OUR CHILDREN
Patri, Angelo
Our Children By Angelo Patri EVERY HQME, every nursery school, every school and college, needs someone who knows how to listen. There is no scarcity of talkers, but the good listeners are...
...Children feel a great need for the relief of telling a. sympathetic listener how they feel, and what they feel, what they want to do, what they have done...
...The child's mind is choked by his unexpressed feeling and desire, and talking them out brings relief, release, and opens the way for healthy thinking and action...
...This need is real...
...Must Be Held Inviolate Once he knows that he has a friend to whom he can confess his mistake fully and freely, without incurring blame and punishment, he will go to him and free himself of his load and in doing so, set the basis for better mental and physical health...
...Frees Child Of Fear A child who dreads something or somebody is tormented by the dark thought...
...His listener has taken over his burden and he is free of it...
...They have outgrown the fears and interests, the wonderments and the dreams of their childhood, and they have scant patience with the children who are wrapped in the visions of their age...
...If he holds the thought of guilt in his mind, day after day, it has a bad effect on his whole being...
...Of one thing, however, the child must be certain: His listener will keep his confidence...
...Time and experience will answer them, and growth, too, will enable them to master most of what troubles them now, but the very act of telling their stories gives them relief and hope...
...What he tells must be held inviolate, otherwise the condition is worse than before...
...There is no scarcity of talkers, but the good listeners are few...
...A child's confidence must never be betrayed...
...There are no answers for many of the children's difficulties...
...Once he feels free to tell his fear to his friend, he is freed of it at least for the time and when that idea takes hold in his mind, he uses it as a release from future fear...
...The same thing is true for a child who has done what his conscience tells him is wrong...
...Most grown people are in a hurry although the reason for the haste is not always so clear as its insistence...
...It poisons his mind so that his work suffers, his conduct falls below standard, his health suffers...
...It shadows his play, robs him of spirit, of appetite, of all that goes toward making him a happy, creative, thriving child...
...They do not appreciate the need or the value of listening...
Vol. 7 • October 1943 • No. 42
