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Discipline for "delicate" children
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6835
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:03 am ]
Post subject:  Discipline for "delicate" children
The discussion about the Maynard confession system's made me wonder how this fitted in with the idea that the Maynards weren't quite as strict with Margot as with the other two because she was "delicate". It's never really made clear exactly what went on, or whether there's supposed to be any link between that and Margot's poor behaviour as a teenager: I think EBD tied herself in knots with this because she always blamed bad behaviour on a bad upbringing but never wanted to criticise Joey and Jack's parenting. Are there any examples anywhere of Margot getting away with things because Joey and Jack were reluctant to be too harsh with her, or are we meant to assume that anything like that happened in the gap between Rosalie and Three Go?

There's also a really sick-making scene in one of the Tyrol books in which Robin throws water out of the window at Die Rosen and drenches Eigen, and we're then told that dear little Robin couldn't possibly be punished because punishments upset her too much and so all that happened was that she was told to apologise and Madge had "a little tender talk" with her about how she shouldn't go around chucking water over people. Surely if she was well enough to "do the crime" then she was well enough to be punished for it? If Rix or David'd done the same thing then they'd've got a good smack, and Peggy or Bride would probably have been sent to bed early and deprived of treats for a few days.

I completely understand not wanting to discipline a seriously ill child, although that's not the situation with either Robin or Margot, and can sort of understand not wanting to upset one who is "delicate", but I'm not quite sure what line EBD was taking here. Are we meant to think that Margot played up later on because she got away with things as a child, or just because she was naughty, or a bit of both? And why show Robin playing a normal sort of prank but then go back to the idea what she was some sort of angel by saying that she couldn't be punished properly?

Hope that makes sense!
Author:  Clare [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I can't recall any time where Margot isn't reprimanded for wrong doing because of her delicacy, but it is an interesting point! It would explain an awful lot about her struggles in later life if she'd been used to getting away with things when she was younger.
Author:  Lesley [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I think Robin was onto a good thing here! She could pretty much get away with murder and afterwards her punishment would be solely having to apologise and maybe go to bed early - something she was used to doing anyway! :wink:

Seriously though - for Robin, who was a very bidable child, the lack of punishment was not a problem, however it was seen that, for Margot, not facing up to the consequences of her actions meant that she never learnt. While the Maynards in general blame Lydia for Rolf's death, I think, justifiably, we can blame Joey's lack of discipline when Margot was young to her temper later on. In a way it's a pity that EBD didn't make this more apparent - she does have Joey blame herself for not disciplining Margot when she was very frail and thought likely not to survive - but this is never seen as poor parenting. It would have made Joey more realistic to see she made mistakes (as all parents do) rather than hold her up as a parenting paragon.
Author:  JB [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I can’t think of a specific occasion when Margot is treated differently but Joey does tell someone that because she believed Margot may only have a short time on earth, she wanted that to be a happy one, which does imply a different standard. By the early Swiss books, Margot’s “devil” has appeared and is blamed for bad behaviour. As has been said elsewhere on here, that’s a concept which you’d expect a much younger child to come up with, rather than an 11 year old.

I can believe from what we see in Rescue, that Margot had been treated differently until that point and that it continued. Margot’s first mentioned as “delicate” in Highland Twins and by Rescue, Len and Con are clearly used to making allowances for their sister’s behaviour.

This is from Three Go:

Quote:
Margot was the most difficult of the three. She was frankly selfish, and possessed of what her father called ‘a hair-trigger temper.’ Luckily both parents were vigilant with faults so obvious, and already she was improving.


There’s a reference in the next para to “Margot’s fits of unbridled rage” and she is on the point of a tantrum when she has to allow Steve to take his turn with the fishing net (she subsides after she catches Charles’ eye). It does seem from this that Joey and Jack are treating Margot more like the others and that she doesn’t like it.

We see in Changes that Margot, a bright child, is aware of how she can manipulate people (sorry, that’s harsher than I meant but I couldn’t think of a better word) when she tries to be in same form as Emerence and is certain that Joey wouldn’t allow her to stay behind in England. She knows she can sometimes get what she wants through bad behaviour.

I don’t know what line EBD was taking with Margot and I’m not sure she did. I wonder if she always had in mind that Margot would become a nun and that led to her being a more “difficult” child who struggled with her vocation, although if that was what she was trying to do, it doesn’t convince me. It seems to me more that Margot hadn’t learned she was the only person who could control her temper and that she hoped entering the church would solve that problem for her.

