Imaginative Fears, 1931: Ursula Wise is sympathetic towards this parent, but clear that the child's fears must not rule the roost.

Imaginative Fears

A mother writes this week about her little girl of three years old who cries bitterly and clings to her whenever she has to leave her with her nurse or go out for an hour or two.

"April' writes: “May I once again ask for your help? Veronica is an only child, aged three and a quarter, and we live in the tropics where it is necessary to remain indoors between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Veronica has little friends of her own age and seems as care-free and happy as any of them, but when I have to go out there is always a scene. Veronica has an English nurse of whom she is very fond, and I cannot understand the tears. For example, nurse and I often go out together with Veronica after tea. It is very hot to push the pram alone and at this altitude, and Veronica cannot manage to walk without a pram. If I know I am going out to see friends at 7 p.m. (it is the custom here to visit at that hour) I say to nurse and to Veronica, ‘I am going to Mrs. So-and-So this evening.’ At the time it produces no comment, but on our return home Veronica will not leave me while I change, and at the moment of my departure there is always trouble. Veronica, with tears streaming down her face and clinging hard to me, beseeches me not to leave her. I have to go, and I leave her, weeping bitterly in nurse’s charge. She tries to keep herself awake until my return, which is often not till 9 o’clock. If I go to her then and assure her I am not going out again, she will fall asleep quite happily. This does not only happen at night. I sometimes have to meet the train which comes in at mid-day. It is far too hot for Veronica to go out, and unless I can slip out without her knowing there is always a tearful scene. She makes huge efforts at self-control, and often says good-bye in a ‘choky’ voice and gives us a wan smile. Nurse tells me, however, that tears return after I have gone until she gets interested in some toy or book. I find this very distressing, but I try not to show it. The only thing that will comfort her is my handkerchief, which she takes from me when I go and keeps it tightly clutched in her hand until I return.

When fears are real, 1932: Ursula Wise discusses how to handle nervousness that arises from a real experience.

When Fears are Real

Fear based on actual experience needs different handling from the purely imaginative anxieties of childhood

My letter this week describes a situation in which acute nervousness arises in a child from an actual experience. It is probable that many of the phobias and anxieties of little children do arise in actual experiences, but very often these experiences are so slight that the grown-ups do not notice them at the time or think them important. In this case, however, a frightening experience was very definite and apparent to everybody.

“R. S.” writes: “I should be glad of your advice in regard to my little girl of just four years old. She is a bonny little girl, but suffers from occasional attacks of sickness, which I am treating as for acidosis. My problem is this: she is very nervous of other small children. She had rather an unfortunate experience with a little boy friend, who, when we were staying with him, used to bite her and take every opportunity of bullying her. This was when she was one year and nine month, and then she had a similar experience at three years of age. Since then she has been very nervous of other children, especially boys. She seemed to grow out of it with careful management. I have had little ones in to play with her when possible, and in time she got to like that and was very sweet and friendly with them, but at any sign of roughness or screaming, etc., would get terrified and cry bitterly. Then I thought I would let her start Sunday-school, in the hope that this would help her to mix with others.

            She did not much want to go, but as she had a very kind teacher who loves and understands children I thought it would do her no harm. She seemed to like it, and came home bright and eager to tell me all about it. But last Sunday, to my disappointment, when she arrived with her sister (a girl of thirteen) they found that her teacher had left, and Betty begged and cried bitterly to go home. Her sister could do nothing with her, and at last had to bring her home. I am puzzled to know what to do. I suffered dreadfully from nervousness as a child, and this so played on my health that I was from school a whole year with what the doctor called a ‘tired heart.’ I also had dreadful night terrors and walked in my sleep. In fact, nervousness has been a great drawback to me all my life, and I am so very anxious that Betty should not have the same handicap. Some of my friends seem to think that I should be firmer and force her more, but this only seems to make her worse and drive her into a panic. Do you think it would be advisable for me to start her at a small private school next spring, as she will have to attend the Council school eventually, and I am afraid that the roughness will be too much for her, going straight from home? Unfortunately, I am not able at present to have any little friends in, but I take her into company as much as possible. Do you think it wise to postpone going to Sunday-school for the present, or would you still insist on her going? She has only the one sister of thirteen years, who attends the Grammar school and is far too busy with homework and games to have much time for Betty. I hope my letter is not too long. It seems a small trouble to bother you with, but I am really rather worried about it, and long to see her an independent little person able to look after herself. Betty is also nervous of going out alone, and will not go a dozen yards from the house herself.  

