Some one has said, that a mother is quite right when she declares enthusiastically of her little one, “There never was such a child as this, in the world, before!” for in fact there never before was such a child. Each child starts in life as if he were the only child in the world, and the first one; and he is less like other people then than ever he will be again. He is conformed to no regulation pattern at the outset. He has, to begin with, no stock of ideas which have been passed on and approved by others. He neither knows nor cares what other people think. He is a law unto himself in all matters of thought and taste and feeling. He is, so far, himself; and, just so far, he is different from everybody else.
Left to himself, if that were a possibility, every child would continue to be himself; but no child is left to himself: he is under training and in training continually. And so it is that the training of a child is quite as likely to change him from his best self to a poorer self, as it is to develop and perfect that which is best in his distinctive self. Child-training is, in many a case, the bringing of a child into purely conventional ways, instead of bringing out into freest play, in the child, those qualities and characteristics which mark him as a unique and individual personality among the sons of men. How to learn wherein a child’s real self needs stimulating, and wherein it needs curbing or changing, is a question of questions in child-training.
No quality of a good physician is of more importance than skill in making a diagnosis of a patient’s case. If a master-mind in this realm were to pass with positiveness on the disease of every patient, the treatment of that disease would be comparatively easy. A young graduate from the medical school, or a trained nurse, would then, in most instances,[Pg 31] be capable of knowing and doing that which was needful in the premises. But until the diagnosis is accurate, the best efforts of the ablest physician are liable to be misdirected, and so to be ineffective for good. As it is with the physician and his patient, so it is with the parent and his child. An accurate diagnosis is an essential prerequisite to wise and efficient treatment. The diagnosis secured, the matter of treatment is a comparatively easy matter. A parent’s diagnosis of his child’s case is in the discerning of his child’s faults, as preliminary to a process of training for their cure. Until that is secured, there is no hope of intelligent and well-directed treatment.
Yet it is not the easiest thing in the world to say what are a child’s peculiar faults, and what is, therefore, that child’s peculiar need of training. Many a parent is disturbed by a child’s best traits, while he underestimates or overlooks that child’s chief failings. And many another parent who knows that his child is full of faults cannot say just what they are, or classify them according to their rela[Pg 32]tive prominence and their power for evil. “That boy’s questions will worry my life out. He is always asking questions; and such questions. I can’t stand it!” This is said by many a father or mother whose child is full of promise, largely because he is full of questions.
But if a boy has a bright mind and positive preferences, and is ready to study or to work untiringly in the line of his own tastes, and in no other line, it does not always occur to his parents that just here—in this reluctance to apply himself in the line of wise expediency rather than of personal fancy—there is a failing which, if not trained out of that boy, will stand as a barrier to his truest manhood, and will make him a second-rate man when he might be a first-rate one; a one-sided man instead of a well-proportioned man. Such a boy is quite likely to be looked upon as one who must be permitted to have his own way, since that way is evidently not a bad way, and he shows unusual power in its direction. So that boy may be left untrained in this particular until he is hope[Pg 33]lessly past training, merely because his chief fault is unrecognized by those who could correct it, and who would gladly do so if they saw it in its due proportions.
Careful study and a wise discrimination are needed on a parent’s part to ascertain a child’s peculiar faults. Each parent would do well to ask himself, or herself, the questions, “What are the special faults of my child? Where is he weakest? In what direction is his greatest strength liable to lead him astray, and when is it most likely to fail him? Which of his faults is most prominent? Which of them is of chief importance for immediate correction?” Such questions as these should be considered at a time favorable to deliberate judgment, when there is least temptation to be influenced by personal feeling, either of preference or dissatisfaction. They should be pondered long and well.
The unfriendly criticisms of neighbors, and the kind suggestions of friends, are not to be despised by a parent in making up an estimate of his child’s[Pg 34] failings and faults. Rarely is a parent so discerning, so impartial, and so wise, that he can know his children through and through, and be able to weigh the several traits, and perceive the every imperfection and exaggeration, of their characters, with unerring accuracy and absolute fairness. A judge is supposed to be disqualified for an impartial hearing of a case in which he has a direct personal interest. A physician will not commonly make a diagnosis of his own disorders, lest his fears or hopes should bias his judgment. And a parent is as liable as a judge or a physician to be swayed unduly by interest or affection, in an estimate of a case which is before him for a decision.
Even though, therefore, every parent must decide for himself concerning the interests and the treatment of his own children, he ought to be glad to take into consideration what others think and say of those children, while he is making up his mind as to his duty in the premises. And what is written or said on this subject by competent educators is worthy of attention from every[Pg 35] parent who would train his children understandingly. There is little danger that any parent will give too much study to the question of his child’s specific needs, or have too many helps to a wise conclusion on that point. There is a great deal of danger that the whole subject will be neglected or undervalued by a parent.
If a parent were explicitly to ask the question of a fair and plain-speaking friend, familiar with that parent’s children, and competent to judge them, What do you think is the chief fault—or the most objectionable characteristic—of my son—or daughter? the frank answer to that question would in very many cases be an utter surprise to the parent, the fault or characteristic named not having been suspected by the parent. A child may be so much like the parent just here, that the parent’s blindness to his or her own chief fault or lack may forbid the seeing of the child’s similar deformity. Or, again, that child may be so totally unlike the parent, that the parent will be unable to appreciate, or even to apprehend, that peculiarity[Pg 36] of the child which is apparent to every outside intelligent observer. A child’s reticence from deep feeling has often been counted by an over-demonstrative parent as a sign of want of sensitiveness; and so vice versa.
Parents need help from others, from personal friends whom they can trust to speak with impartiality and kindness, or from the teachers of their children, in the gaining of a proper estimate and understanding of their children’s characteristics and needs. The parent who does not realize this truth, and act on it, will never do as well as might be done for his or her child. God has given the responsibility of the training of that child to the parent; but he has also laid on that parent the duty of learning, by the aid of all proper means, what are that child’s requirements, and how to meet them.