The part about Robin in Eustacia is interesting as I think it’s in that book that Robin suddenly becomes much more delicate. In Head Girl, she’s able to skate across the lake (although we’re later told she’d never learned to skate because of her delicacy) and in Rivals she runs around the Lake to St Scholastika’s when Joey was ill. I agree with you Alison that a simple punishment, eg no jam for tea would have been perfectly in order. Robin is quite old enough to understand that actions have consequences. A few books later, in Lintons, she is sent to bed early for a week as punishment for a prank.

Sorry, this turned into an essay.
Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 11:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Alison H wrote:
Surely if she was well enough to "do the crime" then she was well enough to be punished for it?


Now cherishing the idea of Alison H jumping up from corners at Die Rosen shouting, 'You did the crime, now do the time, Robin Humphries!' :D

I'd agree that Margot's delicacy meaning she was held to less exacting standards of behaviour is kind of done retrospectively - we never see it in action at all that I can think of, it's something Joey says about the distant past when Margot is in her teens and physically fine. But then, we never really see Margot's famous delicacy up close either - it also tends to get talked about retrospectively, often to justify the decision to send her to Canada for the 'bracing' winter. And later, Joey tends to say that Charles was the one who was really frail, and who really alarmed her - yet, given his almost saintly behaviour throughout, there's no indication he was disciplined any less or any differently to his stronger siblings...?

I suppose, as others have said, we're up again against EBD's desire to give the Maynards a plot-driving, problem child, without it being their 'fault' as parents for wrongly indulging her (cf Rolf Maynard, Emerence 'Firebug' Hope etc.)
Author:  cestina [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 11:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I suspect that Robin was one of those children to whom a firm word, or even a "tender little talk" would have been as severe as a punishment.
Author:  Mel [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I agree that we never 'see' Margot's delicacy which is mentioned only occasionally. She is never treated as Robin was, with early bedtime and extra milk, or unable to join her sisters at the CS like Barbara Chester. To EBD, who had a slightly morbid interest in fragility, she picked on it later as it made Joey even more iinteresting and special to have a delicate child to worry over.
Author:  linda [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
cestina wrote:
I suspect that Robin was one of those children to whom a firm word, or even a "tender little talk" would have been as severe as a punishment.


As a small child, living in the same house as my grandparents, I would much rather have the smack from my mother or gran (more damaging to pride than person) than the 'talk' from my granddad when I had been naughty. The smack was over and done with, but with grandad, I had to think about what I had done, why I had done it and what I was going to do to set matters right. Granddad was a lovely, gentle man, but very scary when I'd been naughty.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I'm another who thinks that the talk with Robin would have been enough, and that anything further would just have been a token gesture which might actually have upset her more by making her think that she hadn't been forgiven and so making her fret.

I'm not quite sure about Margot. As others have said, it seems to be very much a retrospective thing (and why does Charles have so much influence over her?) but at the same time, a very plausible explanation for her behaviour. I wonder if EBD ever realised that she was essentially saying that Jack and Jo were as bad as other "bad" parents in the series, or if that angle never crossed her mind?
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
She completely contradicts herself over Margot. We repeatedly get remarks about how important it is to "train" children from birth upwards and how the Hopes are to blame for Emerence's behaviour, etc, and how the Maynards are a perfect example of how to train your children, and it doesn't seem to occur to her that if that's the case - which it isn't, plenty of lovely people who try very hard to be good parents end up with troublemakers for children - then the Maynards have to be to blame for Margot's behaviour!

With Sybil, we even get Joey saying that Madge has been the perfect mother and can't be to blame for Sybil's behaviour, and that again contradicts the whole idea that if a child is naughty then it's the parents' fault. I think that a lot of Sybil's problems were due to competing for attention in an overcrowded nursery, and that wasn't entirely Madge and Jem's fault - they agreed to look after Dick and Mollie's children but were hardly to know that they'd have four in about five years and then get stranded in India because of war, that Jem's long-lost sister would land on their doorstep with another two kids, or that Ted would be killed in an accident and leave them to bring up Robin - but instead of saying that Madge and Jem had tried hard under difficult circumstances EBD just says that Madge was "the perfect mother".
Author:  Kathy_S [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 11:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I feel as though I'm repeating myself, but since it has about as much effect as pointing out that the only CS character who ever declares lime green her favourite color is Con:

