Child beyond; The hurdles too high

That child beyond produced by Radio host the University of Texas under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Group. The child is there beyond the hurt and the handicapped beyond the defect in the difference beyond the problem and it's probably a very sick child to be young. How can we reach him. How can we set him free. Radio house the University of Texas brings you the child beyond a series of recorded programs devoted to the exceptional child in our society. Areas of difficulty. His problem is in the avenues of adjustment open to him. Counseling with us in these broadcasts or authorities in the fields of medicine psychology therapy and special education. And mothers and fathers who have exceptional children in their own home.

We have need of them all. Their trained eyes their skilled hands their expert ears their understanding hearts. If we are to help the children whose particular problems we consider today. The children with emotional disturbances. And here is our series commentator Dr. William G will. The exceptional child has been defined as the child with a difference that makes a difference. And for many of our children that difference is clear. It is obvious it has been defined Binny's visual loss is 20 40 in the right eye and 20 70 in the other correct abou 20 20 sometimes has an extension contracture of the ankle. This woman says the tape her wearing braces to stretch the heel cord from our examination of can of we find that the bone conduction tests were normal and Acadian satisfactory auditory nerves but their conduction tests indicates an average loss of 45 db BS over the speech frequencies. I would recommend that cannot be given lip reading instructions and be fitted with a hearing aid at the earliest convenience.

The child knows of his difference and where it lies. The parents know there is a difference in their child and they know what it is. Benny and Phyllis and Kenneth are exceptions to the norm but their exceptionality is familiar. It is recognized. It is immediately apparent. And the new teacher the new friend the visiting grandmother the stranger on the street knows at first blush that the difference is their nose at a glance what its implications are. The little boy at the first desk wears glasses. His vision is poor. The little girl this is me wears braces. Her legs are weak not little clear plastic button in his ear. You can hardly see it but the child must be hard of hearing these children have a difference that makes a difference but that difference is seen is no one is taken into account. Sit at this table here Benny. That way the wind a glare on the blackboard won't strain your eyes. You the scorekeeper referee fellas cause you can't run and the doctor suggests that can it sit toward the front of the class this fall or so he can catch what you say and read your

lips for the words he misses. But for many of our children with a difference that makes a difference that difference is not so readily observed. Not so handily recognised not so universally classified. Drive past the school playground at recess time. The bars the swings the busy bare spots where grass has no time to grow. They're all alive with children. Children roistering children romping swinging running shouting sliding playing the games the children play making the noise the children make. Let's stop and look and listen. Happy Gay and carefree youngsters you'd say normal kids just being kids. Nobody lives here and nobody gropes his way. Nobody wears a hearing aid or or speaks unintelligibly or sits in a wheelchair or uses crutches. Nobody needs a special table or large print or special

exercises done to music. Just average everyday boys and girls each acting the way his age mates act looking the way her age mates look. But wait let's a little more closely listen a little more carefully is this really true. What do we see. What do we hear. Who is the child standing alone on the fringe of the ball game. Wistfully yearningly standing alone. Why doesn't he play and the girl who's pushing the swing she pushes so angrily. Did she mean to spill your the child out. Did she mean to skin her knees and tear her dress. What about the boy who is running in circles aimlessly frantically running as if the devil were after him. Or the one who keeps blinking his eyes blinking blinking over the sun isn't

that strong. Well the girl with the high shrill laugh Winnie's and whinnies like a nervous horse even when there's nothing to laugh about. Well these are exceptional children too. They take with them wherever they go. A difference that makes a difference but that difference is harder to spot. Harder to realize and to treat or to compensate for because it lies in the deep and tenuous world of the emotions. These are the children hamstrung by tension frozen by fear catapulted by hostility is an aggression. It's a burden of guilt does not show but it can buckle a child to his knees anxieties are not immediately visible to the untrained eye but they can be cloud a child's personality like cobwebs. Frustration has no buckles and straps but it can stop a child cold in its tracks. These are the differences that lie in ambush a color of the child's whole life with a black of despair that read of hate the yellow of cowardice.

But if we're too unschooled to recognize these differences too busy to notice too optimistic to wonder then they can leave a trail as thin as invisible ink for they often appear in misleading guys. The most loving little thing you ever saw. Obviously they're an affectionate family. Why I had been there five minutes when she was sitting in my lap hanging on to my hand like mad and just about to hug me and two. Tough little rascal unsure of himself. My don't live yet to see him ordering those other kids around. Born sergeant that boy. The most extraordinarily pliable child so good so polite so eager to please. Not like my youngsters. I'll bet she never had a stubborn ornery thought in her life. But does the feverish affection spring from love. Does the aggressive bossing the talk and leadership is the extraordinary compliance

