Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/173

 This was apparently a mode of revenge. Her mother did not wish or was not able to tell her how the eyes grew into the head, hence she did not know how Freddy got into her. It was for this reason that she again tried her with the old story.

I wish to impress firmly upon parents and educationists this instructive example of child psychology. In the learned psychological discussions on the child’s psyche we hear nothing about those parts which are so important for the health and naturalness of our children, nor do we hear more about the child’s emotions and conflicts; and yet they play a most important role.

It very often happens that children are erroneously treated as quite imprudent and irrational beings. Thus on indulgently remarking to an intelligent father, whose four-year-old daughter masturbated excessively, that care should be exercised in the presence of the child who slept in the same room as the parents, I received the indignant reply, “I can absolutely assure you that the child knows nothing about sexual matters.” This recalls that distinguished old neurologist who wished to deny the attribute “sexual” to a childbirth phantasy which was represented in a dreamy state.

On the other hand, a child evincing neurotic talent exaggerated by neurosis may be urged on by solicitous parents. How easy and tempting it would have been, e.g. in the present case, to admire, excite, and develop prematurely the child’s eager desire for learning, and thereby develop an unnatural blasé state and a precociousness masking a neurosis! In such cases the parents must look after their own complexes and complex tendencies and not make capital out of them at the expense of the child. The idea should be dismissed once for all that children are to be held in bondage by their parents or that they are their toys. They are characteristic and new beings. In the matter of enlightenment on sexual things it can be affirmed that they suffer from the preconceived opinion that the truth is harmful. Many neurologists are of opinion