CHILD CARE

Bad - or fearful - children?

HOW AND WHY do anxiety
and fear show themselves in
young children’s behaviour, in
Such widely different ways as
bedwetting, bullying younger
ones, violent tempers, nail biting,
as well as a host of others?

We must be able to answer
these questions if we are to help
any given children to overcome
their difficulties.

It will help greatly to recollect,
the kind of situations, in early
life which have led to the de-
velopment of anxiety and fear,
for they will give a clue as to
how they transform themselves
into the behaviour that is being
shown, :

We have already. seen that
young children cannot tolerate
too much failure in life; the
younger they are the less they
can stand it.

Now failure can take two spe-
cific forms; it can be lack of
achievement of some physical act
such as putting one thing into
another, filling a pot, carrying a
jug, or it can be the inability
to keep the love and goodwill
of the adults.

Of these two the latter is by far

the more serious. For the adults
are, in the eyes of small children,
more important and powerful
than “things”, and have un-
limited power over them,
“The child’s dependence on
adults for his survival is too
great’ for him not to feel fear,
if and when he should rouse the
anger of a grown-up. .

Children are’ human animals,
with stages of mental develop-
ment as clearly defined as those
of physical growth.

If these stages are not allowed
for by adults, who make demands
contrary to natural needs and
activities; or if the grown-ups
hamper that development by
constant change of behavior on
their part toward it, then the
resultant anxiety leads to a
Change of behavior on the part
of the child.

enw He *

ROUGHLY» SPEAKING,
is what appears to happen.

The child’s immediate response
to failure is angry protest, which
then turns to distress and fear.

If the cause of failure is some-
thing in the physical world, and
there is a sympathetic adult near
at hand that child will be helped
Over his failure.

But if it is an unsympathetic
adult the child has no outlet, no
relief for his feelings.

It is too intolerable for the
child to associate his unhappiness
with his mother or father, so he
transfers it, quite unconsciously,
to other things and other people.

For it is easier, from the
emotional point of view, to hate
material objects which have no
power over one, on which one is
not dependent, or on other child-
ren who are in the same position
as oneself. :

‘The children who bully younger
ones or who are very destructive
and aggressive, are always those
who, in one way or another, have
met with too much disapproval
‘in the course of their past ex-
perience, or whose parents have

this

aan wr,

DR. W. J. CURRY
49 W. HASTINGS
‘NVITES ALL HIS FRIENDS
TO DROP IN AND SEE HIM

“AA a

Castle Jewelers

Watchmaker, Jewellers
Next to Castle Hotel

152 Granville MA. 8711
* A. Smith, Mer. ;

shown no consistent and constant
attitude ‘toward them,
Consequently the only possible
treatment which’ may alter the
child’s behavior is a change of

Learning young

Here young pupils of the
Moscow School of the Ballet are
seen taking lessons in classical
dancing. This -famous school has
just celebrated its 175th anni-
versary. .

MRS. HENNI BELL

_ ing “wrong” or “bad.”

attitude on the part of parents.

While actual acts of aggression
and wilful destruction must nat-
urally be stopped, this can be
done in a kind and helpful way
or in a harmful and unkind
manner.

Distressing and irritating as the
child’s behavior may be, and
however “bad’’ he may be, it is
essential that he should not feel
“hated” and disapproved of. He
must never be allowed to feel an
outcast.

* oor *

THIS IS-ONLY the negative
aspect of the situation.

The positive side is that parents
should give special attention to
the child that is showing difficult
behavior on every occasion when
his conduct is praise-worthy.

He or she r@quires extra loving,
extra attention and interest in
his activities and constructions,
when they are not harmful to
others.

These children also require a
“legitimate” outlet for their feel-
ing of rage and anger caused by
their failures.

They need to be able to hit,
destroy and hurt without its be-
So they
should be encouraged to use
hammers, and nails on -old boxes,
dig holes in the ground, cut up
old newspapers, get very dirty
in the garden. :

They will also, of their own
accord, play imaginative games
which involve a great deal of
“punishing—killing, fighting.”

They will, in imagination, do
the most dreadful things to their
dolls,

All ths is good, because it helps
the child to re-establish himself
as a loving member of the ¢om-
munity, having been able to ex-
press his bad feelings in a harm-
less way.

Labor’s grand old lady |

A MOTHERLY, WHITE-HAIRED woman who might

well be called the grand old 1
labor movement celebrated her 70th
feeling that this was an event calling for more

And, rightly

ady of the British Columbia
birthday on May 18.

than an ordinary celebration, 100 guests marked the occasion

‘by attending her birthday party

in the Fnnish Hall.

