Care of Children from One to Five Years
2nd Edition. :Author: John Gibbens, M.H., M.B., M.R.C.P., National Association for Maternity and Child Welfare Centres, and for the Prevention of Infantile Mortality. Eyre & Spottiswoode. Price 2s. 6d.
This little book, by a doctor, aims at dealing with the Physical care of the ordinary child. It gives a useful outline of diet and many suitable recipes, as well as some detailed information on the care of children during the c?mmon illnesses. About this aspect of the book it can only be said that it is simple and adequate and informed by sound common sense. But it deals as well with many general problems of upbringing and some specific difficulties of varying commonness amongst children, hke stuttering. The author has a progressive and ^lightened attitude to child care and, where this is enough, his book succeeds admirably. But it is high t’me that the mental health of children came to be fecognized as being as much the field of the expert as is their physical health. Knowledge is available and necessary in both fields, and common sense is not enough.
The section on Problems of Management is, at best, inadequate, and in this and allied sections of the book |.he author sadly overestimates the usefulness of uninjormed ” good sense ” to cope with the problems of even the normal child. Jealousy, bed wetting, stammering, Shyness, and showing off are much more profound in their causes and more difficult to deal with than he thinks, and in the case of stammering and thumb sucking and n?cturnal enuresis his advice is not likely to be helpful. R.T.
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