Margot is not "blaming her devil" in the sense of being possessed/forced to do anything. She is blaming herself for listening to said devil rather than to her guardian angel. Nor is this personal devil likely to have been made of whole cloth by a young child. The concept that a person's guardian angel has a counterpart demon/devil/bad angel has been around at least since miracle plays and probably much longer. (This duality might or might not have its roots in the Zoroastrianism that so influenced some Jewish and Christian scriptures.) It wasn't at all unusual for this form of personification of the wrestling of conscience to be used as a teaching tool -- illustrations of nasty little purple-spotted green devils whispering in your ear, for example -- at least until the age when authority figures began to focus on somewhat more worldly sources of temptation, e.g. "bad company." (No, personal demons are not official church doctrine -- but neither are guardian angels, despite the fact that almost all Catholics Margot's age would have learned the "Angel of God" prayer at a very tender age.) Presumably Margot has been influenced by this idea in one of its many popular guises and simply continued to use the language more graphically and at an older age than usual except among some poets and their ilk.*

I strongly disagree with both the idea that Margot "never learns" and that her temper and other nastier manifestations are simply because she isn't punished enough. I see her as one of the most realistic characters precisely because she doesn't just, poof!, get over a besetting sin. She backslides. Badly. But by the time she's a prefect, she's got the physical restraint down and is working hard enough at the rest to go to Hilda and confess when she loses it at hockey practice. I daresay she'll never develop a truly angelic temperament -- but most of us do have faults we have to keep sitting on or channeling appropriately all of our lives. (It's also true that we don't see too much of Margot's more grown up actions in the text -- we're usually only told how much she improves -- but the fact is that it would have been harder to instill enough "action" into most of the good behavior to help sell books, especially when Margot is only one of a fairly extensive cast of characters. )

The one whose progression makes no sense to me is Jack Maynard, whom Jo seems to think has had an angelic temper from childhood as late as Jo to the Rescue, but who so worries about going too far physically later in life that he shuns misbehaving children, possibly causing more harm than good.

*OK, also some nuns, but I'm not sure EBD would have thought that far ahead.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
But I don't think anyone is suggesting for a moment that Margot is possessed, or coerced, or believes she is, or that she's suffering from anything more than a misapplication of a common, well-meant but psychologically unhelpful (spectacularly so, in her case) method of teaching morality to small children by personifying id and super-ego as devil and angel.

Of course Margot doesn't 'invent' her own devil. Many Catholic children of Margot's generation and after would have been taught this kind of thing - I certainly got it as a child, only it was more to do with bad deeds making my guardian angel cry, and telling lies making the devil smile - but for some reason it seems to stick more and take on a somewhat alarming life of its own in Margot's mind, more than in her sisters'. As we see when Joey tells all three about bad deeds grieving the Christ Child in Rescue, Len and Con would have had the same amount of contact with the idea of good and bad deeds making personifications of good and evil happy or sad, but they clearly grow out of it and learn to integrate their good and bad impulses and acknowledge them as theirs alone, and not the promptings of some other agency. Margot doesn't, for years, and I think what alarms me, as well as the fact that a girl in her teens is still talking about 'listening to my devil', is the way in which her family and her circle are prepared to go along with her in this. It enables her to let herself off the hook about her temper by seeming to imply that her break-outs are partly prompted by something that's at least somewhat external to her, therefore she's less responsible for them. It's the defence of Adam in Eden, passing on part of the blame - 'The woman gave it to me, and I ate!'

I find Margot very interesting, certainly more so than her plaster-saint sister Len (though, then again, Len's guilt complex is interesting, and possibly comes from the same root in Maynard childhood morality via all-seeing supernatural forces as Margot's devil!), and I don't think her continuing problems with rage have anything to do with insufficient punishment as a child. (I think that's invented retrospectively, as others have said, to account for the fact that perfect parenting has nonethless resulted in a problem child). But I do think the way the Maynard children were taught about religion and morality clearly stuck with her in an damaging way, and gives her a kind of excuse for her own behaviour. I think someone forcing her to acknowledge that her devil is a self-serving fiction, and that her bad and good deeds are her own would have been massively helpful.
Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 7:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
When does Margot's Devil first appear? I don't remember its existence much before her return from Canada - could she have picked up the idea there? Although I think it is in Rescue that she asks Jo to 'bless her guardian angel', so clearly at that point she believes she has an angel watching over her, even if she hasn't produced her devil yet.

