OCR Text |
Show Parents, Frequently Unconsciously, Shape the Personality of the Child By DR. LESLIE B. HOHMAN, Johns Hopkins Hospital. Parents should know that the building up of emotional patterns in children is not in the hands of whimsical fate The emotional adventures adven-tures of young children, which become so firmly established into life patterns, pat-terns, are built up by methods that may' be easily understood. A baby is born with the simplest of emotional equipment. It shows signs of anger if it is held so it cannot move, and it shows fear if its ears are assailed by a loud noise or if it feels its support slipping from it. Fear of anything can be aroused in a child by associating it with s loud noise. If a baby's blocks are given to him just as he hears a hig dog barking outside he will be frightened. Not knowing the cause of th sound, he may become afraid of building blocks. Fear of cats, furry objects ob-jects and even of goldfish may be established firmly in a young child by just such associations. The child who developed a terror of goldfish by watching them while a thunder storm was in progress was retrained to like these pets. The child's meals were given to him, with the goldfish at a cautions distance in the name room. Gradually he became accustomed to seeing them, and they did not thunder at him. and in time his fear vanished. We are apt ro reg:ird a child as naturally willful, or sullen, or daydreaming. day-dreaming. But if the emotional patterns are inherited, they can be shaped or changed almost at will, and we will have to become used to the idea. |