Training That Crushes Individuality
Dog trainers tell us that they get their best results by training a dog to do a thing because he wants to do it; that is, they give him a motive for doing it, until he does it spontaneously, without being forced. A noted trainer says: “My dogs work for me more because they want to please me than because they are afraid of a whipping if they don’t obey. If, before a dog comes to me, he has been bullied for every little failure, it is next to impossible to make anything of him.” If an animal trainer can not get the best results by forcing an animal to do a thing against its will, how can a parent or teacher expect to get the best results from a child by the employment of fear or force? A normal boy and girl, if properly trained, will not need to be forced to do things. A young mind longs for activity and expression, but if spontaneity is crushed out of the life by slave-driving methods, ambition may be ruined, and the natural power of self-expression entirely destroyed. Many sensitive children have been ruined by being nagged and bullied for every little fault. Their natures became warped and twisted by being compelled to do things, instead of being so led that they were not only willing, but also anxious to do them. Just as a dog trainer, by proper training, gets the best results from a highly organized, intelligent dog, but finds that the animal is all the more easily spoiled because of his very intelligence and sensitive organization; so finely organized, sensitive children, while capable of the highest degree of development, are on that very account more likely to be ruined by harsh, compulsory methods. Spontaneity is absolutely necessary to originality, and unless a child is allowed to develop along the lines nature has marked out for him, it is impossible for him to be original and to preserve his individuality. Parents should stop and think when a child does not show enthusiasm in his studies or in his work. There is something wrong; for enthusiasm is as natural to child life as song is to a bobolink, or as play is to a young puppy. Encouragement, praise, and sympathy will do more to develop naturalness and self-expression in a boy or girl than any amount of threats, compulsion, or restraint. Some parents try to fit a boy to a certain pattern, and to mold him into such a shape as they desire. They leave no room for the expression of his individuality, but try to conform him to some fixed and old-fashioned idea of their own. The way to develop a child properly is to study him from the standpoint of what he is, not of what you think he ought to be. He may not at all fit into your conception of what a boy should be, but he may be much better and larger in every way. Find out what is in him, and help to draw it out. Encourage him every time he does well, lead him to free, untrammeled development of all that is best in him, and you will find the result will be far more satisfactory than if you had tried to cast him in your particular mold.—Success.