I have determined to try a new method of discipline that I don't believe
in the whole of his forlorn little life he has ever experienced. I am
going to see what praise and encouragement and love will do. So, instead
of scolding him about the jardiniere, I assumed that it was an accident.
I kissed him and told him not to feel bad; that I didn't mind in the
least. It shocked him into being quiet; he simply held his breath and
stared while I wiped away his tears and sopped up the ink.
The child just now is the biggest problem that the J. G. H. affords.
He needs the most patient, loving, individual care--a proper mother
and father, likewise some brothers and sisters and a grandmother. But I
can't place him in a respectable family until I make over his language
and his propensity to break things. I separated him from the other
children, and kept him in my room all the morning, Jane having removed
to safe heights all destructible OBJETS D'ART. Fortunately, he loves
to draw, and he sat on a rug for two hours, and occupied himself with
colored pencils. He was so surprised when I showed an interest in a
red-and-green ferryboat, with a yellow flag floating from the mast, that
he became quite profanely affable. Until then I couldn't get a word out
of him.
In the afternoon Dr. MacRae dropped in and admired the ferryboat, while
Punch swelled with the pride of creation. Then, as a reward for being
such a good little boy, the doctor took him out in his automobile on a
visit to a country patient.
Punch was restored to the fold at five o'clock by a sadder and wiser
doctor. At a sedate country estate he had stoned the chickens, smashed
a cold frame, and swung the pet Angora cat by its tail. Then when the
sweet old lady tried to make him be kind to poor pussy, he told her to
go to hell.
I can't bear to consider what some of these children have seen and
experienced. It will take years of sunshine and happiness and love to
eradicate the dreadful memories that they have stored up in the far-back
corners of their little brains. And there are so many children and so
few of us that we can't hug them enough; we simply haven't arms or laps
to go around.
MAIS PARLONS D'AUTRES CHOSES! Those awful questions of heredity and
environment that the doctor broods over so constantly are getting into
my blood, too; and it's a vicious habit. If a person is to be of any
use in a place like this, she must see nothing but good in the world.
Optimism is the only wear for a social worker.