Sulking

My boy, John, is a sulker. He is 11 years old. Any time either my husband or I ask him to do anything that doesn’t suit his mood, he grumbles and sulks. As a matter of fact, he sulks whether the directive comes from us or from any­one else. Some of his friends call him “Cry Baby” because he stands off and sulks when he doesn’t get his own way in a game. Have you any suggestions?

No, I have no suggestions.

But why worry? Most folks go into a sulk when they are irritated or unhappy. A sulking boy feels he has not been well treated. He cannot hit back against the offending adults; his sulking represents his repressed aggression against authority. If he sulks at home, his method of resent­ment will naturally carry over to his games with his com­panions.

Sulking is an interesting phenomenon. A wife criticizes her husband. Instead of hitting back, he sulks . . . “I’ll pay you back, you damned nagger, I won’t speak to you.” Sulk-mg takes the place of hitting back.

If I were you, I should ask myself what I am doing to him to rouse his ineffectual aggression. The boy has some grievance; he must feel that he is odd man out.

Television

Jimmy is a nice kid, lovable and kind, but he sits around all day glued to the TV set. He doesn’t read a thing. What can I do?

Tut, tut, we cannot put the clock back. TV has come to stay.

TV has slain much reading. When I was a boy I read Scott’s Ivanhoe, skipping the descriptions of scenery. To­day, a boy can get the story in 75 minutes on TV.

If a boy spends his day sitting on a bench studying what does not interest him, he will tend to continue the process at home and sit passively in the fantasy world that so much of TV provides. The lad is escaping; it is easier to escape by watching a screen than by reading a hook. But nothing can be done about it, for you cannot compel a boy to read or to use his hands making things.

No cause for alarm, my dear parent, the phase will not last forever. If the boy has any guts, energy, and am­bition, he’ll be off and doing—when he is read;

I should like to sec an experiment done in a school. Make the whole day one long TV show and then see if the pupils will turn to making things with wood or metal or clay or needles as an escape from passivity.

You say he docs not read; I wonder how much that matters. I have known men who read everything; they were walking encyclopedias and always had an answer when facts were asked for. But they knew much and understood little. Ah! But I’m prejudiced; for I prefer doers to readers any day. I myself would rather buy a lathe than the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Do not badger Jimmy by saying, “Why don’t you get away from that TV set and read a hook.” This could change Jimmy from being “lovable and kind” into a rebellious boy.

Food and eating

My son is 11 years old and is more than 50 pounds over­weight. Should I force him to go on a diet?

You can take a horse to the water but you can’t make him drink. I very much doubt if anything can he done with the boy at home. No boy can feel happy eating a diet salad when he sees the rest of the family tucking away the bacon and eggs.

If a child does not see the necessity of something, it is very difficult to get him to change his ways. If your boy were adolescent and the girls laughed at his fatness, he would have a motive to slim; but a boy of 11 has no motive to get thin. But why so much worry? I have seen children who were fat at 10 and slim at 20.

Although malfunctioning of glands is extremely rare, his obesity may have little to do with his diet. Only a medi­cal man can Judge whether or not his glands are properly functioning. But if a doctor tells you the boy’s body is func­tioning normally, then leave him alone.

My boy of six is extremely picky about food. It seems the only things he likes to eat are hamburgers, steak, and ice cream. We can’t afford steak often, and my husband and I are just about sick and tired of eating hamburgers. What’s the solution?

If your boy is fussy about food, try to give him what he likes to eat, but don’t cater to him at the expense of forc­ing every member of the family to adapt their tastes to his.

Your boy wants to live on hamburgers? Well and good! But that shouldn’t mean that everyone else in the family must live on hamburgers. It is wrong to force a child to eat what he does not want to eat; it is equally wrong to force a family to eat what only one member of that family prefers.

At Summerhill, we have a boy who refuses to cat mutton, or roast beef, or sausages, or vegetables. All he wants is a plateful of potatoes and butter. We give him his spuds every day—because they’re easy to prepare. But if he de­manded chow men or duck a l’orange, we wouldn’t dream of complying. To judge from past experience, the day will soon come when that boy will want to eat what the other children are eating. But however that might be, it would be ludicrous if we were to say, “Jimmy likes only potatoes and butter, so all you other kids will now live on his diet.” To me it sounds equally ludicrous for you to say, ‘My son likes only hamburgers, so from now on my husband and I are going to feed on hamburgers, day in and day out.”

My practical advice is give the boy his own way with­in reason which certainly means that his diet must fall within your financial capabilities. Furthermore, unless your son is to be spoiled and made king of the roost, he should be made to adapt to the needs of the other people in your family. The matter should he handled on a compromise basis: Monday, hamburgers; Tuesday, fish; Wednesday, macaroni and cheese—something like that. If Junior won’t eat the non-hamburger meals, then he simply must do with­out. Don’t worry, he won’t star\e. Hell feed on bread and water; he’ll rummage in the ice-box or in the pantry; hell find something or other to allay his hunger, but he won’t starve.

I have a feeling that a food complex in a child has some element of protest within it. He may be using his special likes and dislikes to proclaim, “I’m the big shot in this joint. What I say goes. Pass the ice cream.” Johnny’s food fad should set you to try to discover just what is the boy’s hid­den motivation. What do his particular dislikes symbolize?