ABSTRACT
At any stage of childhood, from 12 months to 12 years, it makes sense to mothers that we should ask them to consider issues of socialisation, moral understanding and control – whatever words they may prefer to use in discussing these questions. At 12 months, even if a mother thinks the baby ‘can’t really be naughty at this age’, she still wants him to understand the word ‘No’ and, for his own safety and that of her possessions, to respond to it. By 4, the use of nurseries for some and the approach of school for all gives some urgency to the need for the child to accept ordinary social and group demands which are not tailored to his own idiosyncratic wishes; while his growing verbal sophistication creates new issues of falsehood, defiance and ‘cheek’. At 7, these issues remain, and there is a marked increase of conflict surrounding ‘not doing as he’s asked’ as opposed to ‘doing what he’s not supposed to do’, reflecting the greater demands on the child for specific kinds of behaviour.
