ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the notion of the nervous child was used as a tool in expressing anxieties about modern society and its problems in Finland at the turn of the century. It argues that the particular child figure reflected pressing concerns over the nation's future, namely, how the predisposition of its citizens should remain pure, healthy and morally sound. The chapter concerns early writings on children's nervousness in Finnish medical journals, instructional booklets and health-educational magazines. It focuses on Suomen terveydenhoitolehti, one of the leading health-educational periodicals, in which children's nervousness was frequently addressed, and in most cases related to schooling. The chapter suggests that children's nervousness was far from being regarded as 'harmless' or normalised, but rather conceptualised as a dystopic symptom of modernity, intimately linked to notions of citizenship. It argues that childhood, as represented by the unwanted nervous child, is fundamental to understanding modernity, an aspect many scholars tend to have overlooked.
