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Moreover 4 children under 5 years (3 from Ilford and 1 from the
Forest Division) were seen and examined. These would have been
suitable for admission to a special nursery school had such been available.
The need for such a nursery school is thus again emphasised
if full use is to be made of the Unit, all authorities being agreed that
the earlier training and treatment can be started, the better.
The work of filming the children continued throughout the year
and, with the cine projector, is proving most useful to therapists and
medical staff alike."
Child Guidance Clinic.
Dr. H. M. S. Davidson, Consultant Psychiatrist at the Ilford Child
Guidance Clinic, reported as follows:—
"The work of the Clinic has continued with little change during
1958 but we have met with an increasing interest in our work and a
wish to know more about it.
Though we are called a Child Guidance Clinic we are essentially
a Family Clinic, our patients are members of a family where personalities
react on each other and where problems are closely interrelated.
Children are sent to us through many sources:— School Teacher,
Medical Officer, General Practitioner, Hospitals and Clinics, Children's
Officer, Probation Officer, or the parents or guardians of the child themselves.
They come because someone is worried, either the child who is
anxious and fearful, or the parent or teacher who is faced with behaviour
they do not like but are unable to modify.
The gradual transition from the stage of early childhood where
impulses and emotions are strong and egotistic and self control is weak,
to that of the adult, socially responsible, good citizen is a difficult one.
It requires a secure background with loving parents who can supply
the child's needs for emotional as well as physical satisfaction and
control him while his own self control is yet weak, and give him those
standards and ideals through personal example which the child will
eventually make his own.
Since parents and children vary in their needs and capacities in
carrying out this task, the sources of maladjustment are legion. Minor
difficulties abound, as all parents know. Most of them are temporary.
It is in overcoming them that parents and children gain in mutual understanding
and capacity to deal with difficulties in life. But sometimes
they do not clear up and may get worse; then the whole machinery of
family relationships is in danger of being thrown out of gear and the
child's whole development may be endangered.
The child reacts to this situation of stress in one of two ways:
(1) He reacts actively, e.g. with persistent temper tantrums, aggressive
and destructive, or other forms of antisocial behaviour; with a
persistence of babyhood habits, thumb sucking, wetting, soiling,
etc.; with nervous symptoms such as tics, nail-biting or other compulsive
habits; with psychosomatic disturbances such as asthma
attacks, etc.,
or
(2) He reacts passively. He is timid and fearful of everything; he
reverts to babyishness and immaturity, feels he can do nothing right
so refuses to attempt anything; fails to learn at school though he is
of normal intelligence: fails to adjust socially and cannot make
friends.