ABSTRACT
I have taken a new post with two little boys of five and three. They are very sweet little boys and I have grown very fond of them in a month, but this is where I need your help. D., aged five, is highly strung and sensitive, and C., aged three, not quite so highly strung as D., but both of them cry for the least thing and cannot bear to be corrected in any way. I have only to say to either of them, “Now don’t do this or that, dear”, and at once there is a cry. “I didn’t nurse,” or “I don’t. You are naughty to say that, nurse.” If either of them hurt or knock themselves they cry and grunt for half an hour or more, no matter what I say or do to comfort them. They keep on crying, “I am hurt badly, nurse, you must kiss it better”. I do not mind doing this, but I feel that as D. is five he ought not to be such a baby and want the hurt kissed better. Also D. seems to delight in, “keeping on”, as I call it, and if I say, “Now that is quite enough, stop at once”, he will shout out louder, “I am stopping it”, and will stamp his feet and get very red and cross. Then I put him in the night nursery and tell him he can come out as soon as he stops that horrible noise. He will then shout, “It is not a horrible noise, you mustn’t say that, nurse”. Both boys cry if I am not pleased with one of them. C. acts very much in the same way as D. but gets over it sooner and does not need to be shut up quite so often.
