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Show Teach Child i To Recognize Own Property By MYBTLE METER ELDRED When we offer the baby a stiff sheet of paper -to rattle and crush in his small hands, w realise by his delight that to play with paper is a universal "amusement te small babies. Later, when this sam child tears a page from a current magaslne or reduces the evening paper to shreds we feel he should be punished pun-ished severely for such destruction. Yet to the child , this destruction Is sll of a piece with his paper rattling. rat-tling. He has not learned that he has chosen for his amusing play the wrong kind of paper materials. Divide Toys From the very first the baby's playthings and the objects In the home should be divided. There are papers which are his by rights and others which belong to the family. Just as be may look at mother's picture pic-ture on the table, but put it back very, very carefully, so be may look at the magazine, but scribble or cut only those papers which have been laid aside for hlf own ns It Is a necessity of oru social existence that very early the child must acquire the distinction between be-tween what Is his and what belongs to others. He ca nacquire It as easily from a division of bis playthings play-things as he csn by any other means. Books and magazines are bound to be at hand and unless their use is proscribed from the beginning begin-ning the child 1 a constant menace to them. Destruction Na Vie Destruction should not be looked upon as a vice and the act of a mean child, but merely as a mistake. mis-take. Our mistake Is in falling to make It plain to the child what belongs be-longs to him and what belongs to us. He only uses destruction as a deliberate de-liberate weapon to hurt us when i what we have done to him arouses such a mesn spirit thst he can ex-i ex-i press it only by destroying what i is precious to us. Such behavior ' merits a mother's deep consideration considera-tion of what she has done to arouse ' such a spirit not a consideration of ' what punishment she can use to retaliate. re-taliate. Our leaflet on "Destructive Tendencies" Ten-dencies" may be had for a self-addressed self-addressed and S-cent stamped envelope en-velope sent to Myrtle Meyer Eldred, care of the your baby and mine department of The Salt Lake Telegram. |