Also, at what point does Margot stop referring to her devil? I've only got the pb version of Theodora, and I know it's heavily cut, but in it Margot herself never refers to her devil - it's the narrative that does ("Margot's devil may have been scowling, but her guardian angel..." etc). To me there's a big difference between the two.
Author:  JB [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:

Quote:
I think someone forcing her to acknowledge that her devil is a self-serving fiction, and that her bad and good deeds are her own would have been massively helpful.


I think you've summed it up beautifully, there.

Nightwing, this is from Does It Again which was the first reference I could find when i word searched the transcripts:

Quote:
Margot swallowed hard. Then she said, “Mother, I didn’t really mean to be naughty yesterday afternoon. It was just my devil inside me.”

Jo had to suppress a giggle. Margot was apt to blame a good many of her evil-doings on the devil inside her and the matter-of-fact way in which she spoke of him had its comic side


This is from Leader (Margot is talking to Len and Con after Hilda's threat to keep the whole form down if they don't work harder):

Quote:
“Oh, yes; it was worth it all aright; but oh, how hard it is to keep it up all the time!” Margot sighed. “Nearly as hard as not to listen to my devil. He still keeps on at me, Len. I have to be forever slapping him down!”


The later references I found talk about him (Margot's devil) retrospectively.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
And the rest of that conversation in Leader between Margot and Len is really interesting too:
Quote:
“But so have we all,” Len replied.
“Don’t tell me! You and Con haven’t any devils-or not like mine!”
“But we have. Everyone has. They’re all a little different, I suppose. After all, it’s only another name for temptation. I know you’ve always talked of ‘my devil,’ but it’s the same old devil for everyone, only he gets at your weak side.”
Margot thought this over. “It hadn’t struck me in that light. I don’t see that you and Con have to do anything like the fighting I have.”
“That’s all you know!” Len paused. Then she went on shyly, “I have to fight to keep my temper often. And then you know how untidy I am by nature. I hate having to take time to put things away decently. It’s so much easier to cram them in just anywhere.”
Margot gasped. “But you’re the tidiest of us all!” she cried.
“Only because I’ve made myself; and even now it isn’t easy.”
“Gosh! What a shock!


There you have Len trying to make Margot accept that everyone has a 'devil' in the sense of being tempted, and that Margot doesn't have a personal one of her own. But at the end of the conversation, Len reverts back to the old terminology and tells Margot to 'keep fighting that devil of yours', which kind of lets her off the hook again.

I know Margot is reforming at this point - and the reason she's in trouble now is down to Hilda, rather unfairly, threatening to demote the entire form - but her point of view here seems self-absorbed and rather infantile. She doesn't seem to recognise that other people also struggle, even people she knows almost as well as she knows herself. (Admittedly, none of the rest of us knew Len was 'naturally' untidy either!) Even the Fifth form, and considering becoming a nun, she still doesn't seem quite able to let go of the idea that she has a personal struggle with some kind of evil force which is worse than other people's - her devil is like an outgrown toy she won't stop playing with...?

We are told
Quote:
Joey objected to sophisticated youngsters and had rather tended to keep her own in the nursery longer than most and to treat them still as children when, as in the case of Margot in particular, they were beginning to feel themselves quite old enough to strike out for themselves.


But this seems like Margot is mentally younger than the other two triplets.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I think that Margot is a contradiction in a mystery in an enigma! I do wonder if perhaps her insistence on her 'devil' can be linked to the same root problems as Sybil's behaviour, which I know is also being discussed at the moment. After all, she's also separated from her family, and that would probably be even harder for her being a triplet; she can see that she is being treated differently to her other siblings.

But, if we accept EBD's retrospective theory that she was punished less than the other children in her childhood, then it could be that bringing up her devil, knowing that it's childish, will win her more attention. Her place in the family is the naughty one, but if she takes that all of the way then she will be outcast again, and so she blames these things on a devil. It's a way of absolving herself and of gaining attention from her parents without being punished for it.

Or perhaps it was just the easiest way for EBD to explain her actions to a young readership, which was, after all, what she was aiming at :dontknow:
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Joey's amusement in Does It Again is the sort of amusement you'd get over a child blaming a misdeed on an imaginary friend telling them that they had to do it. It's harmless and, to an adult, quite funny in a child of 5 or 6, but Margot was 10 or 11 by then. The fact that she's still talking about it when she's 16 is more worrying.

