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It is our tragic experience to find it is the environment, rather than
the child, that requires adjustment,
and it is very difficult to
know what to do.
I am mindful of the story
of the psychologist who was
examining a child because the
child had smacked the mother's
face, and when the psychologist
tried to submit to the mother that possibly this was, to a certain
extent, due to her attitude towards the child, the mother smacked the
psychologist's face.
It is only recently that I, myself, without being smacked in the face,
was certainly met with disapproval, and I thought I was doing what was
best to be done in such a circumstance.
In certain circumstances we do refer these children to Child Guidance
Clinics, but it is our hope that the people at the Child Guidance Clinics
will give advice to the parents and, quite frankly, if they give advice to
the parents and that advice is followed, there may not be the need to give
much advice to the children themselves.
In this way and in that, too, we have tried to get the child away from
the home environment for a little time. It is our experience this does,
oftentimes, lead to some improvement, but I am afraid it tends to be
temporary.
Personally I believe it is only when we are prepared to accept a
simpler way of living, which does not make so many demands on the
mother of the family and which gives the father a fuller share than he has
to-day in the bringing up of the family, that we shall find our answer to
this problem, which I believe to be one of particular moment in the
present age.
CHILD GUIDANCE CLINICS
Number treated at Child
Guidance Clinics during
1950 7
Question:—What can I do with William Smith? The boys
here call him the "Fat Boy of Peckham," and quite frankly we
are beginning to find he is a bit of a nuisance.
Answer:— Quite frankly, with regard to treatment I am not very
hopeful. It is true that in a number of these cases fat men later turn to
flesh; in fact very possibly super strong men have been boys of this
type but we cannot rely on this. The trouble is that the boy does not get
a square deal from us all. Very many of these children are definitely
artistic; when seeing flowers, they see more than we see and it is not
uncommon for them to daub with paints in order to try to make a
picture of a pansy or a butterfly; also so very many of this type of child
show an appreciation of high-class music such as is quite uncommon
at their age.
What is more, these boys are somnolent and so far as I know their
somnolence is not merely because they are too heavy but because inherendy
they are somnolent, and it is no good thinking ill of them because they
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