Children are naughty solely because they are ill, unhappy or untrained. This simple explanation of the most colossal of parents' domestic problems underlies the first textbook in English on the personality disorders of children. In Child Psychiatry* published last week, Professor Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins, a rosy-cheeked, studious man of 41, married and genuinely fond of children, prepared his explanation for the immediate use of parents, uncles, aunts, doctors, judges, sociologists, teachers.
To correct a naughty child Dr. Kanner advises the parents, doctor or other supervisor first to learn what physical ailments the child may suffer from. Tuberculosis may make a child cranky. Dr. Kanner mentions a little boy who flew into "violent passions" after he had been run over and hurt by a heavy wagon.
A greater task is to get the troublesome child to tell what troubles him. The child will do this most readily if questioned apart from his parents, especially apart from his mother. Says Dr. Kanner: "The mother is often apt to quote diagnostic terms obtained through reading or from previous medical, osteopathic, or chiropractic consultations cr from some supposedly enlightened relative or neighbor. How much harm may be done in this manner was perhaps best demonstrated by the 13-year-old, slightly retarded girl who was wheeled into the office in an attitude of extreme weakness and helplessness and with the most pitiful facial expression that can be imagined. When questioned as to her complaint, she stated whiningly: 'I have an auriculo-valvular disease,' a 'diagnosis' which, in conjunction with the attending parental apprehensions, had made a chronic invalid of the child."
In a great many cases a child misbehaves because that is the only way he knows to defend himself from unpleasant household situations. And in many cases a child misbehaves because his mother spoils him or puts naughty notions in his head. Dr. Kanner gets children to talk their hearts out to him by being friendly and sympathetic, by never startling them or lying to them or belittling their intelligence.
As the result of long, painstaking study of thousands & thousands of children in Berlin, Yankton, S. Dak. and Baltimore, Dr. Kanner decided that the cause of a child's misbehavior is more fundamental and important than the way that child misbehaves. By isolating the cause he can accomplish a cure in most cases and ameliorate the child's condition in all cases. He classifies such causes in three broad groups: 1) those due to physical illness; 2) those due to involuntary dysfunction of some organ of the child's body; 3) those due to derangement of the child's body & soul.
A physical cause can usually be cured. Bad tonsils which make a girl nervous can be removed. If a child is a helpless, mute, untidy idiot because he is oxycephalic (cone-headed), nothing remedial can be done.