We get, for example, adverts showing someone being tempted by a devil to eat a very fattening bar of chocolate, but they clearly aren't meant to be taken seriously - it's just a way of talking about temptation and resisting it or giving into it. What Len says about "my devil" just being another name for temptation is very true, very sensible and, in a 16-year-old girl, very mature, and effectively that's what's going on, but Margot doesn't seem to accept that. It's really quite concerning that she seems to think Len and Con are naturally "good" - has she been made to think that she's full of sin and the others aren't?
Author:  Kathy_S [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I think EBD makes it glaringly obvious that blaming "my devil" rather than oneself for giving in to it is not legitimate. However, once Margot grows beyond her early childhood concepts, and sees her obligation as fighting "her devil" and all it symbolizes, however "hard" it may be, I see nothing objectionable about the language. From a literary point of view, it's just another window through which readers watch a character growing out of the self-centeredness of childhood.

I also think it's important to point out that a fair number of Christians do take the concept of Satan (if not personal devils) fairly literally rather than as purely symbolic language. To call anyone's reference to their obligation to fight "his" influence, within and without, an evasion of responsibility, would be extremely offensive. I get the impression that EBD herself, fresh from her baptismal promises to reject Satan (And all his works. And all his empty promises.) is poised somewhere between a literal and figurative understanding of temptation. See, for example, the speech of Soeur Marie-Anne in Theodora.
Author:  Tor [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Kathy_S wrote:
Quote:
I get the impression that EBD herself, fresh from her baptismal promises to reject Satan . . . is poised somewhere between a literal and figurative understanding of temptation.


Yes, I agree with this (although I don't think we can call EBD 'fresh from her baptismal promises' by the time we get to the triplets teenage years). And I think therein lies the problem, because I don't agree that:

Quote:
I think EBD makes it glaringly obvious that blaming "my devil" rather than oneself for giving in to it is not legitimate.


As there would hardly be so many conflicting opinions on this subject if this were the case. I feel that EBD hasn't fully articulated/worked out her own beliefs regarding the role of Satan, and this results in a rather mixed up representation of things like Margot's devil, and then more straight-forward, presumably authorially-approved discussion on Satan and his works. I am procrastinating at work and don't have books to hand, but I am sure there are a few mentions by EBD-as-author (maybe in Theodora...?) in the Swiss books of Margot's devil getting the better of her, or the upper hand, and this to me suggests that she is, in some way, condoning Margot's own use of 'her devil' as an excuse (or at least in mitigation of her behaviour).

This is off-topic rather, so to try and drag it back to Alison's original point about delicate children and discipline, Margot and the Robin are very interesting as completely contrasting characters with superficially similar character arcs:

indulged, beautiful, delicate child grows up to become nun.

The difference here appeasrs to be entirely due to the individual temperament of each, and perhaps harks back to EBD placing more value on innate characteristics rather than upbringing, desite her protestations to the contrary...?
Author:  Caroline [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Tor wrote:
Kathy_S wrote:
Quote:
I get the impression that EBD herself, fresh from her baptismal promises to reject Satan . . . is poised somewhere between a literal and figurative understanding of temptation.


Yes, I agree with this (although I don't think we can call EBD 'fresh from her baptismal promises' by the time we get to the triplets teenage years).


Maybe not, but as an adult convert to Catholicism, she was perhaps a lot closer to those promises (and presumably took them a lot more seriously) than many people would be...
Author:  Tor [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Quote:
Maybe not, but as an adult convert to Catholicism, she was perhaps a lot closer to those promises (and presumably took them a lot more seriously) than many people would be...


out of interest, and at risk of veering OT again, are these promises any different in Catholicism to those in CoE/Anglican? I was brought up Catholic, and don't know much about baptism in other denominations. I'd always assumed they were broadly similar.
Author:  Sunglass [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Tor wrote:
out of interest, and at risk of veering OT again, are these promises any different in Catholicism to those in CoE/Anglican? I was brought up Catholic, and don't know much about baptism in other denominations. I'd always assumed they were broadly similar.


I don't think they are significantly different. I stood godmother to a C of E baby a couple of years ago, and I must have been comparing the two, because I remember saying to the vicar afterwards that the C of E rite didn't have the godparents renouncing the 'glamour of evil' on behalf of the baby, as Catholicism used to (don't know whether it still does.)

