CHILDREN'S TRENDS: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES PERSONALITY DEVIATIONS AND THEIR RELATION Sybil Foster, Chief Social Worker, Habit Clinics, Women's In studying one thousand children known to the habit clinics in Massachusetts, we have been continually impressed with the fact that habits or conduct reported as alarming or annoying are, time after time, only the natural response to the stimuli these children have received from their home setting. Many leaders of thought and action have, in early years, manifested deviated personality traits, yet, on finding their proper groove, have contributed largely to the world's advancement. Although a few of the "unusual” individuals will undoubtedly become geniuses and leaders, still the dividing line is narrow and frequently only a matter of chance. The rank and file will go to fill the roll of misfits unless circumstances permit many readjustments. The mere fact that a child has been referred to the habit clinics indicates that to some one person, at least, he has appeared deviated from the normal in one way or another. The question may here be raised, What is a deviated personality, and what is normal? Let us say that a person whose conduct varies markedly from the established rule and custom of the environment in which he happens to be placed may be considered deviated from the normal. Each one of us is the product of his inherent make-up played upon by the forces in his particular environment, and in the great majority of cases a study of the social setting of an individual will show quite clearly the causal factors which are producing the twists of personality. If hampering characteristics are to be avoided, the start must be made in early years. During the first five or six years of life the home plays the most important role in the child's development. The personalities of those with whom he comes in close contact make up, to a large extent, the forces which are to play upon him during this formative period. Because of his plasticity and suggestibility it is most important that he be surrounded by those who are able to provide him with calm, wise guidance and an atmosphere free from friction. The home divided against itself often becomes the battle ground on which many a child's future is sacrificed. In infancy the child is totally dependent on others for life as well as for comfort. Gradually this dependence must be thrown off until, as a well-rounded adult, he stands alone and self-sufficient. This growth of self-reliance in the child is one of the hardest things many parents have to meet. By making infancy too attractive, they may definitely, although unintentionally, hamper the child's development. Undue concern on the part of the parents often causes marked changes in the personality of a child. After a serious illness or accident which has placed him in danger and caused anxiety in the household, it is difficult for parents to control wisely. They may cease to exert authority, fearing harm will result, and it takes only a short time for a child to learn that with his symptoms he may control his environment. Oversolicitude often defeats its own ends by creating such an intense emotional situation that the original difficulty is only exaggerated. Take the case of a distracted young father whose wife died of tuberculosis. Fear that his one child may contract the same disease has made him watch her physical condition closely. To him, gain in weight appears as the most important thing. Therefore three large meals a day are forced upon her; each meal becomes the occasion of coaxing, pleading, and threatening, and ends either in the father's feeding this child of six every mouthful she eats, or in a complete loss of temper on his part and the administering of a sound spanking, either result making the desired end harder to obtain. The interference of relatives is always detrimental to children and makes wise and consistent discipline impossible. The danger is particularly great in families of the European and Eastern races, where the custom is for the relatives to live together, and for the grandmother to be looked to as an authority on all matters pertaining to the children. The older generation resents the introduction of modern theories in regard to the upbringing of the children, and is inclined to scoff at "American ways." A young mother must have strong courage of her convictions to try out new methods in defiance of the grandmother, for if anything goes wrong, the blame is sure to be hers. This lack of understanding tends toward constant friction and bickering. One woman, after talking with the psychiatrist at clinic, went home determined to break the nursing bottle and so stop her four-year-old child from taking her milk in this way. This was to be the first step in helping the child to give up many infantile habits clung to tenaciously. The mother broke the bottle, but the grandmother arrived in time to see the little girl screaming in wrath. Declaring the doctor's suggestions were all ridiculous, the grandmother promptly bought two more bottles. The mother, with a weary shrug, says, "What's the use-I break these and she just buys more?" In another family the little girl of five has learned skilfully to play her oversolicitous, meddlesome great-aunt against her father and stepmother to her own immediate advantage. The congested section of the city in which she lives has been kept in turmoil for months over the family rows. While living at home with father and stepmother-who were harsh and indulgent alternately-if things do not suit her, the child runs to her great-aunt nearby with lurid tales of the abuse she has undergone at home. When tired of living with her aunt, she returns home, again carrying tales. What one relative will not allow, the other is sure to permit. The neighbors add fuel to the fire by their gossip. Frequently there are actual "fist fights." Steeped in this atmosphere of strife there is little wonder that this youngster turned up at clinic with her mental life partially disintegrated. She was unable to eat or sleep properly, and was incorrigible and domineering to an exaggerated degree, frequently giving way to paroxysms of temper. On her first visit to the clinic she became so enraged that she screamed, stamped, and finally stripped off her clothes and tossed them about the room. When she saw this behavior netted her nothing, she quietly picked up her things and put them on again, although still looking sullen and defiant. Upon a careful survey of her home and neighborhood setting it was decided to try placement away from home at once, while an effort was made to change the attitudes in the home. We heard just the other day that after a few months' stay in her foster home, the agency who has her in care would like to return her, as they wish to place only problem children, and she has presented no problems since placed! The attitude which many parents take, of expectation of undesirable conduct and of inability to cope with it, has a strong influence on the children. If constantly given the suggestion that John is different and can't eat what the other children do, or Tom simply won't stay in the yard, or Mary is so shy before strangers, there is no cause for surprise when Tom bolts at every opportunity or Mary hangs her head. Children like attention, and will obtain it somehow. This is shown quite clearly in the case of a youngster who bears the reputation of being wilfully destructive and disobedient. At the age of three and a half, he rides roughshod over all the members of his