Childhood

CHILDHOOD. - From infans = one who does not speak. Immediately after the neonatal phase, in the unfolding of the ages of life (v.) one encounters infancy. In relation to considerations of various kinds, it seems that it deserves to be clearly separated from childhood (v.) and should be extended from the first weeks of life to about the whole of the sixth year. Through this period the individual undergoes an organic and psychological development capable of making him suited to his true encounter with life, in his first extra-familial relationships (school).

Infancy can be divided into three periods. The first, or early infancy, from the second week of life, comprises the whole of the first year, during which the individual, almost concentrating all his activity in vegetative life, in particular the digestive function, increases his bodily mass so much as to triple, at the end of the first year, the weight he had at birth. However, also with regard to the life of relation, the organism goes on developing its instruments, as is proved by the fact that while at the birth of the fetus the brain averages about 330 grams, after a year it has more than doubled (on average about 776 grams). At three months the baby begins to hold up its head, at six its trunk, and at about the end of the year it takes its first steps, attempting a first exploration of the narrow world that surrounds it. This first phase is also marked by the successive appearance of the teeth, from the incisors to the first four small molars, which makes the child capable of passing from breastfeeding to the first trials with a diet closer to that of the adult.

The second infancy comprises the second and third years and the first six months of the fourth year of life. Now the child acquires greater autonomy with regard to his caretakers, increasingly capable of moving freely and independently in the environment in which he lives. Alongside this proceeds the filling out of his bodily forms (phase of turgor) and the enrichment of his psychological patrimony, through the development of the process of fixation of images (particularly around the 3rd year of age) and the intense desire to know ("age of why," between the 3rd and 4th year). In this period psychic life is dominated by sensitive and sensory impressions and unfolds in the sphere of affectivity, with the emotional-passionate states of joy or sorrow prevailing. His main occupation is play, which, at this age, should not be considered a form of dissipation or rest, but the means by which the child, moving, running, jumping, performs an effective gymnastics, an excellent training of his muscles; with the initiatives and combinations of his games, the observing, handling, taking apart, destroying of his toys, with the incessant asking of the why of all things, he enriches the patrimony of his imagination, accumulating, without realizing it and without effort, the precious capital of all the psychological operations that he will later carry out in the successive ages.

Then follows the third infancy, which closes, at about the end of the 6th year of age, with a kind of physio-psychological revolution ("small puberty" of Pende, or phase of "small schizoidism") in which, in contrast with the preceding phases of turgor, there occurs, on the bodily side, a prevalence of organic differentiation, with thinning, lengthening of the limbs, development in height (phase of proceritas); on the neuropsychological side, an accentuation of nervousness, a prevalence of the life of relation; feeling becomes less exuberant, the affectionateness previously more particularly directed toward the mother gradually diminishes (Freud speaks here of the end of the "Oedipus complex"). Spiteful toward those around him, more indifferent to others and more closed in on himself, the individual is less sensitive to reproach and punishment, tending toward disobedience and rebellion. In this period the child's disobedience takes on a particular aspect, no longer the stubborn form of infancy, but the manifestation of his own way of seeing and judging things. Reserve and the natural sense of modesty diminish, with a greater curiosity about the organs and phenomena proper to sex; such an age is dangerous from the educational standpoint because of the formation of first impressions, tendencies, and complexes with sexual content.

But by now this small storm, prelude to the great one proper to adolescence (v.), calms into the calm of childhood (v.), while the subject regains the bodily proportions and the endocrine and neuro-psychic characteristics proper to the periods of turgor. One has by now entered the true educational age and the period of primary school, in which the child will begin to treasure the first experiences of the world, by now broader, that surrounds him.

With regard to endocrine and neuro-vegetative balance, in the first phase of infancy the action of the thymus, the pancreas, the adrenal cortex and the parasympathetic prevails; during the crisis of "small puberty" there is a temporary hyperfunction of the thyroid, of certain hormones of the anterior pituitary, of the adrenal medulla, of the endocrine gonads, which attempt a first freeing themselves from the inhibiting action of the epiphysis (v. ENDOCRINE, GLANDOLÉ), of the sympathetic.

According to different authors, the word infancy is used to comprise periods of different extents and characteristics. Thus, by some the term is applied to the whole period of life from birth to the 12th year, with a division into first infancy (up to the 5th year) and second infancy or childhood (from the 5th to the 12th). Others reserve the name for the 1st year, excluding the first two weeks of neonatal life, already calling childhood the age from the 2nd to the 10th year of life, divided into first and second childhood with a cut at about six years. The framework chosen for this entry seems more in keeping with the usage of common language and with the successive aspects assumed by life in the period from birth to adolescence.

The behavior of the development and shedding of the teeth helps to mark well the terminal and intermediate boundaries of infancy; on this see ETÀ DELLA VITA; FANCIULLEZZA.

Giuseppe de Nismo

THE PEDAGOGY OF CHILDHOOD

The phase of development just considered involves problems of the greatest importance, not only in themselves, but also and above all because of the consequences that may rebound upon the subsequent phases, for good or for ill; whence the necessity for the educator to study carefully the line of conduct and the attitudes to be adopted.

