To cure the Cruelty of Children

Psychologists believe that the combative and aggressive instinct is permanent in all human beings; but it is probable that, with a correct understanding of children, the instinct for aggression need not survive childhood. It’s certain that to repress the aggressiveness of a child will make him later more aggressive and anti-social; he will later on revenge himself for his sufferings by criminality or by acts of cruelty. The desire to hurt living things generally appears in the child who has been given a strong hatred of authority. This problem of cruelty is very difficult to handle. It requires the parents to use good temper and good sense, trying to find out where the child’s real interests lie and guiding its energy to these channels. Except in the worst cases, sympathetic treatment by parents and teachers will gradually suffice to cure, for it will give back self-confidence, self-love, and a belief in life, and it is the absence of these which is the cause of cruelty.