truly amiable. Can we trust these emotions. Do these children feel as they seem to feel. Well for part of our answers to these questions we must look to the path a child takes to maturity to that sequence of steps between emphases and adulthood. We must look to the steps that lead from the self-centered world of the baby in which everything exists only as it serves his NEEDS to the society governed world of the grown up altered and adjusted to the rights and demands of others. For there is such a sequence of steps and its order is a strictly determined there's other things that children know. Did you ever try your wings at the high jump. Well the secret is to start low and work up just a little more each time. No no you'll never clear do you start off trying for that. Never in the world so it is with growing up. You must clear the first hurdles with success before you take the ones after and those before you can aim at the top. If the first ones are easy enough. If there is a helping hand Olympic child over

satisfaction and proficiency will help you master the next. But if the challenge is to Stern the child tries for too much too soon. He may stand flat footed for ever because we have made the hurdles too high. That is what happens to some of our children. That is why they're cloaked with the hard to see difference of emotional disturbance. Through lack of knowledge or love through carelessness or life circumstance they missed some of the spaces they were pushed or shoved or gang tore or coerced into the step ahead before they had tried for the step before the hurdles they were asked to face were too high. This is what happens to some of our children. This is what happened to Jack. His pattern of growth was twisted askew but who could tell it was being done for it began with.

So you wouldn't think holding a baby would make your arm hurt but it does. By the time he's through with that bottle I'm ready just gree my arm aches cleared of the shoulder. So I got this bottle holder and it really makes a difference. To me it made a difference to Jack for he skipped the space in a baby's life for security and warmth and affection and a cessation of hunger and blur into one big sensation of satisfaction and well-being. That was a big hurdle. Eating was a lonely business but there were other hurdles looming on ahead and it was only a question of time there aren't enough hours in the day to wash all those wet bed clothes and soiled underwear. Besides who wants to. It's so unpleasant I'm squeamish about things like that I'll admit it. So I just made up my mind that I wasn't going to fiddle around forever with his toilet

training. And once you make that clear to them it's ridiculous for a simple no muss no fuss no bother to anybody. You just give the most appalls a Tory or an enema no bother to anybody. Not to anybody. How about Jack. Well apparently not. Jack was cleaning the peeling his bed and his clothes were spotless and he didn't have to be told to wash his hands he washes them 20 times a day. I take credit for that I just said to him one day Don't touch me with all those horrible hands. If you want to be a germ factory all right but don't come anywhere near me. Well that made an impression let me tell you. It made an impression. Lots of mother's words did they always have. Careful there Jack. No messy eater is going to be my gentle boy. And here's your cereal. Don't spill a bite. It would be Jack was just naturally tractable. He didn't put up a fight the way lots

of children do. Even as a baby he wasn't any trouble. You hardly knew he was in the house. Oh he may have cried a little at first but mother knew how to do it to stop that cry. Oh I can take him off. I can hold them then rock it. Then you do it for the love of God like that. Wouldn't you like to be tied down to a rocking chair while you are locked up in your sanctum sanctorum working away at your precious writing. I'd like some peace and quiet around here. Course you would at my expense. He'd like it too. That's what he's screaming about he wants to be picked up. Well what's so wrong with picking up your own joy is yours. CHILD 2 Why don't you pick him up. You know as well as I do I've got to get this galley proof. Yes that's right you have something else to do. Well I have something else to do too. I'm playing bridge and Grace Iverson's just as soon as I get that little Tyrone quiet then get him quiet oh I'm going to by teaching him that all this caterwauling won't do him any good by showing him I'm onto his little game.

Babies don't have little games at Charenton I fit him an hour ago. Well then maybe is wet or something I don't know that right. You don't know but I do. I know that if I give in if I pamper him and you by picking him up now he's got me where he wants me. Right under his thumb where you'd like to have no may be since I being sensible very sensible. I'm teaching him knowledge teachings good that I'm not the sucker he thinks I am that I've got a life to live too. A little fact you seem unable to master but it's too late for you. You're so buried in your consuming contributions to this little digest and that little journal it would never occur to you that I might like some time of my own some outlet of my own. Please don't get off on that kick. You know this work has to be done. We've got to eat. Or do we. Food isn't everything you know attention is pretty important too. And consideration and companionship the material comforts of life

don't go very far if that's all you've got. And it would do you good my dear writer of learned articles from obscure magazines. It would do you good to remember that because all wife knows it all to me well. The material comforts of life don't go very far if that's all you've got a wife knows that all too well. But. Does a mother remember. Does she. Jack Harrison look at you. Your nose is bloody and your shirt torn. A brand new $4 shirt brawling little hooligan that's what you look like gentlemen at your age take pride in their appearance. Don't you have any pride at all. As a father remember all son quit pestering me. Do you have to be such a nuisance. If you want to do something what's wrong with a 40 dollar electric train you got for Christmas or some

