Produced by Turgut Dincer, Jane Robins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) +------------------------------------------------+ | Note: | | | | Text around word like _this_ indicates italics.| +------------------------------------------------+ HANDICAPS OF CHILDHOOD By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Author of "Psychology and Parenthood," "The Riddle of Personality," etc. [Illustration] NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. TO MY FATHER JOHN BRUCE IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF BOYHOOD JOYS AND ADVANTAGES PREFACE It is my hope that this book will be read as a companion-volume to "Psychology and Parenthood," it being designed to amplify and supplement that earlier work. Its general aim, accordingly, is to present additional evidence in support of the central doctrine of "Psychology and Parenthood,"--namely, that, in view of the discoveries of modern psychology with regard to individual development, the mental and moral training of children by their parents ought to be begun earlier, and be carried on more intensively, than is the rule at present. But whereas in "Psychology and Parenthood" the emphasis was chiefly on the importance of early mental training, the chief concern of the present book is to demonstrate the importance of early training in the moral sphere. Everybody, of course, is more or less aware that lifelong character defects may result from parental neglect to develop in children such qualities as unselfishness, self-confidence, and self-control. But few really appreciate that, by this neglect, children are burdened with handicaps which, persisting into adult life, may imperil not alone the winning of success and happiness, but health itself. And, among parents, comparatively few are sufficiently alert to the danger signals giving warning that such handicaps of perhaps catastrophic significance are being needlessly imposed on their children. Eccentricities of behaviour in children--such as jealousy and sulkiness--are too often ignored as being of no particular account, or are sadly misinterpreted by parents, with perhaps dire consequences to the children's whole careers.