OUR CHILDREN
Patri, Angelo
Our Children By Angelo Patri PARENTS and teachers are occasionally surprised by a child's act. Placed in a new situation he meets it with perfect calm and efficiency as though he enjoyed it. For...
...We do not allow room for the play of his instincts and we should...
...TWach him to do something he wants, to change something he does not like...
...The child must act and his teacher must act to bring fruit out of the experience...
...Angelo Patri tells yon how it may be done in his leaflet P-10, "Changing Habits...
...This is true of children who are in school to be educated...
...A bad habit pattern in a child should be broken before it becomes too set...
...Let it out as gently as possible—but let it out...
...Using force to get his way with another child, cheating to win—are instinctive in some children and the best way to meet the situation is to let the child show it in action, then offer the better way—also in action...
...Taking what is not his own simply because he wants it is a child's way of selfishness...
...It is unwise to pen up anger and blanket it with silence...
...He strikes out and with a bit of coaching, swims...
...To obtain a copy send 5 cents (coin preferred) to him, P. O. Box 75, Station O, New York, N. T...
...Talk is idle...
...Teach him to do something about his feelings and then guide him toward the better way...
...Guide a child's instincts and so develop his hidden powers of mind and soul...
...These should be brought to light and destroyed by offering the experiences that offset them and bring pride and joy to the child that kills his desire for the expression of the unfit trait...
...Offer A Better Way It is true that children have traces of powers that should be discouraged...
...It is futile to feel sympathy and pity and affection and pen them up...
...In every one of us are traces of power that we know nothing about lying unused in, our inner being...
...We keep too close to the letter of the curriculum and lose the gifts the child has stored within him...
...Do something about it," is the thing to say to the child who feels a drive to do something new, to get something he wants, to change something he does not like...
...It would pay us and greatly bene-S fit the children, if we kept probing for such abilities by offering varied experiences in many fields...
...For example a child who has never seen the ocean hails it with delight and wades right into it with no sign of fear...
...Instinctively he took to the water," we say...
...Do Something About It' Action is important in the cultivation or the elimination of instincts...
...For example: All children are selfish and this selfishness displays itself in many ways, some of them harmful in the extreme...
...Let them be expressed that they may bear fruit...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 50
