Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1917 — CHILD IS INJURED BY NAGGING [ARTICLE]

CHILD IS INJURED BY NAGGING

This is the conclusion reached by a physical trainer after years spent in trying to restore abnormal bodies to normal condition. A child that is nagged at never holds itself well, he declares. Its deportment betrays its mental attitude, and to the trained eye of the physical-trainlug instructor the round shoulders and apologetic air tell their own story in the case of a child whose physique otherwise reveals no sign of constitutional weakness. The attitude of the body discloses. In a marvelous way, that of the mind; and many parents would be astonished to learn that the bearing of their children reflects their home influences in a very unflattering light. While lunching with a lady the other day, he says, I listened to a tale of distress about her little boy’s flat chest. Presently, the child came in from school, running excitedly to show his new “Jography” book with colored pictures. “Oh, yes, d(>ar, but don’t* start with it now; go and wash your hands, and get tidy.” The child’s enThusiaStic little face fell, his fiat little chest seemed flatter still, and he resignedly put away his book and left the room. There will be little chance for that child’s chest until his mother learns to express her affection more positively in the form of active and ready sympathy, not merely negatively, in the form of anxiety. The glow of enthusi-

asm which was swelling the child’s heart, literally as well as metaphorically, was quenched by the chilly reception. The expanded chest, which accompanied the movement of enthusiasm, collapsed at once like a pricked bubble. Give your children encouragement rather than criticism, sympathy rather than reproof, and, while they are in the awkward age, do not add to their self:cojisciousness by drawing attention to their faults.—The Continent.