A Child's Point of View, 1930: Ursula Wise talks about the child's dignity and her right to this, as well as encouraging a sense of humour and a little self deprecation!

 June 4^th, 1930 in The Nursery World

 

A Child’s Point of View 

 

“Puzzled” writes: “I have read with great interest your answers to others in difficulty, and would be so grateful to have your opinion of mine. My little charge, aged four and a quarter, is a highly strung, nervous child. I find fault as little as possible, but when she has to be corrected, she has a most puzzling way of behaving. For instance, if I tell her in a very serious voice I am very displeased she will come to me a few minutes afterwards and say, ‘It is not nice of you to speak to me like that. Now I am very displeased and I am looking very cross!’ On one occasion she called me to look at something. I replied I would soon come but was very busy just then, consequently afterwards I found a very offended little mortal. I tried to make her understand that to get cross when I was unable to come was not right or reasonable. 

            A few days afterwards when I called her, she kept me waiting; when I said that she ought to come when Nannie called, she replied with great firmness that she had been very busy showing something to her dog, and if she did not come I ought not to be displeased over it. She evidently feels that if I express displeasure, she is entitled to do likewise, and also that if I can offer a reason for not going when called, she can do the same. If she happens to fall, she will generally hit the floor hard with obvious bad temper which seems mingled with hurt feelings. She is generally responsive to reason and persuasion where she loves. Will you please tell me how best to manage her with regard to these little difficulties?” 

 

            This is a very interesting problem, and one not easy for a busy grown-up, who has to get on with practical necessities to deal with. But it is by no means an uncommon reaction in children of high intelligence and a certain sensitive temperament. In finding out how best to deal with it, I think one has first of all to recognise that there is a certain amount of reason and justice in the child’s point of view. It isn’t just perversity, it is in part a real attempt to understand the moral values and intentions of adults. The child is reflecting upon what you have said to her, and trying to get the inside point of view about what you think unreasonable, or what you disapprove of. But, also, she is defending her dignity. It is painful to her to be subject to the judgement of other people, and by saying the same things to you she is trying to get her balance again and to get away from the painfulness of being small and dependent. To be so very sensitive does not make for social ease, and one cannot but feel sorry for children who find it so painful to be corrected. She may grow out of it to some extent, of course, particularly when she mixes with other children at school.

            I think there are three ways of helping her. One cannot, of course, altogether avoid having to show that one doesn’t approve of certain kinds of behaviour. Nor would it in the end help her if you avoided her correction when it was really needed. But one should admit to the full whatever justice there is in her point of view. As far as is really practicable, one should be as polite and considerate to the child as one expects the child to be to others. one should not cut across her play, for instance, unless tis really cannot be avoided. It is no good expecting such a child to be a model of automatic and unreasoning obedience, because she is simply not capable of being that, and to try to make her so would only cause deep resentment. It would help her very much, for instance, to explain how much depends upon your being able to get on with your work, and to talk this out without her reproach. 

            Another help you can give her is the utmost good humour! Such a child often suffers from a lack of the sense of humour. She takes herself too seriously, and if one can get her to laugh a little at her own tremendous wish to be as important and as morally powerful as the grown-ups, it does help her development. I don’t mean you must laugh at her. One would need to go very gently indeed. But I have found that when children feel the need to assume this great self-importance, one can ease things a little by a friendly good-humoured smile or laughter, in one’s voice, or the sort that is with the child not at her. 

            And the third form of help is undoubtedly plenty of the society of other children of her age. Active play with other children would probably help to lessen her special sensitivity a little, and to give her more confidence in herself, and therefore greater ease and a better sense of proportion. 

An important presence: parental violence arises only once throughout Ursula Wise's column. Here she stresses the huge importance of the nanny's rôle.

 "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 unshakably loving. If by any further development the parents were to part temporarily again, she should certainly comfort and cheer the child by saying that Mummy had gone away for a time but would probably be coming home before long. It is a very great responsibility for a Nanny, but the fact that she is herself so aware of this responsibility is an indication that she has some intuitive understanding of what it means to the child, and therefore of the best way of helping her. Occasional playtimes with other little children would be another great help which she could give her charge. Another important thing would be to be sure that the child’s active interests were satisfied in talk and play and seeing things in the word outside the home, and learning to use her limbs and fingers in all the ways suitable for her age. These indirect aids are just as important as the direct support of steady affection and sympathy, because they can help the child to realise that there are lovely and satisfying things and people outside the home, and that the world does not go to ruin even though one’s parents are unhappy or separated. 

