For instance, a child in the nursery has littered the floor with its
toys, and after finishing its play refuses to put them away. When next
the child asks for its toy box the reply of its mother should be: "The
last time you had your toys you left them lying on the floor and Jane
had to pick them up. Jane is too busy to pick up every time the things
you leave about, and I cannot do it myself, so that, as you will not put
away your toys when you have done with them, I cannot let you have
them." This is obviously a natural consequence and must be so recognized
by the child.
Or a little girl, Constance by name, is scarcely ever ready in time for
the daily walk. The governess and the other children are almost
invariably compelled to wait. In the world the penalty of being behind
time is the loss of some advantage that one would otherwise have gained.
The train is gone, or the steamboat is just leaving its moorings, or the
good seats in the concert room are filled; and every one may see that it
is the prospective deprivation entailed by being late which prevents
people from being unpunctual. Should not this prospective deprivation
control the child's conduct also? If Constance is not ready at the
appointed time the natural result should be that she is left behind and
loses her walk.
Or, again, a boy is in the habit of recklessly soiling and tearing his
clothes. He should be compelled to clean them and to mend the tear as
well as he can. And if having no decent clothes to wear, the boy is ever
prevented from joining the rest of the family on a holiday excursion and
the like, it is manifest that he will keenly feel the punishment and
perceive that his own carelessness is the cause of it.
But I think it can easily be made clear that this method of moral
discipline should be an exceptional and not a general one, and that
there are not a few but many occasions when it becomes simply impossible
to visit upon children the natural penalties of their transgressions. In
these cases the evil consequences are too great or too remote for us to
allow the child to learn from experience.
A boy is leaning too far out of the window; shall we let him take the
natural penalty of his folly? The natural penalty would be to fall and
break his neck. Or a child is about to rush from a heated room into the
cold street with insufficient covering; shall we let the child take the
natural penalty of its heedlessness? The natural penalty might be an
attack of pneumonia. Or, again, in certain parts of the country it is
imprudent to be out on the water after nightfall owing to the danger of
malaria. A boy who is fond of rowing insists upon going out in his boat
after dark; shall we allow him to learn by experience the evil
consequences of his act and gain wisdom by suffering the natural
penalty? The natural penalty might be that he would come home in a
violent fever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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