heir elders,
the simulation is not likely to be so successful as to deceive even a
superficial observer. But within the limits of their own powers,
children are past masters in attracting attention. The little child is
unable to take part in any sustained conversation; most of his
talking, indeed, is done when he is alone, and is addressed to no one
in particular. But he knows well that by a given action he can produce
a given reaction in his mother and nurse. A great part of what is said
to him--too great a part by far--comes under the category of reproof
or repression. He is forbidden to do this or that, coaxed, cajoled,
threatened long before he is old enough to understand the meaning of
the words spoken, although he knows the tone in which they are uttered
and loves to produce it at will. How he enjoys it all! Watch him draw
near the fire, the one place that is forbidden him. He does not mean
to do himself harm. He knows that it is hot and would hurt him, but
for the time being he is out of the picture and he is intent on
producing the expected response, the reproof tone from his mother
which he knows so well. He approaches it warily, often anticipating
his mother's part and vigorously scolding himself. He desires nothing
more than that his mother should repeat the reproof, forbidding him a
dozen times. The mind of all little children tends easily to work in a
groove. It delights in repetition and it evoking not the unexpected
but the expected. If his sport is stopped by his mother losing
patience and removing him bodily from the danger zone, his sense of
impotence finds vent in passionate crying. But if his mother takes no
notice, the sport soon loses its savour. He is conscious that somehow
or other it has fallen flat, and he flits off to other employment.

Mothers will complain that children seem to take a perverse pleasure
in evoking reproof, appeals, entreaties, and exhortations. A small boy
of four who had several times repeated the particular sin to which his
attention had been directed by the frequency of his mother's warnings
and entreaties, finding that on this occasion she had decided to take
no notice, approached her with a troubled face: "Are you not angry?"
he said; "are you not disappointed?" In reality the naughty child is
often only the child who has become master of his mother's or his
nurse's responses, and can produce at will the effect he desires. The
idea that the child possesses a strong will,