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A book on the behavior of children by a psychiatrist of Dr. Richards' wide experience is to be welcomed. One anticipates much from a volume so packed with case material, psychiatric competence and sensible attitudes and advice. Furthermore, it is unusual to find a psychiatrist who not only knows the allied field of social work, but has also had concrete experience with public school education. "It is one thing to attend child study lectures and parent teacher meetings," she wisely says to her audience of parents, teachers, nurses, pediatricians, clergymen, etc., "it is another to realize that child health is really parent health and teacher health and community health."
The chapter on "School and the Intellectual Misfit" shows a good comprehension of the need for teachers and schools, at present either ignorant or resistant, to gain a broader concept of behavior than they at present have in their judgment of the child's classroom conduct and study accomplishment. It points out the necessity of grading not only according to intelligence tests but with attention to the emotional needs of the individual child. It recommends behavior clinics in the schools, and visiting teachers to link school and home.
There is no doubt that Dr. Richards sees with a critical and constructive eye the whole circle of social agencies that surround the maladjusted individual child,—the home, the school, the clinic, the social service unit, the court, the public institution, the foster home. Her treatment of individual cases, neurotic or delinquent, is based on successful coöperation with these agencies, which too often are inadequate, unscientific, untrained, casual, sentimental, disinterested, and which duplicate each other's efforts.