ONE ANSWER TO THE BOY QUESTION by Florence Livingstone Joy

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 24, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 34.

ONE ANSWER TO THE BOY QUESTION.

By Florence Livingstone Joy

[Florence Livingstone Joy in The Interior.]

THE trouble with many of us who are seeking an answer to the question, "How shall I make my boy feel that his home is the best place on earth?" is that in our anxiety to help the boy we fail to give attention to our own personal attitude toward him. Many of us think the matter scarcely worth consideration. "If a mother love her son—and most mothers do,"—a woman was heard to say not long ago, "her relations with him will be the right ones, without self-probing and cross-questioning and analysis. Instinct will teach her how to manage her child." Are there any of us, I wonder, who can not point out, among boy or men acquaintances, pathetic victims of the "instinct" method of leading a boy in the way that he should not have gone?

Not for a moment do I underrate the great influence of love in the rearing of a child. There should be a tender, unselfish, all-enfolding love, a love for which home is the only synonym, felt by the boy through some such medium as father or mother or sister. But something beyond this is needed for those who would have their boys keep in the domain where abide love and purity and safety.

There seem to be no better names for these necessary qualities than understanding and sympathy, and the second is born of the first. "Get understanding" is as valuable a proverb for men and women as for the youth to whom it was first written. He who "understands" must have the boy-mind and the boy-heart. A select few seem born with the gift of understanding, and those unfortunates who stand without the pale may acquire it only by working and praying, by praying and working, and by working and praying some more. Then will sympathy of the right sort come; the sympathy that enables the grown-up, along with his broader vision and maturer judgment, to put himself in the boy's place, to see the sights the boy's eyes see, and to hear the voices the boy's ears hear. But even the sympathetic person needs tact and wisdom, for a boy is a wary creature and shies at any but the most delicate approach.

If a boy is to grow up with a strong attachment for his home, his material environments, also, require one's care. The home must be made attractive, no matter how plain it may be, and a good place on which to lavish attention is the boy's own room. Let it, in its every appointment, be clean and neat and airy. To his own wishes and tastes should be left the decoration of walls, with a word of praise wherever arrangement of pictures or trophies permits. Let his room be a precinct sacred to its owner's use, a hospitable "den" where he and his boy friends may spend many happy hours under proper conditions.

That part of the house set aside for general use should be attractive to the boy of the family. A large outlay in money is not a necessary means of

securing this result; without that the home may be invested with an air of restfulness, and its very atmosphere invite one to thoughts of cozy evenings and delightful rainy days. Books and games may be provided at small expense, tho in the matter of both these sources of pleasure there should not be too strong an urging. A child can not profitably be driven to reading, but often a good book tactfully suggested, or placed where one may come across it unexpectedly, helps much toward formation of the reading habit.

Among the boyhood memories most cherished by some men I know is that of a "treat" which their mother used to give them and their boy friends after a vigorous siege of wood-sawing or lawn-mowing.

The encouragements of some such hobby as stamp collecting will often solve the problem of finding something for idle hands to do. Keen and sympathetic interest on the part of the people of the home will increase the young collector's zeal, and prove a bond that will hold to the home life.

Parents too often make the mistake of regarding lightly the various schemes that enter the heads of their boys. There lived in my neighborhood, not many years ago, two boys, both of good families. During a certain summer vacation one of them was seized with an ardent desire to build a boat. The father, instead of laughing him out of the idea, devised a way by which the boy might himself earn materials for the proposed boat, and in other ways encouraged him in carrying out his project. The other boy, after spending a few days watching his friend at work, expressed to his own father a wish to try his hand at the same thing. The man turned away with a laughing, "Why, you could never make a boat." To-day the first young man is helping to pay his own way through college, and is the pride of his parents; the second spends his nights in pool halls, and his days in sleeping and cigaret-smoking. The incident is valuable in that it shows how, and how not, to deal with a boy.

One should remember that a boy's straying begins when he is but seven or eight years old, when he first migrates on summer evenings to the nearest street corner, where "the boys" from other homes have gathered. Now is the time to make him feel that the best place of rendezvous is his own yard, even tho the lawn become thinner for the many sturdy feet that have trampled upon it.

Second only to the good fortune of the boy with a dog is that of the boy with a barn. Place a workbench in this and let the lad have access to the tools—with the understanding, of course, that he take proper care of these. Let him and his companions engage in such other fascinating play as shall well fill what might otherwise be idle hours.

Last of all, avoid doing what a boy hates more than he hates poison; that is, nagging. If you have any commands to issue, do it in a way that shall not cause him to lose respect for you, and for himself, too. Whining will not accomplish much, and it has done untold harm. Let your boy feel that home is what it should be—a place where peace reigns and love abounds. Then will he cherish above all things else the spot which you have created for him; then will your dreams of keeping him within its sweet security come true.