            When a child has had a real and severe experience of this kind it is obviously more difficult to comfort her against fears than when they are purely imaginary. One can no longer say to the child, “There is nothing to be frightened of,” because she knows by experience that there is something to be frightened of, or, at any rate, that there may be. She has no guarantee that other little boys will not bully and bite, and if one simply says, “There is nothing to be afraid of,” the child feels that we are untrustworthy. Obviously, such a situation needs rather different handling from a case of a child who imagines it all.

            Time will be an important factor. So young a child cannot be expected to get over such an experience all at once, and as she has had it twice she had had a good deal of confirmation of her fears. Obviously her fears go beyond her experience, but then one can readily understand that being bitten and bullied at twenty-one months of age would seem overwhelmingly terrifying. There is no doubt that you would be well advised to shelter her from any possible repetition of such experience. I should certainly not force her to go to places where she is likely to be frightened, whether with or without justification. It would be a great mistake to treat her fears as mere naughtiness and force her. I am sure you are right in feeling that this will only drive her into real panic. I would not go on the simple line of saying, “There is nothing to be frightened of, because she knows that one is not always right. I would say, rather, that, “There are lots of boys and lots of girls in the world who do not bully or frighten little children. It just happened that you met one or two who did, but most of them are not like that.” I should try to arrange for as much social life as possible, but under really good supervision, so that she does feel she has a reliable friend to safeguard her. As regards the Sunday-school, I would not force her to go unless she finds a new teacher with who she feels secure. If you could it would be wise to arrange for her to meet the new teacher first - if she could come to tea, for example - so that she made friends with her. You could surely explain the situation to the new teacher, and she would then feel that if she won the child’s friendship everything would be alright. Otherwise, if this could not be arranged, I would not force her to go. 

            With regard to the idea of beginning her at a small private school, if you were satisfied that the school was the right sort of place I think it would be a good plan. If there is only a small number of children and the person on charge is really capable and reliable, then I think it would be a help to the child. It would make a bridge for her to ordinary school conditions. The large numbers at the Council school might themselves be rather frightening to her apart from the roughness. It will be in the play interval that there might be risk of the children being rough for her. But, again, you could speak a word to the mistress in charge about the child’s early experiences, so that she would keep a special eye upon what happens to her. If you can grade her experience in this way, giving her as much social life as possible, but making sure that she is not again put into a frightening situation, she may become as independent as other children. But one obviously has to be patient with a child who has had unfortunate real experiences. 

The Effects of Change, 1936: a parent wants some wisdom on how long it is safe for a mother to be separated from her baby.

January 15, 1936 in The Nursery World 

The Effects of Change 

“V.L.C.” writes: “I should be so grateful of your advice in my particular case. I have a little boy of fourteen months old whom I have looked after entirely myself, with the help of a little maid of fifteen who is very good with him. I left him last week for the first time with his grandmother (whom he adores) to look after him. He was quite happy and good during the day but gave her terrible nights, often being awake from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. He is sleeping quite all right again now I am home. But I wish to go abroad for a month in February. I can leave baby with perfect confidence with mother and my little maid, but mother refuses to have the responsibility of him without a proper nannie. I would like this also except that I am afraid that to put him in the charge of a stranger will upset him very much. I would so much like your advice. Would it be better to have a trained nannie for a month, or to leave to the rather uncertain mercies of my little maid, who is very fond of him and of whom he is very fond? I cannot quite make out from your various letters and answers how much a change like this is likely to upset a child. It is only for a day or two, or is it likely to have a far-reaching effect?”