 

Deceitfulness in a seven year old, 1938. Susan Isaacs replies to a teacher interpreting a child's behaviour, including linking it to her parents' financial worries, second teething and the inherent guilt in a child.

July 1938 in Home and School “Readers’ Questions”

Deceitfulness in a seven year old 

 "D.H.N." writes:- 

            I should be very grateful if you would advise me regarding the treatment of a little girl aged seven years, who has begun to steal, tell untruths and act deceitfully. This has apparently all happened within the last six months.

            The thefts have been little things taken from children’s pockets, e.g., marbles, handkerchiefs, a chain, a purse, halfpennies, sweets, apples. The money was invariably spent on sweets before the child went home. The other things were found hidden in her drawer in the bedroom. The child admitted to the thefts, after careful questioning, at one moment and denied them the next, and even when found with the things in her possession claimed them as her own. At no time did she appear conscious of wrong doing. She has been in the school since she was four years old and her teachers and I always regarded her as one of our brightest and most reliable scholars, calling upon her for leadership and special duties in the school. She is intelligent and possesses a very vivid imagination, e.g. she often plays alone at home, representing a number of characters in her play with perfect imitation. She will live over again activities and special functions which take place in school, using her dolls to express what she wants. She plays quite normally with other children of her own age and is invariably the leader. At school she is interested in her work and happy with her teacher. The child comes from a good working class home. There are three children in the family of which she is the eldest by four years. All the children are nervously inclined and highly strung, and the child in question has from babyhood suffered from nervous habits such a nail biting, finger picking, pulling of clothing and bedclothes to pieces. These characteristics have now almost disappeared. Recently she became very hysterical about the loss of a tooth and gathered a crowd in the park where she was playing. The parents are friendly and sympathetic with the children, giving them equal attention, and allowing reasonable toys and simple possessions. Recently the father’s income has been precarious owing to irregular employment, but the children have never gone short of their requirements. The mother tells me her little girl has only on one occasion taken anything from the home, when she took and hid a cigarette when her father sent her to bring it to him. She has, however, recently begun to rummage in drawers other than her own for no apparent reason. There has just been a development which seems more serious and the act of a more mature mind. The child went into a coffee shop and ordered biscuits in the name of a neighbour saying that the lady would call and pay later. During my thirty years’ experience with little children, I have never come across a case which has puzzled me so much. 

            The parents are naturally very worried, and having tried simple childish punishments, which have only seemed to arouse defiance, they spoke of resorting to corporal punishment. I have asked them not to do this, but to wait until we could have expert advice before doing anything further. They are willing to sacrifice anything for the child’s good, even sending her to a suitable home for treatment if such were available.

 

            In all the circumstances, you describe, there are two of the child’s experiences which seem to me likely to account for this change in her behaviour. On the one hand, she is losing her teeth, and you describe how strong her feelings were about this, and how hysterical she became.  

            You may perhaps have read what I wrote recently to explain the anxiety and trouble which second teething often brings to many sensitive children, who secretly feel that they are falling to pieces altogether, and don’t know where the process will end. 

            It is not at all uncommon for children to begin to steal just at this time. It is as if they felt ‘I must get back what I have lost.’ Of course these feelings have nothing to do with reason but are none the less strong because they are entirely rational. 

            In this little girl’s case, however, there is a special further circumstance, viz: the family trouble about the father’s irregular unemployment and the uncertainty of income. You say that the children have never gone short of their requirements; but an intelligent child of this age sees and hears everything that goes on around her. She will have heard lots of conversations between father and mother, and will see their anxious faces, and know what trouble they have in their hearts, and since her actual knowledge and experiences are very limited, since she has no way of helping her parents over this trouble, she can only deal with the situation by imagination. 

