Individual psychology and the child / Leonhard Seif [and others].

Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Individual psychology and the child / Leonhard Seif [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    during the period of infancy? How is an infant to be encouraged? A practical introduction to this pro- blem in general terms is to be found in the chapter of Adler’s Menschenkenninis, in which he discusses the sig- nificance of community feeling in the development of character. Life should not be made bitter for the child, he should be protected from a too crude experi- ence of the darker side of life, but should learn as much as possible of its brighter side. The correct physical nurture of the infant being assumed, the most common source of future trouble in the training of the infant is beyond all doubt the ease with which spoiling can occur during babyhood. With the exception of the sad cases of unwanted, hated, and outstandingly unprepossessing children, the tendency to spoil is present in the case of every infant. This danger of establishing the life-style of the spoilt child is to be avoided at all costs. The baby will gain an impression of an absolutely dependable person from its mother, if the latter conscientiously, but objectively, provides all necessary care for him. Any fussing of the baby over and beyond this objec- tive care, including the playing and talking with him usually found so delightful, not only interferes with his quiet sleep and development, which are already assailed to an unsuspected degree by impressions of the external world, but lays the foundation in the baby’s slowly developing mind of an increasingly exacting need and constant demand for the regular repetition of this fussing, and it is but a few steps from this point to the establishment of the life-style of the spoilt child. This of course, does not mean that the baby is to be denied all tenderness. On the contrary let him have all the tenderness that is involved in the practice of maternal (parental) function; the baby must get the impression that the world 1s well-disposed towards him; otherwise he would in the very first months of life learn to know the darker side of life,