You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This well—made book is one of a number by the same author, putting in simple language easily comprehended by the average parent, the modern theories upon the care and training of children. A glance at the table of contents makes us pretty well acquainted with the scope and aims of the book. Part one defines the nervous child, identifies his problem as that of growing—up and his parents' problem that of assisting him in the task. Part two discusses what the nervous child does, from refusing to eat to the more serious difficulties of regressions, phobias and convulsions. Part three takes up the causes of nervousness in children, makes light of “a nervous inheritance” and stresses the environmental factors of home and school during the formative periods of life. There is a sprightly chapter “In Defense of Parents” and some trenchant criticisms of our educational system. Parts four and five discuss the constitutional inferior, mental retardation and the psychoses. Dr. Richardson believes that the nervous child may be a constitutional inferior, but would rigidly exclude him from the categories of the mentally deficient and the psychotic. By this he means, I take it, that the “merely nervous” children with which the book is mostly concerned, are to be regarded as fundamentally normal, in distinction to those who are the victims of a biological defect. The constitutionally inferior are to be regarded as a border line group. Not everyone will agree in all points with the description of this group, which is mostly taken from Glueck. There is certainly a large group of constitutional psychopaths who show no stigmata of inferiority, and who are characterized rather by the rigidity than by the instability of their emotional life.
As a whole, the book would seem admirably suited to serve its express purpose as a guide to intelligent parents who are seeking light on the more or less common but perplexing problems of childhood.