            I have no doubt from what you say that the child is in a very great state of anxiety about the family circumstances, and suffers secret fear of starvation, of loss and even of death. And not only is she feeling anxiety but also guilt. Long before this age, children feel even intense guilt about their parents’ troubles, and you describe how this little girl even from babyhood suffered from various nervous habits. 

            Such nervous nail biting, finger picking etc., always indicates deep-seated guilt as well as anxiety. Children who bite their nails do so partly because nails may scratch and hurt other people. And since this child’s parents are friendly and sympathetic, giving their children all the good things they can, as well as love and attention, it would be very surprising if a highly intelligent imaginative child of this age did not think about things from the parents’ point of view, feel sorry for them, feel grief and remorse for her own naughtinesses towards her parents in the past, and about her need to take so much from them. Most of these feelings will be quite unconscious, but intensely real all the same. 

            The little drama which you describe, of the child’s going into a shop and ordering biscuits in the name of the neighbour, so strange and so puzzling from the point of view of the adult, can be understood when we know more about the child’s feelings. I would say that she was acting out the fulfilment of a wish. She wanted to believe that her own mother could buy biscuits for her and pay for them later, even if not now. She created this little drama in her mind and acted it out in order to ease the feelings of guilt and distress about the fact that other could not buy the biscuits for her. And this would be not only because she wanted the biscuits, but because she wanted to feel that mother could pay for them, because she wanted to deny the mother’s grief and loss.

            It would not help the child or correct the development of her character to punish her physically. In fact no punishment would relive this trouble. If I were you I would talk over the whole situation with the child, and that you understand that she is really very troubled indeed about father’s work. She is really afraid that there will be no food at all, either for her or her father and mother and the other children; and she is so sorry for her mother and father, so troubled that she has even been naughty towards them, that she does not know how to bear these feelings. She steals the toys, money, food, etc., in order to prove to herself in imagination that there are good things in the world for her; and she orders things in the shop in someone else’s name in order to persuade herself that there is still a good mother in the world who will be able to buy her food and all that she needs. 

            You can be sure, too, that another thing the child is afraid of is that father and mother no longer love her. In their feelings, children often interpret genuine difficulties in the parents’ lives as a sign of a lessened love towards the children themselves. Again, of course, this is completely unreasonable, but that does not make it any less true in the child’s feelings. 

            It would help her if her father and mother, therefore, could talk over their difficulties very frankly to the child, less often in front of her, but more often directly to her, and in a way that will show the child that there is no loss of love in their hearts, and that their difficulties and anxieties about external things have not made any difference in their feelings towards her. 

            If, however, there is no improvement in the near future , I would strongly suggest your persuading the parents to take the child to the Manchester Child Guidance Clinic (Atherton Street Schools, Little John Street, Deansgate, Manchester), where they would certainly be able to get help for the troubles which underlie this behaviour. 

 

 

 

Displaced, 1930: Ursula Wise's understanding and compassionate words of advice for a mother and her little girl struggling with the arrival of a new baby

  July 2, 1930 in The Nursery World 

 

Displaced 

 

The letter this week deals with the emotional crisis faced by first children with the arrival of a new baby

 

“Petal” writes: “I should much appreciate your advice about my little daughter, now aged twenty-two months. I have just returned home after three weeks absence in a nursing home where my baby son was born. Since my return Audrey seems to whine and cry - real sobs and tears- if things are not quite to her liking, and if I bring her into the drawing room to see visitors we have quite an outburst. She has always been very shy, and would not go to strangers even when quite a baby, but I thought she was getting a little better. She is very conservative, and does not like any new experiences, new toys or new faces, and she took some days before she would come near the new baby, but she is now very interested in him and not the least bit jealous. I had not been with her a great deal for some months, so she has not felt my absence.

            “Ordinarily she is a cheerful, happy little person, and sits in her pen quite contentedly chatting to her toys, so she has not been spoilt or been the centre of attention. In fact I wonder whether I have kept her too quiet. We live in a very quiet country village, and do not have many visitors, but the grannies and the aunts I think ought not to pander to her idiosyncrasies, but I cannot make her if she does not want to. She is quite all right with people she knows, and not so bad with young people, but elderly people - usually large and dressed in dark garments - seem to inspire her with dread. I may say that my husband and I are very reserved people and do not shine in company, while I also was a very shy little girl, so do you think the trouble is hereditary? It used to not to be so bad when Audrey just sat speechless on my lap, as she usually brightened up sooner or later, but now she clutches me tightly and sobs, and I usually have to send her out of the room.  