I confess that I should not myself want to leave a little boy of fourteen months, who has shown himself so disturbed by parting from you at night, for a month. One cannot say how much emotional disturbance will be involved. It is certainly more likely to have a far-reaching effect than to be a purely temporary thing, lasting a day or two. But it is perfectly true that some children would not suffer any permanent ill effect, whereas others would. I cannot tell you which would be so in the case of your little boy, and you alone can decide whether the reasons for going abroad for a month are good enough to justify putting this particular strain on a child of his age. A year later it would be a different matter, but at fourteen months to part with one’s mother for a whole month is a very big experience, which I myself and a good many other people wold not feel justified in imposing on a child, without very good reasons. If you do, I think you certainly ought to have not only a trained nurse for the child, but a very good one, one who would be really patient and understanding about him and would know how to win his love. And she would have to give him the comfort in the night that he needs, not to treat him sternly and strictly. I certainly would not want to put on a little girl of fifteen the enormous responsibility of managing the child satisfactorily without you. It is one thing for her to look after him when you are there, and another for her to have to deal with every emergency when you are not there to take the responsibly.

Keeping children safe: undated. Ursula Wise advises about teaching a healthy level of what is real danger without making the child more fearful.

Undated and untitled - found  typed in Susan Isaacs's archive. 

"R.P." writes: “Miss Wise has been so helpful in solving other people’s problems that I should be so grateful for her advice about some commonplace difficulties in the life of an otherwise happy little girl of two and a half. Contrasting with her love of dogs, cows and horses, M. has an evident fear of owls and pigs. This is perhaps natural, as she can hear the owls at night as they hunt for their supper (I have seen them fly close to the nursery window), and they certainly make strange noises, of which I have known some grown-ups be afraid. There are also some very large pigs on the farms around here, and it is quite an adventure for a two-year-old to meet one of these unexpectedly. Every evening she reassures herself by asking, ‘Owls, piggies won’t hurt me?’ and ‘Owls, piggies won’t hurt dear daddy?’ etc. There it ends; but I don’t think she is sure even yet that they are harmless. Her love of dogs is another problem; mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound are all treated as lifelong friends and patted accordingly. she sometimes says, ‘Not stroke strange doggies,’ but the memory of a two-year-old is short. The other day she wanted to ‘go in a field, stroke big horses, then them purr’. I’m afraid my courage was not equal to this. 

“How can on teach a child to have a healthy fear of real danger? Traffic is another difficulty. There is not so much in the country, but it tends to go even faster, and is just as real a danger as in town. M. is very good except when suddenly interested in something across the road, when she still forgets and dashes off without warning. Is there any way of teaching implicit obedience about traffic dangers without curbing a toddler’s freedom? M. is beginning to obey commands fairly well now, except when specially absorbed in something. Thanks to various suggestions in ‘The Nursery World’, we are never at a loss for occupations, and seldom have any trouble with ‘mischief’ or ‘naughtiness’ in the short time we are indoors.”

It is very understandable that your little girl should be rather afraid of the owls and pigs, and the only thing that can help her out of this is her constant sense that you are not afraid of them and her growing familiarity with them. As regards the dogs, one certainly has to train a child gently not to approach too readily a quite strange dog, but nevertheless one wants to do this in a way that will not cause an unreasonable fear of dogs in general. The best way is not to speak sharply or frighteningly in warning, or say that dogs are rather dangerous, but to tell the child quietly that some dogs are rather cross and don’t always like little children to touch them. As you say, the memory of a two-year-old is very short, and you can’t expect the child to be able to check her friendly impulses very easily. The only solution here is careful supervision. The idea of the big horses purring when they were stroked is a delightful phantasy. 