Which does make evil sound wonderfully attractive and like a rather good nightclub. (I now like to imagine Margot's personal devil - which I'd agree with Cosimo's Jackal is at least sometimes an authorially-condoned evasion of her own moral responsibility - as like Liz Hurley in that awful film where she played the devil, in one of the odder casting decisions of film history. :D )

Back on topic, I was wondering whether EBD was conflating sensitivity with fragility when she suggests the delicate child can't really be disciplined. She tells us several times about Robin's 'sunny' nature as a small child (and credits it in part with Robin not succumbing to TB because she's placid and doesn't fret over what she can't do), but there seems to be another side to Robin too, which is desperately sensitive, emotional and rather fearful. The best way to punish her is to make her feel that her beloved Joey is in trouble on account of her (which seems a bit hard on poor Joey, who is a sort of whipping boy for Robin, who can't be punished!), she gets terribly emotional when she's parted from her for even short periods (in Exploits, she 'falls into her arms, sobbing with excitement and happiness' after two weeks of term apart), she frets herself into serious decline overnight at Fulpmes when Joey and co are stranded on the glacier, and cries herself hysterical when she's locked in briefly by the bad temporary Matron.

None of this sounds precisely 'sunny' to me - quite the opposite, this sounds like a child who lost her mother young and has attachment issues - and I could understand why you would need to be careful about punishing such a sensitive, emotional child, who frets herself into illness so easily. But I wouldn't have said Robin was typical, or anything like Margot, who is much more assertive and secure as a child - even if they both end up as nuns!
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Sunglass wrote:
The best way to punish her is to make her feel that her beloved Joey is in trouble on account of her (which seems a bit hard on poor Joey, who is a sort of whipping boy for Robin, who can't be punished!)


I've wondered about how that would work, too. Robin is such an obedient child her misdeeds are practically nil anyway, but I have difficulty imagining many situations where the Robin could have got Joey in trouble, other than, say, letting Joey carry her about, thereby overtiring herself!

I agree that Robin in Tyrol days shows a lot of behaviour that isn't as placid as EBD always declares she is. I've always found it odd that while she's so calm and in control about actually seeing for herself how seriously ill Joey is in Rivals (even if she's not old enough to recognise symptoms, the description of what Joey looked and sounded like when unconscious sounds quite frightening, especially for a small child who adores her), but then is so frightened over Joey's absence on the glacier that she makes herself seriously ill overnight.

Sunglass wrote:
But I wouldn't have said Robin was typical, or anything like Margot, who is much more assertive and secure as a child - even if they both end up as nuns!


Though there is that bit where Jack deals with Margot's tantrum in Rescue (I haven't got the book nearby, so correct any wrong details) simply by sitting next to her and ignoring her, and that seems to make her violently upset in a minute or two. Which feels quite different to the feisty little creature who stamps her foot at Marie and calls her a 'horrid old thing'!
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
But I don't think that that's what EBD says at all. As far as I remember, she says that the best way of keeping Joey in check is to remind her that when she's punished it upsets the Robin. So it isn't about punishing the Robin, or her leading Joey astray; Joey has done something wrong and has to be punished, and she's told not to do it again because it upsets the Robin.

From 'Princess':

Quote:
The baby adored the elder girl with her whole warm little heart. She looked up to Jo as an elder sister who petted her and looked after her and any punishment of her idol meant sorrow to her. The people who had charge of the pair had soon found that the surest way of keeping Joey out of mischief was to remind her that the Robin was almost invariably heartbroken when she was in trouble. As Joey returned the baby's adoration, it was always a safe deterrant.
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I think that's awful. Talk about emotional blackmail! It's bad enough when you're an adult and someone plays the "Well, your mum/dad/sister/brother/whoever else is going to be very upset if you do/don't ...," card, without doing it to two children!
Author:  Sunglass [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
ChubbyMonkey wrote:
But I don't think that that's what EBD says at all. As far as I remember, she says that the best way of keeping Joey in check is to remind her that when she's punished it upsets the Robin. So it isn't about punishing the Robin


She does also say that, though, that seeing Joey in trouble because of her own misdeeds is one of the only 'two really effective punishments' the Robin can actually have. This is from the throwing water out the window incident in Eustacia:

Quote:
Madge Russell had said that there were only two really effective punishments for the Robin, for she was so delicate that many measures of discipline had to be neglected in her case. But to see her beloved Jo in trouble through her fault, or to be made to apologise for any of her small misdeeds, were quite enough for her.


