children it the subject of not touching forbidden
things are at this stage a genuine wrong and injustice to the child.
So young a child is scarcely more responsible for touching whatever he
can reach that is a piece of steel for being drawn toward a powerful
magnet. Preyer says that it is years before voluntary inhibitions
of grasping become possible. The child has not the necessary brain
machinery. Commands and sparring of the hands create bewilderment and
tend to build up a barrier between mother and child. Instead of doing
such thing, simply put high out of reach and sight whatever the child
must not touch.

Another way in which young children are often made to suffer because
of the ignorance of parents is the leaving of undesired food on the
child's plate. Every child, when he does not want his food, pushes the
plate away from him, and many mothers push it back and scold. The real
truth is that the motor suggestion of the food upon the plate is so
strong that the child feels as if he were being forced to eat it every
time he looks at the plate; to escape from eating it he is obliged to
push it out of sight.

[Sidenote: The Three Months' Baby]

But this difficulty comes later. Now we are concerned with a
three-months-old baby. At this stage the child is usually able to
balance his head, to sit up against pillows, to seize and grasp
objects, and to hold out his arm, when he wishes to be taken.
Although he may have made number of efforts to sit erect, and may have
succeeded for a few minutes at a time, he still is far from being able
to sit alone, unsupported. This he does not accomplish until the fifth
or the month.

[Sidenote: Danger of Forcing]

There is nothing to be gained by trying to make him sit alone sooner;
indeed, there is danger in it--danger in forcing young bones and
muscles to do work beyond their strength, and danger also to the
nerves. It is safe to say that _a normal child always exercises all
its faculties to the utmost without need of urging, and any exercise
beyond the point of natural fatigue, if persisted in, is sure to bring
about abnormal results_.

[Sidenote: Creeping]

The first efforts toward creeping often appear in the bath when the
child turns over and raise, himself upon his hands and knees. This is
sign that he might creep sooner, if he were not impeded by clothing.
He should be allowed to spread himself upon a blanket every day for
an hour or two, and to get on his knees as f