The Child’s Problem

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 15, 1916

The Child’s Problem

“You don’t know what a problem that child is!” said a tired mother to her caller. “I punish her and scold her until I am fairly ashamed of myself. Then her father takes her in hand, only to make matters worse. What can I do?”

So much for the mother’s side. No doubt her child does present a problem that looks hard to solve. All parents know how it is. But what of the greater problem that the father and the mother present to the child?

If we could put the child’s own thoughts into words, we should probably get something like this: “What a world of perplexity and contradiction! How can I ever learn anything helpful from father and mother? Last night they scolded me because I did not eat when I was not hungry; this forenoon they spanked me because I ate when I was hungry. They send me out to play when I am sleepy and put me to bed when I want to go out. Father often tells me to do something that mother forbids. Neither of them sticks to the same thing for two successive days. I have to suffer in turn from their love, their ignorance, and their digestion. What can I do?”

Thus to a child, with its eagerly active mind groping everywhere and grasping at everything in its effort to learn the ways of life, the parents are often a problem that fills his young heart with discouragement and despair,—a problem that leads him to cultivate a “goodness” that is the result of fear, and a “badness” that is the product of example and environment.

If parents would honestly try once in a while to get the point of view of the child, how much more reasonably they would exercise their authority! And how it would simplify their own task to recognize that the child, too, faces a big problem!—Youth’s Companion.