Perhaps poor Joey gets scolded for not preventing the Robin's few moments of madness and water-hurling! Though I could quite understand the younger Joey surreptitiously encouraging the Robin to be naughty in the 'nice naughty', letting off steam way that normal CS junior Middles always are. With the way being biddable and instantly obedient is tied directly into her health (so being 'good' is not just about not bothering the adults, it's supposedly keeping her alive), the Robin misses out on an awful lot of the fun most CS girls have. I could see Joey understanding that and encouraging a few minor pranks.

I'm never that sure why Robin has a basin of water somewhere that isn't the bathroom, anyway. I know she's shown washing gloves at Die Rosen at another point, but that was in the bathroom sink, and surely she can't spend all her time doing handwashing? :D :dontknow:

Also, that the Robin isn't more thoroughly punished is said to be only because of her health here, not because she is a very well-behaved child who only needs a gentle talking to once in a blue moon. I wonder what EBD would have thought appropriate punishment for wetting Eigen if Robin had been exactly the same child, but not delicate?
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Sunglass wrote:

I'm never that sure why Robin has a basin of water somewhere that isn't the bathroom, anyway. I know she's shown washing gloves at Die Rosen at another point, but that was in the bathroom sink, and surely she can't spend all her time doing handwashing? :D :dontknow:


My (screwball) theory is that it was pee, rather than water, and that the basin was actually a potty, and the reason Robin says the bathroom was too far away is because she hadn't made it there in time. In which case poor Eigen has all my sympathy...
:devil:
Author:  JB [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Sunglass wrote:

Quote:
I'm never that sure why Robin has a basin of water somewhere that isn't the bathroom, anyway.


I assumed they had jugs of water and bowls in their room for washing. Given all the people living at Die Rosen at various times (I count 17 adults and children in holiday time once the Venables have arrived, plus the domestic staff), they'd have needed a lot of bathrooms to cope or there'd be a very big queue for one or two bathrooms.
Author:  Tor [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I like JBs theory - though it is always possible that Robin had completely premeditated the trick, and had brought the basin to the room expressly for the purpose of throwing over someone. :twisted:
Author:  JB [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Tor wrote:

Quote:
I like JBs theory


Thanks. Although with the lack of bathrooms, i'm inadvertently supporting Cosimo's Jackal's theory too. :oops:
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
JB wrote:
Tor wrote:

Quote:
I like JBs theory


Thanks. Although with the lack of bathrooms, i'm inadvertently supporting Cosimo's Jackal's theory too. :oops:


I like all evidence there were only one or two bathrooms at Die Rosen, because I can imagine Jack and Joey (when he's living there, she's home for the holidays, and it's more crowded in general) continually 'accidentally' running into one another in their dressing gowns on the way to the bath and exchanging droll, proto-flirtation banter.

At peak times, it must have all needed to be quite regimented in terms of bathtimes, even if everyone had washstands in their rooms...
Author:  Lyanne [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
JB wrote:
Tor wrote:

Quote:
I like JBs theory


Thanks. Although with the lack of bathrooms, i'm inadvertently supporting Cosimo's Jackal's theory too. :oops:


I like all evidence there were only one or two bathrooms at Die Rosen, because I can imagine Jack and Joey (when he's living there, she's home for the holidays, and it's more crowded in general) continually 'accidentally' running into one another in their dressing gowns on the way to the bath and exchanging droll, proto-flirtation banter.

At peak times, it must have all needed to be quite regimented in terms of bathtimes, even if everyone had washstands in their rooms...


And we see that regimentation down to the next generation when Len stamps on her toothpaste at Die Blumen...

Thinking about disciplining delicate children, with my younger son having been diagnosed with asthma as a baby, I know we disicpline him in different ways than if he did not have asthma. One can't/won't risk leaving a toddler to scream a temper out if he's likely to really loose his breath and need his inhaler. It's something I have felt resentful of at times, that I know that we let him get away with misbehaviours that my elder son would have been more disciplined for. Though that fits more with Margot than Robin, as Robin doesn't seem to get away with anything.
Author:  hac61 [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
I've always found it odd that while she's so calm and in control about actually seeing for herself how seriously ill Joey is in Rivals (even if she's not old enough to recognise symptoms, the description of what Joey looked and sounded like when unconscious sounds quite frightening, especially for a small child who adores her), but then is so frightened over Joey's absence on the glacier that she makes herself seriously ill overnight.


