ABSTRACT
The feeling of social approval within the framework of a co-operative and accepted group, as opposed to a group of outcasts, makes for a positively orientated personality. But if children feel disapproved-of by the adults, and cannot enlist their support in establishing positive social relationships among themselves, then in the presence of adults they will withdraw behind a protective wall of indifference, and among themselves it will all too often be the survival of the toughest, strongest and most ruthless. If the fear is the fear of a particular adult’s disapproval, then in proportion as the need for that approval diminishes as the child grows more knowledgeable and independent, so does the efficacy of the discipline. Children’s primary needs and impulses are far stronger, their primary response patterns more firmly set than the newly-acquired ones learnt through self-control.