To teach appreciation of real danger to little children is not very easy, as they have so little effective knowledge to go upon. With regard to the traffic, the only solution again is careful watching by the grown-up. There is no way of teaching implicit obedience about traffic danger, except by frightening or punishing a child in a way that would be seriously harmful. The grown-ups have to take responsibility and safeguard the child while she is slowly learning to control her own impulse. One should, of course, take every opportunity of pointing out the risks of dashing across the road, and the need for care, but one cannot hope that quite little children will learn this lesson sufficiently to be entrusted with their own safety. 

No date or title: Ursula Wise shares her thoughts about parental separation and domestic violence.

Undated and untitled - found  typed in Susan Isaacs's archive. 

"Unlucky Nanny" writes: “I have been helped with lots of nursery problems by your advice to others, but have never seen this question asked: How can one best help a little child who often sees her parents quarrel, and even strike each other? Nine months ago I had a breakdown, and was advised not to go back to the post I was in, because the domestic upheavals were worrying me. I had charge of a little girl who I loved very dearly, and still do. Her parents were very unhappy together, and as she was two years old, she was beginning to get very worried and upset. She is living with her mother now, but when I last visited them was always asking for her Daddy. Now my present little charge has had the experience of her mother leaving her, but she is back again now, and they seem quite unhappy. How can I help the little girl if there is trouble again? She is two.”    

            This is surely the most difficult problem which a child’s nurse can have to face. She cannot alter the primary situation and cannot, in fact, do a great deal to help the child face the central emotional difficulties aroused by quarrels and division between the parents. But she can do something, and that something is quite real. If she herself is stable and loving and wise in handling the child, she can help the child to go on believing that there are stable and secure people in the world, even though the most important people in it are so frightening and unhelpful. it is not surprising that “Unlucky Nanny” herself had a breakdown, if she saw the parents of her little charge in actual physical violence, as well as quarrels. In the present case the situation does not seem so acute, and Nanny may have more opportunity of being real use to the little child. One very important service which a nurse can render to a child in such an unhappy situation is by avoiding a tendency to exploit it for her own satisfaction. it would be very natural and easy to slip into an attitude that implied, “See how bad your parents are, and see what a nice and loving person I am.” To some extent the child is bound to feel like this, since indeed it will have some objective truth, but it would be very bad for the child if the nurse was to exploit this for the sake of getting extra admiration and affection from the child. This can be so easily done in subtle ways without ever being put into words. But it would not help the child so much as a large and tolerant sympathy, that would avoid condemnation of the parents whilst yet being a stable and secure refuge for the child. I am sure this sounds as if I were asking the nurse in such a home to be a marvel of wisdom and self-control, and I appreciate how hard it must be. And yet it is true that this is a very important aspect of the problem; and if ‘Unlucky Nanny” wants to help her little charge, she should be alive to the risk of (only too naturally and unwisely slipping into the way of attaching the child too much to herself and turning her against the unhappy parents. Nevertheless, of course, she must give steady affection and real sympathy and understanding. She must show the child that she understands the latter’s fears and anxieties about the division between the parents. She can do this by a large, tolerant sympathy and a perfectly steady attitude of affection on her own part. She should avoid any mere indulgence of the child. Her handling should be firm and quiet whilst yet unshakeably loving.

Instant Obedience, 1931: Ursula Wise questions the desire for instant obedience and shares her thoughts on the giving of praise .

September 11th, 1935 in The Nursery World

Instant obedience

Instant obedience is only given by a child to a parent on the basis of trust and confidence built up by experience

