Gaining and Keeping the Confidence of the Children
By EDITH M. GRAHAM
HAVING been closely associated with children during most of my life, and fortunate enough to gain their confidence, some points in this connection have been impressed upon my mind. Children are usually reserved and secretive concerning their inmost feelings and ideas. You may think you know them when really you do not know anything but the surface of them. If you wish to gain the confidence of a child, never, under any circumstances, ridicule him when he makes a confidant of you. If you do, you will never get another look into his innermost mind. Children rarely forget being ridiculed. They may never mention it, but they remember the humiliation and hurt, and do their best not to give the offender another opportunity. You must treat their questions with respect, and answer them truthfully, or ask them to wait until you have more time, or say you do not know. When a child has learned that you will not make fun of him, and that you will do your best to explain away his difficulties, he will be likely to come to you when you are alone, and give you an insight into his thoughts and aspirations that will surprise you. This will give you an invaluable opportunity to direct and help him. Children should never be talked about when they are present. This makes them self-conscious, and either shy and nervous or conceited, according to their temperament. Even when they appear too busy to hear what is being said, this point should be carefully guarded. One never knows how much a seemingly inattentive child may be hearing and storing up in his mind, and he is almost certain to catch anything said about himself. If he should overhear you repeat one of his odd little confidences, he will not give you a second opportunity. If you desire to have him come to you freely with his notions, his ideas, and his perplexities, you must keep them sacred between you. Children should never be teased; for teasing is the using of superior strength or knowledge to inflict pain or anxiety upon the child. It is an exhibition of cruelty, and in some children arouses too, bitter feelings of revenge, which they dare not show, but which are an injury to them. Others do not take it so much to heart, but no child should be subjected to it. Children have no real confidence in those who tease them. The trusting confidence of a child is a very precious thing. One so happy as to gain it should prize it, and use it to lead the child into the way of salvation.