family, and destroys anything to which he happens to take a fancy. Upon one occasion he played quietly on the kitchen floor until pointed out to the visitor by his mother with the remark that, "He's a devil-we can't do a thing with him." From that moment he fully lived up to the rôle expected of him. He turned on the gas burners, broke the glass castors on the piano stool, smashed to bits a large, new doll belonging to his sister, and finally threw a wooden packing box at the visitor. During this scene the mother lay on a couch, complaining of a headache and saying weakly, "Oh! isn't he awful. He ruins everything, and I can't stop him." Discipline in this home is a most casual matter. One moment the child is scolded and threatened for his conduct, and the next moment it is the object of laughter. Repeatedly he hears his pranks talked over and retailed with an air of pride. He appears to care little for approval or disapproval, and takes delight in the act of destruction and the excitement it creates; with an eye on the audience and a joyful grin he demolishes whatever he can lay his hands on. He finds it quite satisfying to be "different," and "the despair of the family." We speak of a child's environment, yet often the term "environments" is truer. Take, for instance, a Syrian lad of five, the oldest child and the only boy. His parents are young, American-born, and educated, and are trying to live up to American standards as they see them. On the first floor of the same house live the Syrian grandparents, holding to their old-world ideals and customs. They idolize the children, particularly the boy, the future head of the family. He is pampered and waited on by them, and when obedience is demanded by his parents he is told by his grandparents that nothing is too good for him and that he does not have to obey. He soon learns defiance and disregard for his mother's wishes, and must be in constant conflict because of the clashing standards and demands of his environments. We are apt to feel that the environment in a given home is the same for all the children, yet often it is totally different because of the attitudes of individual members. Special likes and dislikes and open favoritism all tend to foster jealousy and injured feelings, which are followed by varying results in the way of personality twists or deviation. We have been interested in the study of two brothers. One, at two years, is vivacious, active, and pugnacious, striking and slapping his brother or playmates to gain his ends, and domineering over his brother two years older. He is responsive and friendly, readily drawing the adults to him because of his cheeriness and air of bravado. The other, at four years, is quiet and retiring. He gives way at once to his little brother's demands, making no effort to assert his rights, is shy and unresponsive, and inclined to be fretful and oversensitive. The marriage of the parents has proved fundamentally unhappy. When the older boy was a year old, the parents separated, but, after several months, the mother allowed her husband to return because of her anxiety over the youngster, who had been devoted to his father and was apparently grieving for him. The children's earliest recollections must have been of constant quarreling. The family was lined up with the mother and younger boy opposed to the father and older boy, each parent defending the special favorite against punishment and discipline by the other. This continued until the father left home for good about a year ago. His going did away with much of the friction but left the older lad without his champion. After a few attempts to assert himself, he sank to his present state of letting things go without a struggle. He lives in an atmosphere of discouragement and discontent. He is the object of fault-finding, scolding, and blame, and he feels inadequate and discriminated against. The younger one, on the other hand, receives praise and kindly interest, and is buoyant and aggressive. He has the backing of his mother, who turned her affections to him when unhappy with her husband. The mother and her relatives are unconsciously but steadily exaggerating and making permanent the markedly different personality traits of these two boys who are living in the same physical surroundings. We have been able to indicate only a few of the many conditions in home life which have been factors in the creation of unusual personalities. There has been no time to show how attitudes have been changed or to tell of the improvements which have followed. It is not the intent to leave the impression that the home is necessarily a destructive element in the child's life, but rather to show that it has tremendous force, both destructive and constructive. We must, therefore, bend our energies toward giving parents every opportunity to develop themselves normally and unwarped, in order that they may be able to be the splendid factors for good which they should be in the lives of their children. DELINQUENCY AND THE SCHOOL Miriam Van Waters, Referee, Juvenile Court, Los Angeles County There is a standard joke about the college student who says, "Father, after all, the most important things one gets out of college are the social relationships." "Yes, my son and what have you failed in now?" The college boy is not the only one who believes that the most important function of the school is that it furnishes social relationships. It is with the school as a social group that we are here concerned. Lindeman has laid the foundation for an evaluation of social groups from the point of view of the individual's chronological experience with them. These are listed as follows: the home, the neighborhood, the school, the church, the play group, and the work group. Each true social group has certain outstanding characteristics: (1) Each is organized to help the individual get something done. (2) Each furnishes some outlet for expression. (3) Behavior codes, standards, taboos are set up. (4) Each fosters loyalty, which is based on the feeling of belonging together. Lindeman further states that which is strikingly true of children: from a social point of view, the most important thing we can learn about a person is in which group does he most vitally live. In which group does he find that he gets things done in which he is interested, achieves adequate expression, formulates behavior codes that he can follow without too much discomfort; in which group does the feeling of belonging together give him the stimulating flush of loyalty? For the young child it is the home. In the old days of the Clark University questionnaires it used to be asked: In cases of conflict of authority between parents and teachers, or other grown persons, whom would you follow? It used to be said that up to the age of eleven or twelve in boys, and twelve or thirteen in girls, the children answered that they would follow the home. But the older children would always take sides with the teacher, When the child begins to question the authority of the home we may see the sign of the birth of individual conscience. We note the desire for more information, wider experience, the beginning of choices, and the exercise of discretion and independent judgment. In this passage of vital interest, from the home group to the school group, the greatest problems of the school arise. What does this mean for education, how can the new interest be developed? Unfortunately, neither psychology nor sociology can tell us completely. Someone has said that psychology is a young science—all data and no conclusions. Sociology is |