Not odd to me at all.

I find it much easier to stay in control when I can see what's going on, even if that is bad.

If you don't know what's going on then the imagination can suggest all sorts of things that scare one rigid. (I do it regulary when the person I care for is out longer than planned, even to the point of giving myself asthma trouble.)


hac
Author:  Nightwing [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
What EBD says about the Robin's reaction to punishment makes me think of what my Mum has said about my brother - that she could never do any of those "naughty step" type punishments, because he got so upset when he was ignored that she felt it was bordering on emotional abuse. Presumably it was similar for the Robin - that "everyone hates me" feeling you get when you're punished as a child was actually terrifying for her.
Author:  Abi [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
That makes sense, actually. My youngest sister used to be completely demoralised if my mum even just looked at her sternly! I can easily believe that Robin would feel similarly.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Whereas to me, the worst sort of punishment was my parents paying attention to me. It interfered with whichever book I was reading at the time :lol: Seriously, though, that feeling of being ignored is horrible, especially if you are a sensitive child like Robin.
Author:  Reepicheep101 [ Mon Dec 28, 2009 6:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
I am thoroughly disgusted by the way Robin seems to get away with everything. I hate it that Robin gets away with everything just because she is delicate. It really infuriates me that a punishment for Robin would cause her to fall ill or something like that and all she gets is early bed or a little talk with Madge. I mean, it seems that delicate children have different rights in EBD's world, than that of normal children.
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
But don't you think different children respond to different treatment? For the Robin, being "spoken to" and required to apologise was sufficient punishment, where another child might need harsher treatment to realise she had misbehaved.
Author:  Miriam [ Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
JB wrote:
Tor wrote:

Quote:
I like JBs theory


Thanks. Although with the lack of bathrooms, i'm inadvertently supporting Cosimo's Jackal's theory too. :oops:


I like all evidence there were only one or two bathrooms at Die Rosen, because I can imagine Jack and Joey (when he's living there, she's home for the holidays, and it's more crowded in general) continually 'accidentally' running into one another in their dressing gowns on the way to the bath and exchanging droll, proto-flirtation banter.

At peak times, it must have all needed to be quite regimented in terms of bathtimes, even if everyone had washstands in their rooms...


After the snowfight in 'Exploits' the girls are divided into two groups to go to different bathrooms, and the staff are taken to Madge's own bathroom - so there seem to have been two for general use of guests and residents, and one more 'private' bathroom.

As far as regimetation goes, I remember when all of us were back staying with parents (I think it was their 25th anniversary), my sister tried to organize a bathroom timetable, and got very annoyed when everyone refused to sign up for slots, or take any notice of the slots that she insisted on sighning us up for. :roll: It would have been understandable if I had done it, but she never read a CS book in her life. :? :|

We pointed out that we had all managed showers very well for years without any planning, and we could probably manage again. If you're used to working around each other, you don't even notice - it's just automatic. I know I would always subconciously register footsteps and doors opening/closing, and know when the bathroom would be free.
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Sounds like your sister would have been a perfect CS girl, Miriam :D . The problem we used to have wasn't so much everyone wanting to use the bathroom at once as that the hot water always seemed to run out very quickly and, unlike CS girls, no-one in our family really went in for cold baths :lol: .

Re Robin, I don't think that Madge's way of disciplining her had a negative effect on her, but there are suggestions that, with Margot, Joey and Jack went easy on her when she was a young child because of her health problems. It would be interesting to see how that tied in with her behavioural problems, but unfortunately it's an avenue that's never explored properly because EBD hates to criticise the Maynards' parenting methods in any way.
Author:  cestina [ Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Robin had behaviourial problems? Such as what? I can't say I have ever associated her with any at all......
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Sorry, I probably wasn't very clear there - I meant that Margot Maynard had behavioural problems, not Robin.
Author:  hac61 [ Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Discipline for "delicate" children
Mrs Redboots wrote:
But don't you think different children respond to different treatment? For the Robin, being "spoken to" and required to apologise was sufficient punishment, where another child might need harsher treatment to realise she had misbehaved.


I was brought up under the "smack first, ask questions later" method and by the time I was a teenager it had no affect.

Even now, at nearly 50, if some-one talks quietly and seriously to me then I am subdued for weeks. :oops:
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