MRS. C. L. STONE by Mrs. C. L. Stone

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jun 3, 1915

MRS. C. L. STONE

By Mrs. C. L. Stone

Training in Habits of Order and Helpfulness — No. 3

MRS. C. L. STONE

In the interesting discussion in the previous article, the question left open was how to release the energy of childhood along lines of desirable activity. The natural habits of children offer us the safest guide in our methods of dealing with them.

Writing of the place of industries in elementary education, Katharine Elizabeth Dopp says: “Later infancy is pre-eminently the period of play. . . . To lay hold of this interest, to direct it so that it will lead to useful ends, . . . is the part of parents and teachers.”

As soon as a little child is able to run about, sometimes even before he can begin to talk, he begins to play at doing the things he sees his elders doing. He is anxious to attempt, anxious to do. When a little older, he will constantly follow mother about, demanding the privilege to “help mother wash dishy, help mother f’eep f’oor, help mother carry wawa.”

When he finds himself unable to accomplish the desired feat, he gladly welcomes a slight assistance from mother. Let her take the trouble just then to show him how to do right the little task he is trying to accomplish. A baby is so much the creature of imitation and habit that he can be taught before he is two years old always to do certain little tasks and to do them right. The sense of having achieved something, with mother’s smile and word of approval, is ample reward to him. His ecstatic exclamation, “Father, I helping mother,” is sweetest music. Little hands are not skillful, and baby fingers usually make more work in the end for mother; but it certainly pays to take the time and trouble to show baby how to do the thing right at the time he is so anxious to do it, else the time will come when, discouraged at mother’s lack of interest and his own clumsy failures, he will cease to desire to help her.

As the little girl grows older, she can have in miniature almost all the utensils and furnishings with which mother carries on her daily round of housekeeping. These need not be expensive, for many of them can be homemade. The little table should have a tablecloth, if only a square of muslin, and dishes with which to be set. With keenest delight the little one invites mother to tea, and here is mother’s opportunity to teach her how to set a table properly.

The dolly’s bed should have its proper furnishings of mattress, pad, sheets, pillows, pillow slips, coverlet, and spread, that the little one may learn from the first, the right method of making a bed. Later as a special privilege she may be allowed to help mother make her larger bed.

Little washtubs and boards may be had; and when the family wash is in progress, nothing more delights the little one than to be allowed some real water in a real little tub in which she may wash her dolly’s clothes. This is the time for mother to teach even the small girl all the different steps of doing this work properly.

Keep in mind that in all the table setting, sweeping, bed making, and washing, the child manifests the same keen interest and delight that is seen in the game of hide and seek. Thus the mother, in taking advantage of the play instinct, is teaching valuable lessons, while to the child it is merely play.

By giving this type of toy to our children, we avoid the use of the mechanical toy which is so severely condemned by present-day psychologists. The mechanical toy calls out no activity from the child. His is a passive enjoyment. He simply winds up the toy and observes, but has no active part in the game. For this reason he soon tires of it, and almost invariably takes it apart to see how it is made. After this he wants something new. Not so with the little wagon, or hoe, or spade. These are useful tools to him. They serve him when he wishes to do something, and he does not tire of them. Given a pile of sand, building blocks, spools, a doll, a tiny flatiron, a little broom, anything which calls for activity on his part, and he will play for hours day after day with the same playthings.

Let us not be afraid to enter into the spirit of play with our children, nor to cultivate in them this play instinct. A little child should not be expected to live the life of an adult nor to do his tasks in an adult fashion. “There is no doubt that the little child gets greater satisfaction, more normal development, in activities that are normal to his state of development than in those for which he is not ready.”