“Well-meaning” writes: “Having frequently admired the wisdom of your published replies to readers I venture to ask your opinion on the question whether it is desirable, and if so by what methods, to aim at being able to secure ‘instant obedience’ before a child is old enough to understand the principle underlying its necessity. My little girl, not quite two, is as obedient as a strong-willed child who is keenly interested in what she is doing at the moment can be expected to be, but she is quite capable of assuming complete deafness, or reiterating a determined, ‘No’, or just running away if told to come here, or to put something down. Relatives tell me that she is too young to be expected to obey, and advocate the – to my mind - lazy and useless method of distracting her attention. My own view is that while obtaining her obedience by distracting her attention is a useful resource when she is tired, or when there are special reasons for avoiding a scene, it does not teach her anything, and that suitable opportunities should be frequently taken for training her to obey as a conscious act. Surely life is too dangerous for a child who will not obey a sudden order without first having some distraction provided. She might be electrocuted in the interval. I should be most interested to hear your views as to whether one should wait until a child is old enough for argument before attempting to teach it obedience. If you agree that the process can be begun as soon as the child unmistakably understands what is said to it (my child talks fluently and has a good memory), what steps do you recommend for securing obedience, in addition to the obvious one of limiting the frequency of one’s ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’? Is a mild slap on the hand that persists in touching the forbidden object a very mistaken method? Sometimes I can see no other way of preventing the child from thinking; ‘Mother goes on sayin,g “Don’t touch,” but nothing seems to happen if I do.” Is it a psychological fact that at barely two a child may forget a repeated command within a few seconds? My little girl’s persistence in picking flowers in the garden (though I always give her some for herself whenever she shows the slightest sign of wanting them) suggests that it must be so. Sometimes I wonder if it is just that the fascination is so great that she simply cannot desist, though she knows must not pick. If that is so, how can I deal with it? Picking flowers for her and allowing her to pick for herself in certain places do not meet the case. It is not that I attach such importance to the devastation of my garden, but that I feel the problem is probably typical of others that we shall have to face. In case it is relevant, I had better mention that the child has the very hopeful characteristic of being more obedient if I leave her for a moment or two rather than if I am present. She will remain glued to a chair if I tell her not to get down til I come back, though, of course, I never strain this virtue too far. Another small point: I have always been lavish with praise when it has been earned, and now K. is beginning to pat herself on the back in a way that is amusing, but might become intolerable in time. ‘Kitty’s a kind girl to bring that flower to show Mother.’ ‘Good girl not to drop that parcel.’ ‘Brave Kitty not to cry.’ Such phrases as these are sometimes reiterated in tones of indescribable smugness, but provided it passes off, don’t you think it is preferable to the sullen defensiveness of the child who imagines that people only comment on its behaviour in order to condemn? If you think I have been overdoing encouragement, I should like to be told. I shall await your views on the subject of obedience with great interest.”

Instant obedience is only given by a child to a parent on the basis of trust and confidence, built up by experience. One can, of course, enforce it by fear. That is to say, one can stir up so much fear in many children that they will obey as long as the feared grown-up is present, although this has very little bearing upon what they will do when there is no risk of being found out. That, however, is not the situation which you desire. The instant obedience which is based upon love and trust cannot be secured by our merely willing it to happen, nor is it possible for many children to give during the first two or three years. It can be given by a child of four or five, who has learnt that his parents will not demand it without good reason. Two years of age is very rarely a period when a child can obey. Occasionally a child has such a naturally docile temperament that she will obey at any age, but this is not very usual, and not necessarily the most desirable attitude of mind. Any child who is going to be independent and forceful and resourceful in later life is certain to show a phase of obstinacy and contrariness in the second and third years, and your little girl is behaving quite typically when she resists your demands if you interfere with her pursuits of the moment. We cannot hope to train tiny children to the virtues of later childhood, and we shall only waste our time and exasperate ourselves and them if we try to do so. It needs real supervision by the adult and appropriate planning of the environment to keep the child of two years, or even three or four, safe. And it is quite useless to imagine that one can ensure this safety by mechanical obedience from the child. But surely you are exaggerating the dangers? In ordinary circumstances, how is a child of two to get electrocuted?

Learning to tell the truth and what to say about death, 1931: Ursual Wise advises on dealing with continuous lies , as well as the subject of children's questions about death.