of those other expensive toys. Grow up son a boy as big as you with everything on earth to play with or to be able to amuse himself. Gentleman your age a boy as big as you. Cleanliness. Pride self-sufficiency. Those are the hurdles Jack. Take them. Grow up. Nobody wants a baby around the house. It's too unpleasant. I'm squeamish about things like that. Nobody wants a little boy quit pestering me do you have to be such a nuisance. Babies cry babies have to be taken care of. Don't be a baby. Little boys are messy little boys get in fights and have valuable shirts. Don't be a little boy. Be a little gentleman he really is such a well-adjusted child quiet and docile as a lamb and such nice manners. He's a real credit to your magical model child grow up son that's the high hurdle. That's the big one. Can you make it Jack.

Have you made all the others go on Jack him. He called your milktoast gonna tarea and he ain't going to fight. Not that baby he's afraid of messing up his pretty hair again is pretty sure dirty make that run Mr milktoast. Mr mail. I can't make you out. You know know your lessons you're bound to with all that studying. But the teacher says you never open your mouth in class. And the children say he won't do anything won't play games won't take part and just stands and stares and and twists that lock of hair. They say it makes them feel funny to have him around. I don't know maybe the poor kid isn't all they. Know. Jack isn't all there. Now with the children who clear the low hurdle first to progress gradually and without too much

stress into happy social living with their fellow beings. For Jack is an emotionally disturbed child. Part of him is under wraps hidden away where it can't be hurt can't be criticized can't be shamed and humiliated will lose him approval or affection or prestige. But part of him is his back away standing immobile and frustrated and in despair rooted to a spot he cannot leave because somebody made the hurdles too high. Here again as our series commentator Dr. William G will professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas director of the Austin cerebral palsy center and a well-known lecturer in the field of special education with Dr. Wolfe to talk about Jack's problems and the

problems of other children whose difference lies in their emotional disturbance. I too with art is from the University of Texas. Dr. Wayne Holtzman associate professor of psychology and associate director of the Hogg foundation for Mental Hygiene and Dr. Carson McGuire professor of educational psychology and consultant in the field of human development and behavior. Dr. Wolfe thank you very much Mr. cavernous. Gentlemen may I welcome you to this series the child beyond Dr. Carson McGuire. Dr. Wayne Holzman. I would like to react to this script first if I'm a gentleman. I have been listening here very very interested in in this thing but I wondered all the way through. Where is Jack. Jack was not evident in the script. Now why is this Dr Holtzmann a maybe you would like to react to that particular feeling of mine. Where was Jack where is Jack now. I think we're all wondering where Jack was and probably Jack himself is wondering where Jack is. This may be one of the chief difficulties of Jack's problem. Let's

look back at where Jack was when his mother first found him and rejected him for the first time. If you remember in the script Jack was crying and his mother was very upset. He looked upon Jack more as an object a nuisance rather than something to be loved. And while we can't be sure in this short a a in exposure to this case of just what the causes are of his mother's rejection there are several possibilities which are common in some cases of this kind. For example it's obvious from the script that Jack's mother and father don't get along very well either. And in fact much of what Jack's mother is doing to Jack is symbolic of her discard with Jack's father. And then if we look back further we find that although Jack's mother has some insight into what she is doing to Jack that is some realisation of

how she may be affecting him. This is very fleeting. It is though she is unaware of the fact that she herself has probably lived a rather frustrating harsh life those are very interesting points Davido even the doctor McGuire and she's actually seeking the same thing with Janica. Yeah remember attention companionship consideration. And every time that this comes up instead of helping Jack instead of giving him the love and affection which he needs so badly at this time she is raising the herd a little higher. She is demanding of Jack that he be all at once an adult in everything that he does. You notice even when we have Jack as an infant with only the ability to cry and move around and do very primitive things of this sort. Jack's mother is demanding of Jack that that he stop playing this little game with me where she's looking a jerk as you say as an object.

The little tyrant. If I give in to him I'm going to going to be me. There we've forgotten the father. Remember he said babies cry. Grow up son. We might say the father would like to forget Jack. I believe that's a true gentleman. May I jump in here just a second. I have seen family situations practically the exact duplicate of the situation and the children resulting from that situation were not emotionally disturbed. Now is that possible that points up an important and rather baffling point. Well is it is it possible to have this but it's certainly possible and it poses one of the greatest problems a real challenge to present and future research in the field of child rearing practices and their effect on the later development of personality. We we find don't we Dr. Maguire that many children who come from families where the child rearing practices the environment are anything but good. And the child develops into an Abraham Lincoln