1. The problem of suggestibility

Up to the age of 4, the child, who does not yet possess critical capacity, generally has only imitation; he limits himself to reproducing as faithfully as possible the gestures and words of others, without realizing what he sees done or hears said; it is a simple manifestation of his need for activity. From about the age of 4 onward, the suggestive factor comes into play; the child no longer acts passively as before, but actively, submitting to the ascendancy of the people around him or who care for him, and also of the environment; in very many cases it will still be the same actions as before, but now they are performed under a different impulse, with a certain awareness, because that particular person, and not others, does or speaks thus. And imitation occurs not only as regards words and acts, but also as regards feelings, judgments and dispositions of the will. Hence the strong levelling power of suggestion in the field of education.

The educator, therefore, will be able to use it to form good habits in the child and to prevent the formation of bad ones, for example, to induce him to perform a repugnant or tedious action (to eat a food he does not like, to swallow a bitter or nauseating medicine, to endure small pains, to study his lesson, to write correctly, etc.). He will use it above all to combat fear (to enter a dark room, to handle a tool, to pass calmly beside some animal or some machine). If in all these cases the person, so to speak, who suggests precedes with example, the child will adopt the same attitude and will not yield to fear, nor to repugnance, nor to boredom. The child must not be frightened by the insinuation of dangers or illusory phantoms, but rather influenced in the direction necessary for the formation of dispositions that will be of benefit in the later phases of education.

Not all persons exercise the same ascendancy. The first and most important is the mother; the child judges as beautiful and ugly, true and false, just or unjust everything that his mother represents to him as such. Then come the father, the people who live close to him, teachers included, whom the child considers in any case superior to himself. It is necessary to take into account also the influence of schoolmates and playmates; of the friends who frequent the house, of the servants and nurses; all the more so since the suggestive charm of these persons, who can be considered as extraneous to the family, may sometimes prove more powerful and alluring than that of the parents themselves and may lead to fatal or at least difficult-to-correct deviations.

2. The problem of childish lying

Some would wish to attribute lying to childhood as a characteristic note. It must be noted instead that lying (an affirmation to one's own advantage in order to deceive regarding facts that have occurred or states of mind) implies a degree of awareness that in reality the child does not yet possess; whereas he easily confuses imagination with reality and with equal ease considers a fact or an affirmation true for the sole reason that he thinks and desires it. It will therefore be advisable to be cautious in branding him a liar and to examine matters well. One must show oneself cautious and delicate when it comes to distinguishing a child's responsibility in some particular act (for example, frauds, quarrels in play, small thefts, mischievous pranks, accusations cast upon others).

However, from the earliest years there are attitudes that must be considered rather as dispositions to simulation or lying (pretending to have a pain in order to attract attention; little defensive tricks to avoid a punishment; bitter tears to obtain something). Against these manifestations a kind of prophylaxis is necessary, which consists in treating the child with vigilant gentleness, inspiring in him great confidence, so that he does not feel the instinctive need to defend himself by following an erroneous path.

3. The problem of punishments

Without wishing to banish punishments absolutely from educational practice, it must nevertheless be noted that one can easily fall into counterproductive exaggerations. Thus: overwhelming the child under a deluge of prohibitions, even if in regard to hygiene, health, correctness of manners; punishing outright in order to induce him to overcome certain less good manifestations of character (gluttony, laziness, jealousy, etc.); judging his conduct according to the norms by which one would judge that of an adult; considering outright as a fault to be punished what is not a fault, but a simple inclination; persisting in punishing and in forcing him to yield, when one encounters in the child obstinacy against prohibitions. In all these cases, the exaggeration, by creating an unpleasant associative complex that acts as a kind of halo around individual failings, ends up oppressing and suffocating the germs of personality; digging a ditch, and sometimes an abyss, between the child and the educator, extinguishing all trust and even producing a kind of fatalism. Which does not mean that one must fall into the opposite excess of "letting water run down its slope"; one must only resort to punishment when the other means have proved ineffective; therefore: the effort to win the child's confidence; to admonish him gently; to filter gradually into his soul, by means of a persuasion suited to his age and capacity, the duty to correct himself, to be careful, to behave properly, not to displease his parents, etc. And when one must resort to punishments, one must see to it that they are not disproportionate to the fault; prefer non-corporal ones to corporal ones. Experience demonstrates quite well how the child is not deaf to admonitions in which the heart speaks; little by little he succeeds in persuading himself, at least vaguely, of the relation of cause and effect between the fault and the punishment, until he comes to form a conscience that perceives the fault, understands the justice of the punishment, feels the need to confess and make amends.

4. The problem of sincerity

Pedagogists do not consider good all that series of fictions, even pious ones, that are used to impress the child and that range from the "bogeyman" and the "ogre" to the gifts of the baby Jesus and of the magi at Christmas and Epiphany. Because, even if some immediate advantage is not lacking, nevertheless there could derive from it both a diminution of prestige on the part of the parents, when the little one, having become a child, comes to discover the truth; and also the false deduction that therefore other points of belief insinuated into him (practices of piety, truths of the faith, guardian angel, demon, etc.) are inventions. Greater attention to sincerity, while saying only what is necessary according to age, is required when the child's curiosity, especially in the last years of childhood, invades the field of generation. The common fairy tales, which constitute the common answer to such curiosities, can have bad consequences (v. SESSUALE, EDUCAZIONE; for holiness in childhood, v. FANCIULLEZZA).

Celestino Testore