Hundreds of people in Vancou-
ver and around Webster's Cor-
neis in the Fraser Valley where
she lived for many years know
Mrs. Henni Bell as a good neigh-
bor and a hard worker in com-
munity affairs. Now, after 495
years devoted to the labor move-
ment, she is still an active mem-
ber of the - Niilo Makela IPP
Club, giving her time to every
cause she can help.

“you can't retire in the labor

“movement,” she says in her slow
way, still groping for words in ~

English. “Not if there’s work you
can do. I know there will always
be something for me to do.”

Back in 1903 Mrs. Bell joined
the Socialist Party of Canada.
That was three years after she
left her native Finland for the
Uniteg ‘States and a few months
aitey she came to Canada

A pioncer mefhber of the so-
cialist movement here, Mrs. Bell

‘ was a icundation member of the

Communist Party of Canada

when it was formed in 1920-21,
-and of the Labor-Progressive Par-

ty on its formation in 1943. She
is also a foundation member of
the Finnish Organization of Can-
ada. .

Since leaving Websters Corners
four years ago, she has made her
home in Vancouver with her
daughter, Ina, and her son-in-
law, Malcolm Macleod, president
of the Shipyard General Workers
Federation. Their daughter. Shon-

ét, is one of two grandchildren. .

One son, Leo, lives at Barclay

Bay, and another son, Peter, at
Dewdney.

Woman mayor

and

Backed by AFL, CIO}
Rail Brotherhood unions in
Portland, Ore., Dorothy McCul-
lough Lee has been elected that
city's first woman mayor over
six other candidates. A member

of the city council, Mrs. Lee
fought agaimst fare increases.

Family picket line

ae
al

As the United Auto Workers (CIO) strike against the Chrysler
Corporation continued, pickets’ wives with babes-in-arms joined
the picket line outside the Dodge plant in Hamtrack, Mich.

ALL OF US, I FEEL, will be giving some thought just
now as to what we can do to help the flood victims, par-
ticularly those of us who live in Vancouver, secure from the
flood waters and yet only a few miles from their destructive

path.
One woman I talked to this

week, a very good friend of ours
who lives on the north side of the
Fraser River, was almost in tears
as she told us her story. Her de-
spair and bitterness, I imagine
reflects of many
among the hundreds who have
been evacuated from the flooded

the feelings

areas—despair over their personal
tragedy in the ruin of their homes
and bitterness over what they
consider the provincial govern-
ment’s failure to take adequate
precautions and prompt emergen-
cy measures that might have
saved their homes.

Pointing toa picture in gne of
the daily papers of a flooded liv-
ing-room, with a chesterfield suite
standing in the water, she ex-
claimed, “That’s what our honfe
was like when I left it. I don’t

know what we'll be able to salv-
age, but it will take us weeks
just to clean and dry everything.”

This was the home she and her ,

husband had struggled to main-
tain all through the hard depres-

. sion years when they were on

relief. I thought of the pretty,
spotlessly clean kitchen now
swirling in river silt and of the
new davenport they only finished
buying, on the instalment plan,
last year, and which she told me,
they had been unable to move in
time. I thought of the big garden
they had planted so as to be able
to cut down their living costs and
perhaps make a little extra money,
and I could appreciate how she
felt.

4
THIS STORY, repeated a thous-

and times, is part of the flood

disaster for which the provincial
government will have to answer.
But the immediate question is
how we, as active members of
women’s auxiliaries, housewives’
and organizations,

can help the flood victims.

community

Out in the Fraser Valley, I
know, members of the IWA Wom-
en’s Auxiliary and the House-
wives Consumer Association were
among the first to volunteer their
services and they have been work-
ing the clock round in canteens
providing food for women and
children and old people evacuated
from flood centers.

Here, in Vancouver, the South
Slope Community Association has
placed its hall at 58th Avenue and
Ross Street at the disposal of the

Red Cross and is providing beds

for people evacuated. Members of
Victoria Road Community Asso-
ciation have joined other groups
in sewing for flood victims, Other
wom-n'’s groups have been pro-
viding sandwiches for volunteers
working on the dykes.

The Pacific Tribune’s appeal for
donations to the flood relief fund
is ane, I am sure, that will find a
ready and generots response

throughout the labor movement,
for there’s not one of us who does
not realize that the majority of
flood victims are working people
like ourselves who have seen their
efforts of a lifetime wiped out by
the disaster.—B.G.

FINE CUSTOM TAILORING
‘For Ladies and Gentlemen

720 W. Hastings, UPSTAIRS

PA. 8059

° PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 4, 1948—PAGE 9