are somebody that is really great. Well if you look behind in those families and we've studied a number of them first of all there are some people there who make think who are consistent in the way they act toward that youngster. That's the crucial point of difference I think between these other families perhaps and the family that we just met and the world you know the Rose makes a ball about their age mate. Well there's another thing again with age mates. Well except a boy or it will accept a girl who doesn't make them uncomfortable. There are three things in this and this in Jack's life we have to know one in the family. Remember there is that little imp that little bit about washing his hands up 20 times a day. It appears that hit me there Mr milktoast he won't do anything to make you feel funny. And in the school he never wrote this move. Well there's a good reason for Jack sees the world as a dangerous place if he opens us most. I might get rejected I might get hit

again. I can't afford to. All right now we have a situation here that could result in most disturbed child or could not result in such a child. I think for the benefit of our listeners we might stop right now and define define the term emotionally disturbed child. Dr. McGuire. Can you define that term. Do you what is an emotionally disturbed child. Well emotionally disturbed child this to me is one who when he sees a situation with which he cannot cope doesn't know what to do. Just simply stops or attacks. I have a little cup but when thwarted or an attack deny detour or delay and most emotionally disturbed boys or girls act in that manner one further point to which characterizes the emotionally disturbed child is that he is at great unrest with himself. He is inside in turmoil unhappy with what he is achieving or what he wants to be. This I think is a

crucial aspect of adjustment and one which To the casual observer may not be too apparent. All right we've done identify the problem here fairly well. Let's say let's just pretend for a few minutes that Mr. and Mrs. Harrison are sitting right here. What things could you tell them that would help them number one. Number two what things could you have told them that would have prevented this. Let's start with number one. How can you help them now. What would you tell them. The first thing I I believe would be to stress this point which was mentioned a minute ago that the most important thing and good child rearing practices is the consistency of the discipline of the affection of whatever behavior the parent and the others that are significant to this child engage in. It isn't so much the discipline as good or bad are that there is too much protection or too little affection. It's the consistency which counts because only in this way can the child

learn what is expected of him and in turn can gain self-confidence. You know where you point we have to add one another point to that. If a childs watch knows that he's been manipulated earth even an unaware of it but is continually being manipulated is that of the world being sensible to him making sense. It becomes highly important then that the second bit of advice try to avoid manipulating and explain communicate if you can make sense to this boy or girl. Try to ask yourself why he behaves in the way he does rather than jumping in impulsively to punish him or to restrict him or to act in some way. That's excellent that is very very good. Now this is one thing to tell a person to do this and it's another for the person to be able to go home and say fine I'll do it. We all have within us deeply ingrained certain ways of behaving and perceiving others around us which cannot become be overcome. Vice a simple

advice very early get the help we're going to get help on this. There are several sources for example if Jack's parents had had the help of a family physician or a visiting nurse that could have prepared Jack's mother for what was going to happen when the baby was born. And then after the baby is born if they could have had the help of a visiting nurse or a pediatrician to work with them the simplify the routine so that would go easier. And then of course most important of all for Jack even now is to get some professional help form before it's too late. And here in many communities we have our child guidance centers our psychiatrists psychologists and others that make a profession of working with the individual that is seriously disturbed. Dr. McGuire could you add to Dr. Altman's list there of things to do to prevent this from happening. Well the next step is to provide positive opportunities for learning learning to learn to be a person alone to be to relate to other people to assume the obligations that we all have to do if we're going to live together in any

of the communities that you've talked about in this series. Anyway we're going to be achieving working person. There have to be opportunities. That means that this that one way or another the school has to fit in with this. The term flexible strength summarizes what we need. A person has to be flexible so that he can adapt and he has to be strong with inner resources so that he can withstand frustrations. Have a public education you'd add that of course with most school counselors you know and the teachers a very important source of help along this line of public education I think this particular series on the child beyond is playing a very important part you see. Gentlemen I think you know this but there are 13 programs in the series each one is devoted to a particular problem an exceptional child was allowing their children were using awareness and awareness is most important telling people to look for the why of behavior and the understanding of it not just the how and the what to do but why that's very important. That's very important. Dr. Haltzman Dr. Carson McGuire

May I personally thank you for being such wonderful consultants to this particular program. You have given us a lot of good advice and it is quite obvious to me and I hope to our listeners that one of Jack's major problems was the fact that the hurdles were too high. Thank you so very much. The hurdles too high it was brought to you by radio host the University of Texas as the Knights in a special series of programs titled the trial. Are. These recorded broadcaster devoted to the exceptional children in our society. Discussing the aspects of emotional disturbance in children with Dr. Wayne Holzman Dr. Carson McGuire and our series commentator Dr. William G will. The hurdles too high was prepared for broadcast by Jackie Summerfield from a script by the Durham twins with special music by owner played. Halo Adkins was Project Coordinator. Your announcer Bill kept. The child beyond was produced by Radio house of the University of Texas under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This

program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasting. This is the end AB tape network.