fear of 'doing wrong'.

 Undated - found in Susan Isaacs archive of unpublished letters 

Too good

 

“Anxious" writes: 

“I would like to ask you about a boy of four and a half, who is not at all difficult – in fact, I sometimes think he is too good! The thing I am worried about just now is that he won’t look at or have anything to do with his small gramophone, which is his favourite plaything, since he accidentally broke a record some weeks ago. He knocked it off the table in passing, and was very upset. and since then he won’t touch it and says he ‘hates it’. Would you try to persuade him to use it again? I can’t understand why he feels like that about it, for no-one scolded him.” 

 

No, it would be better to leave him alone about it, at any rate for a time. The child’s fear and guilt about the gramophone he has damaged is neurotic – that is to say, it is not based on real fear, such as a threatening animal or a grown-up who does scold and punish. It belongs to much deeper things within the child’s own mind, to impulses and desires of his own infancy of which he felt ashamed and afraid; and the breaking of the gramophone has stirred those fears and guilt again. Such a degree of shame and fear about a simple accident would naturally go along with being “too good”. 

            I don’t think persuasion and reasoning will help, just because the real happening is only a symbol for the deeper fears. But time may help. Later on he will probably feel less acutely about it and take the toy out again. I should, however, watch the general development of such a child very carefully, and if there was much of this sort of behaviour, consult a psychological expert. 

Sensitive or Nervy, 1931– Ursula Wise thinks that this seven year old is likely to benefit form going to boarding school aged 7 years.

 

 

February 18, 1931 in Nursery World

 

Sensitive or “Nervy”

 

 “Mother of three" writes: “Can you suggest a treatment for stormy crying of a boy of seven and a half, who has always been a ‘cry-baby’? I do so want him to give it up to some extent before sending him away to school in September: and yet sometimes I wonder if the cure would be quicker if we sent him next May. I have an experienced governess to teach him, and I think he is very well grounded, and in advance of his age in a good many subjects.  He has always been emotional and obstinate. Others have found the same besides my governess and myself. If a sum gives him any trouble, or he happens to be in the mood, he either cries and bellows with rage, or lays down his pencil and states that he does not want to do it, and then cries. The crying is intense, not just a few tears and done with, but roaring sobs, and he upsets himself to such an extent that his brain is too muddled for work afterwards. I must add that it is not a new kind of sum which causes this trouble, but more often than not it is a familiar type, and possibly one that he has done quickly and correctly before. He is never scolded if a simple mistake is made, as his governess realises that everyone makes mistakes; nevertheless, the pointing out of a slip by her is enough to start the same flood of tears and consequent upset; in fact, he cannot bear to be wrong, and yet will not try hard enough to be right. Other subjects do not cause so much trouble, except dictation, and sometimes geography, neither of which are favourites. 

“Lessons are not the only cause for this obstinate temper; he sometimes refuses to give any reply to a simple question which his elder or younger brother puts to him. This also ends in a very few minutes of bellowing rage, not from any action on the brother’s part, except possibly signs of exasperation, but, I suppose just a helpless feeling of being unable to keep silence. He is also a ‘poor sport’, and cannot take even a mild bit of teasing in good part, and yet teases his younger brother himself unmercifully in a sly fashion, waiting until he thinks the governess is out of earshot. We do not punish more often than we can help, but bad behaviour at dinner, after two or three warnings, means no sweets afterwards. His younger brother, aged four and a half, will take this occasional deprivation like the ‘little sport’ he is, watching the others eating their sweets, without sulking, or protesting, or asking the reason for the veto - he knows quite well, and accepts it. Alas! the seven-year old will bellow first with pure rage, plead for a pardon for a long time, and feel and show that he is resentful of a rule which is inflexible.