CHAPTER XVIIICONCLUSIONS
EVERY boy is endowed “with certain inalienable rights,” not the least of which is the right to be so trained that he will approach the stature of perfect manhood. It is a birthright in the same sense as his right from birth to food, clothing, and shelter. And this right of the child fixes upon the parent the corresponding duty of supplying intelligent training and character-building environment. The basis of all boy-training is parent-training, which I wish to emphasize even at the risk of continued reiteration. And parent-training should be based on a knowledge of boy-psychology and its application to the evolution of the boy, whichwill throw a flood of light on many of the problems which we formerly attempted to solve in the dark. His physical and moral growth are so dependent upon or intimately related to his mental growth that the solution of his psychological problems will, in most cases, tend to solve the others.
The subject presents no serious difficulties to the parent who possesses a consciousness of its importance to the welfare of his son. All of us have certain preconceived ideas on boy-training which emanate from the adult viewpoint and the adult standard of morals. We realize how, if we were in our son’s place, we would act or ought to act, but too often we forget that this is an application of the adult standard which is psychologically impossible to the boy. Get the boy’s viewpoint.
Patience, tact, and insight; insight, tact, and patience will work wonders with yourboy. Insight is but another name for the boy’s viewpoint; it implies acquaintance with his psychology. The adult viewpoint of boy-problems is out of focus. We must re-adjust our psychologic lenses to see and perceive the motives which actuate his conduct, if we are to judge justly and sentence righteously. While the parent is passing judgment on his son’s acts, he should not forget to pass judgment on his own judgment. In training your boy, “you are handling soul-stuff and destiny waits just around the corner.”
Again I would stress the need of a companionship between father and son which should attain the intimacy of chumship. Such relationship is indispensable to a knowledge of all his difficulties, trials and troubles, for he will attempt to solve them in his own crude way if there is no one to whom he can lay bare his soul in the belief that he willfind sympathetic understanding and advice. Fewer sons would go astray if more fathers would be big brothers to them. The foundation of such companionship is laid in infancy and early boyhood, but it is neglected and frequently lost at puberty, at which time it is most needed. We are quite willing to accept the pleasures of association with the light-hearted frankness and joyousness of infancy, but too often we evade the responsibility of sharing the burdens of the adolescent.
Few fathers know their adolescent sons. It is true that they recognize the exterior boy and are familiar with his patent activities, but they seldom know his inner self and it is his inner self which needs help. Unfortunately, we men are endowed with a superfluous amount of egotism which causes us to assume that our sons will, through heredity or force of our example, absorb orinhale much of our surplus moral virtue. Few boys can work out their own salvation. The let-alone policy is no policy at all. A passive system of training cannot be commended for results. Instead, a plan of active, suggestive, sympathetic, intelligent, and informative coöperation will produce the same beneficial results when applied to the boy-problem as to a business problem.
Certain apparent deficiencies of intellect as well as of character are often the result of influences far removed from those which are commonly assigned as their compelling causes. It is usual for us to look for the immediate and proximate causes of ailments while remote causes are often unsuspected. Among such causes are the physical abnormalities known as adenoids and hypertrophied tonsils, both of which exercise sinister influence in repressing the growth of intellect and character. It is now generally concededby the medical profession that these conditions exercise such a profound influence on the physical and nervous system that the free and normal development of intellect as well as of character is retarded. Frequently the boy who is backward in school and who often displays tendencies toward truancy, evasion, and falsehood because of his mental retardation has reached this state on account of his physical condition.
The correction of astigmatism, myopia, and other defects of eyesight (alarmingly prevalent among children) by supplying him with proper eyeglasses uniformly results in better school grades as well as marked improvement in cheerfulness. The evil effects of impaired hearing, decayed teeth, and malnutrition on intellectual progress are also noticeable. The backward, indolent boy should always have the advice and assistance of the physician, the oculist, and the dentistbefore he receives blame for either mental deficiency or laziness.