February 25^th, 1931 in The Nursery World

Learning to tell the truth

David, aged four, is very imaginative. If he has done anything naughty he tells a story of a little boy or girl who came in through the window and did these things

“D. R. H.” writes: “I read your pages in ‘The Nursery World’ with the greatest interest, and I wonder whether you would some time discuss two questions I am up against with my small charge just now. I am an infant-trained nurse, and David has just outgrown my knowledge and experience, and I am having to feel my way into tackling new problems. He is four years old, and I am staying on to look after a delicate little sister. David is a jolly, very sensible little boy, but has always been very highly strung, and is suddenly frightened of unexpected things, such as blind man’s buff at a party, or the noise of air in hot water pipes. He is at the very imaginative age now, and has just started ‘telling lies’ – chiefly entirely imaginative ones. If you ask him if ‘so-and-so’ was at a party, he will say, ‘Yes,’ and tell you a whole long story of their doings, and perhaps afterwards you find that she was not there at all. Also, if he has done anything naughty (such as removing all the buttons from pyjamas, etc.), he will come and tell me of a little girl or boy who came in through the window and did these things.

“A little while ago, if I listened and smiled, and then said at the end, ‘Now tell me what really happened; think a minute and then tell me,’ he would say, ‘David did it.’ But now he sticks to his story through thick and thin. So I never ask him if he did a thing or not. Once I found an empty bottle of sweets and asked him if he had eaten them all. He said, ‘No, I haven’t eaten one.’ So I said, “What have you done with them?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. I suggested, ‘Have you given them away?’ ‘Yes,” he said, ‘I gave some to mummy ,’ etc., going through everyone in the house . I left it at that, finding out that no one had been given a sweet. Later I found the sweets, which had not been eaten, stored away in a corner. So it seems to me he has no idea of ‘facts’ at all one moment. And therefore, that the only thing to do is to ‘keep off the grass’ and hope the phase will pass, as I have watched many other difficult phases pass, by being ignored. But also I am wondering how best to give him an idea of being trustworthy – something towards which he can grow as he passes through the phase. And also I would like to know whether I am right in just leaving the subject open for a bit.

“The other question I would like to ask is how to describe death to a child of four years? David always asks me what a graveyard is when we pass, and is dreadfully upset if anything gets run over and killed. He is obviously worrying about it all, and I want to give as happy as possible a reason. So far I have told him that when people get ill or very old and tired Jesus takes them away with Him and makes them better, and when we haven’t them here any longer with us, we sometimes make little gardens for them by the church, and out flowers and their names to remember them by. But this I feel is inadequate. I have never seen either of these subjects discussed in your pages, and I don’t think I can have missed them, as I always find it the most absorbing part of ‘The Nursery World.’ I shall be so glad if you can give me ideas. Following your advice to others, we came very successfully through the advent of the little baby sister, who is a pet of all the household, but most of all David’s pet. They are the most devoted little brother and sister. She is as placid as he is highly strung, and will be a great help to him, I think.”

Yes, I certainly think that the best way to deal with these imaginative lies is to leave them entirely alone. They are quite common at this age, and are pretty certain to die away if no notice is taken of them. And you are quite right in feeling that it is best to avoid the sort of questioning that leads to the lying, as the child is so much on the defensive against either real things or imaginary naughtiness, that he cannot be properly clear about what the truth is, nor dare to tell it. The best help you can give him towards learning to tell the truth is his actual experience of your own truthfulness and trustworthiness. But in addition there is no reason why you should not make some cheerful suggestion to the effect that it is best for little children always to say it is true, because then people can know best how to help them. And there is no reason why you should not enter into his stories about things, showing by your manner that you can enter into his imagination while yet being aware that is it only imagination. A tone of voice, a twinkle of the eye, an occasional use of the words “not really,’ without any preaching or pedantry are the best support to the little child’s feeble sense of reality.

The actual details you give about the behaviour of your little charge make it very clear that the whole content of his imaginative lies at the moment, as well as the dread of death, are bound up with his hidden anxiety about the birth of the little baby sister, which he had dealt with so successfully in his actual relation with her.