Train Your Boy to be Self-Reliant by Hildegarde Hawthorne

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 17, 1916

Train Your Boy to be Self-Reliant

By Hildegarde Hawthorne

Most children are noticed too much. A wholesome course of being let alone is many times sadly needed. It may flatter you and touch you to have your little ones run to you with every small trouble, every dispute, to have them call for your help in every difficulty; but it isn’t good for them. Teach them that you expect them to find their own solutions for their little problems, and settle their own small differences. When the affair is too big to be handled by young minds and judgments, it is time enough for you to step in with advice or control. Keep the necessity of making them self-reliant before you, and use the many incidents of each day to foster and guide the young spirit in the direction of self-confidence. Help your child to realize that he has his own responsibilities, and that back of any criticism you may give lies your trust.

Most children reach a time when they “show off.” This is a painful period, but natural. They are self-conscious, because they are just discovering themselves. With the normal child the period is transitory; and the less notice taken of it, the better. During this period you must take care that instead of self-reliance the child does not develop assurance.

Almost every child is susceptible to ridicule. If your boy is the bumptious, irrepressible kind, altogether too cocksure of himself, the right sort of making fun of him will be good for him. But don’t sneer at a child. That never did any good to any one, old or young. It isn’t a fair thing to do, and children are quick to recognize and to resent unfairness, if not outwardly, none the less bitterly. Your bumptious child will be made sulky, and a shy, self-conscious child will have his timidity increased a hundred per cent by a sneer.

A child of this type whom I knew was sent up to his aunt’s in the country for a summer’s vacation. I watched her handling of the boy with interest.

He was at first afraid of the dog, a good, gentle beast that wouldn’t hurt any child. His aunt did not scold nor make fun. She played with the dog while the boy looked on, and after a few days she drew him into the play. The boy and the dog were soon inseparable companions; and once when a neighbor remarked, “Why, I thought Ted was afraid of the dog,” his aunt laughed joyously and exclaimed, “You’re not afraid of anything that’s as good fun as Spot, are you, Ted?” And Ted laughed back, and said he wasn’t afraid of anything at all.

As the summer went on, the new idea of bravery as something worth while, something expected, something taken for granted, developed in the youngster. He had been afraid of more than the dog; he had been afraid to trust himself in any direction, to rely on his muscles, on his nerve, on his good sense. He stayed with his aunt ten months, and went back not only improved physically, but full of energy and curiosity, self-reliant, and straightforward.

The main point is not to make your child think he is peculiar, either in faults or virtues, by constant faultfinding or indiscriminate praise, but to teach him reliance by letting him meet as many responsibilities, as many difficulties and risks, as possible without direct assistance or advice from you.—Hildegarde Hawthorne.