            “I shall be most grateful for your advice, as it seems such a problem. She is perfectly healthy and most independent in other ways.”

 

            I don’t think there can be any doubt that the new baby is the immediate cause of the whining. Even though the child does not show jealousy in any open way, her querulousness is but a sign of the great effort she is making to deal with the situation. However careful and tender mother is, the little newcomer is bound to cause jealous fears in the older child, and the fact that your little girl would not come near the baby for some time suggests how strong this was. It will take her a little time to accept that the baby brother wholeheartedly, but as her direct interest in him develops, and as she finds that your won affection for her is as sure and warm as always, things will become a little easier for her. 

            But just for the present I should certainly not force her to see visitors who distress her. She is sure to be rather more sensitive all round just now, and to fear every sort of change even more than she normally does. You want her to grow out of such excessive shyness, of course, but she is more likely to do so if she is not forced to meet people who have no intrinsic appeal to her, or those who seem frightening to her - even if her fear does seem silly and unreasonable to other people themselves. I should choose rather carefully the grown-up friends who I did bring her in to see, and should arrange to send her out for a walk when someone was coming to the house of whom I thought she probably would be frightened. If she can make one or two really good friends among grown-ups, and her circle is gradually increased, she will gradually lose her fears and shyness and become more at ease. If, however, you insist upon her seeing anybody and everybody, including those who frighten her, the outburst of fear and crying must tend to make her worse rather than better, as she is bound to feel ashamed and unhappy about it afterwards. And as the nervous ones among us grown-ups know, it isn’t easy to feel happy and at home when we meet again people with whom we have already been social failures! Failure makes for failure, and nothing succeeds like success! So, I should go slowly, and let her have a few really happy and agreeable friends among the grown-ups. After all, she is no more than a baby herself yet! 

            And if a situation arises in which you can hardly avoid her being brought in to see someone whom you know she does not feel at home with, I should let it be no more than a greeting, and send her back to play again after the briefest possible time. 

 

 

 

Sleeping Alone, 1936: Ursula Wise reminds a parent that it takes patience and time to break habits, for both the child and the parent.

 

 

September 30, 1936 in Nursery World

 

 Sleeping Alone 

“H.R.S.” writes: “During the past three years I have so often found my problems in connection with my small daughter answered by your letter to other readers, all of which I find most interesting, that I have no need to write to you myself. But now I would be very grateful for your advice on several points. J. was three years old last month, and is a happy, healthy child, very intelligent and advanced for her age. So far, she has always slept in a cot in my room, and during the past year I have often taken her into my bed in the night, which I know is a bad thing to do, but it was started on a holiday to comfort her in strange surroundings, and has been very difficult to break. However, she is getting over that now gradually, and always says when she goes to bed that she will stay in her own bed all night, and tries to do so. But sometimes she wakes up in the night and says she wants to love Mummy, and if I do not take her into my bed at once, she gets worked up to a terrible pitch and nothing will comfort or quieten her until I take her. Then she is very loving and hugs and kisses me and says such sweet things and is so happy to be with me and goes to sleep at once. Now what I would like to know is, do you think it would be wise to put her into a room by herself, or would it be wiser to wait til she is a bit older, as she was not brought up to it from a baby? We talk about her having her own room and she likes the idea.  But often in the night I have to hold her hand when she wakes, she seems to need the assurance of my being near her. Would it be too much of a break for a child of her temperament to be suddenly alone? Can one expect a child of three to mostly do as it is told? When we are out for walks, J. often runs on ahead of me. If I call her to come back, she takes no notice and runs away as hard as she can go. I am terrified that she might get into the road and be knocked down before I can reach her, as the road is full of bends and she gets out of my sight. She knows she is disobeying me, but does it with a wicked look in her eye from sheer devilment, and although I try to reason and explain to her why she must not do it, she says she is sorry afterwards; she is always ready to run away at the next opportunity. She is very independent and adventurous and has no fears.

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.