Psychology Library Editions: Child Development
2 primary works
Book 9
John and Elizabeth Newson’s long-term investigation of child up-bringing attracted intense interest from its earliest beginnings: ‘pathbreaking’ and ‘seminal’ were adjectives that greeted their first report. The study is now established as one of the major projects of the seventies.
This third volume of the series catches some seven hundred Nottingham children at a critical stage of their development: in transition from infant to junior school, they are moving out of the protective family orbit and into the wider social world of street, playground and classroom, where cultural pressures make themselves felt in ever more demanding ways.
Like the Newson’s earlier books, this study has a strong ecological flavour in the sense that what children do, what parents do, and how they feel about what they do, are all set firmly into the broader context of life as it is lived in contemporary urban society. This is no laboratory investigation. Yet a sensitive and subtle methodology has allowed the Newsons to present an impressive structure of hard factual data, while putting flesh on the statistical bones by constant reference to the mothers’ own thoughts and reactions, faithfully recorded in their own vivid words.
The result is a rich descriptive picture of seven-year-olds and their family life: their play, friendships, quarrels; their duties and privileges; their fears, fantasies and jokes. Inevitably, much of the book explores the dynamics of conflict between mother and child, and takes a long hard look at the domestic power-game as it is expressed in both words and punishment. At the same time, the loving and caring side of the relationship is closely and delicately examined with a rare empathy for both parent and child. In short, this is a study in depth and in breadth of how parents and children bring each other up.
Teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers, as well as parents welcomed the Newsons’ earlier reports. Once again, no professional worker in the field of childhood or parenthood can afford to be without the insights offered by this volume, which is also a rich source of enjoyment for any observer, professional or amateur, of the family in society today. Today it can be enjoyed in its historical context.
Book 10
John and Elizabeth Newson were well known for their studies of child rearing, which have combined a rigorous research methodology with sympathetic insights into family life and a lively approach to scientific reporting. ‘Path-breaking’, ‘brilliant’, ‘seminal’, ‘outstanding’, ‘fascinating’, ‘enthralling’ and ‘enchanting’ are some of the adjectives used by critics to describe their previous books.
They now turn their attention to toys, the ‘pegs on which children hang their play’, a study for which they are uniquely qualified. Not only had they long experience in normal child development: they had been actively involved for many years in research and training in remedial play for disabled children, their research unit was a major influence in the phenomenal development of the toy libraries self-help movement, they designed for and advised the toy industry, and they had their own family-run specialist toyshop.
With this background, it is not surprising that their book on toys and playthings is both informative and entertaining on many different fronts. Richly observant, it follows the child’s development in play from using the mother or father as the ‘first and best toy’, through the exploratory and manipulative sequences, to the use of toys in ritual, symbolic or contemplative ways. Against this detailed understanding of ‘ordinary’ children’s growth points in play, the Newsons and their collaborators examine the special needs of disabled children, with a firm emphasis on how parents can help. What is more, in providing an intensely practical guide for the parents and teachers of the disabled child, they draw out comparative insights which are enlightening and absorbing for those whose children do not have such urgent problems.
Once again the Newsons share with the reader the viewpoints and preoccupations of research workers in the field. There is indeed a continual sense of ‘work in progress’, and nowhere more than in the chapter on using toys for developmental assessment, where the reader is given a hot line to a laboratory (i.e. playroom) notes used in their own research unit at the time in a welcome move away from the rigid test-bound assessment of ‘special’ children. The book is enriched by the authors’ sharp awareness that the history of playthings has a far longer perspective than the history of child psychology. They are not basically interested in educational toys as such, but in all the objects, made or found, on which the child hones his skill, his reasoning powers, his imagination, his emotions or his sense of humour. Fairground baubles, joke toys and poppy-head dolls are as much a part of this book as bricks, sorting boxes and teddy bears. In the Newsons’ own words: ‘We hope that people who simply like toys as objects will find something in this book to interest them; we suspect, indeed, that liking toys will be what all readers, whatever their reason for opening the book, have in common’.