The effects of heredity and prenatal influence in determining the character of the child have been, in the opinion of many investigators, greatly overestimated by the popular mind. The causative influence of training (and environment which is a part of training) is immeasurably more potent in the upbuilding of strong moral qualities than heredity. The records of the Children’s Aid Society of New York, covering more than 38,000 children, many of whom are the offspring of drunken and criminal fathers and dissolute mothers, show beyond cavil that a good home with love and moral training will usually submerge hereditary tendencies be they ever so vicious. A very large proportion of these children of delinquent parents, stamped (according to the theory of heredity) with rotten physiques and rottenercharacters, have, through good training and good environment, developed into law-abiding and useful citizens. Among them may be mentioned two governors of states, two congressmen, four judges, one justice of the Supreme Court, nine members of state legislatures, thirty-five lawyers, eighty-six teachers, nineteen physicians, twenty-four ministers, sixteen journalists, twenty-nine bankers, and countless farmers, mechanics, clerks and business men. The theory of the “inherent depravity” of the boy, whether attributed to heredity or to an act of God, is a rapidly fading myth. The boy is inherently good—not bad.
First know your son and love him; then you will be able to help him. When you come to know the boy—even the adolescent—he is an exceedingly lovable creature; and his inherent potentialities for future excellence should be our inspiration for such assistanceas will build them into perfect manhood.
Do not deceive yourself with the belief that your Johnny is different from other boys and that therefore the principles of boy-psychology have no application to him and to his problems. Diversities of temperament and character differentiate individuals, but all boys possess a common nature whose evolution progresses according to fixed laws. Idiosyncrasies and abnormalities of character are of slow growth. They do not erupt suddenly like the measles. It must be obvious, on consideration, that no simple panacea can be found for the speedy cure of such complex and diverse diseases of character. Good training and wholesome environment supplied throughout boyhood will make good, wholesome character in manhood.
We may summarize, in so far as it is possible to do so (of necessity, crudely and imperfectly)the principles of boy-training in the following statements:
“Better boys!” should be our slogan.
Intelligent training is the birthright of every child.
The boy is the mirror of his home.
The wayward boy is usually the son of a wayward parent.
When we reclaim wayward parents we will reclaim wayward boys.
The average parent is either unskilled or underskilled in boy-training.
The first step in boy-training is the education of the parent.
The intelligent parent is the natural and best teacher of his own child.
The busy boy is the best boy.
Constant activity is the key to his evolution.
Encourage athletics and out-of-door activities for the growing boy.
Workwithboys, notforthem, produces the best results.
Get the juvenile viewpoint.
Insight and patience are the corner stones of boy-training.
Every father can become a hero to his son through chumship.
Through play the boy attains a large part of his growth—physical, mental, and moral.
Fix the habit of obedience early.
Every boy is a gangster at heart. Encourage him to join a good gang instead of a bad one.
Never punish him in anger. He has a keen sense of justice. Let the punishment fit the “crime.”
The mother’s influence on the child is most potent before puberty—the father’s after puberty.
Adolescence is the period of storm and stress in which incongruities of conduct andcharacter are certain to appear. With your patient helpfulness he will outgrow them.
Train by positive, helpful suggestion, rather than negative repression. Never prohibit an act without suggesting a substitute to fill the void. Give him your reasons for the change.
Environment molds a score, where heredity molds one.
Do your part in building up symmetrically all four sides of his nature—physical, mental, moral, and spiritual—and the result will be God’s noblest work—a Man!
What profound emotions are stirred in the father’s breast when he realizes that his long years of intelligent training have borne fruit in the son he has sired; and what supreme joy comes to the mother when she beholds her son standing at the threshold of superb manhood and she can truly say, “I mothered a man!”
If I have seemed too severe in my strictures of delinquent parents, it is because of a desire, grounded in the necessities of the case, to impress upon them duties and responsibilities which are so frequently neglected. If I have seemed too ardent a champion of the adolescent, I offer no apology but the fact that he is often misunderstood and needs an advocate to present his side of the case at the bar of parental judgment.
Happy the man who has a son and thrice happy he who has three!