Worms.  Various symptoms are due to intestinal worms, and a sharp lookout should be kept for the appearance of any in the stools, and suitable treatment given when necessary.

Treatment for thread and round worms: 

R.
Santonini........................gr. ij. 
Hydrarg. chloridi mitis..........gr. ij. 
Pulv. aromatici..................gr. iv. 
Mix and divide into four.

  Take one at bedtime every other night,
  followed by castor oil in the morning.

Tapeworms.  These are rarer, being much more frequently talked or read about than seen.  A doctor should be consulted.

Moral Training.  The road to hell is broad and easy; so is that to heaven, for if bad habits are easily acquired, so are good ones.

Example is the best moral precept, and if the conduct of parents is good, little moral exhortation is needed.  “What is the moral ideal set before children in most families?  Not to be noisy, not to put the fingers in the nose or mouth, not to help themselves with their hands at table, not to walk in puddles when it rains, etc.  To be ’good’!” To hedge in the child’s little world, the most wonderful it will ever know, by hidebound rules enforced by severe punishments, is to repress a child, not to train it.  While the commonest error is to spoil a child, it is just as harmful to crush it.  Be firm, be kindly, and, above all, be fair.

Issue no command hastily, but only if necessary, and shun prohibitions based on petulance or pique.  Give the child what it wants if easily obtainable and not harmful.

If the desire is harmful, explain why, but if a child asks for a toy, do not pettishly reply:  “It’s nearly bedtime!” when it is not, or even if it is.

Discipline is essential, but discipline does not consist in inconsistent nagging; harshly insisting on unquestioning obedience to some unreasonable command one moment, and weakly giving way—­to avoid a scene—­on some matter vitally affecting the child’s welfare the next.

There must be no coddling, and no inducement to self-pity.  Such children must be taught that they are capable of real success and real failure, and that upon personal obedience to the laws of health of body and of mind, this success or failure largely depends.

A child should be early accustomed to have confidence in himself.  For this purpose all about him must encourage him and receive with kindliness whatever he does or says out of goodwill, only giving him gently to understand, if necessary, that he might have done better and been more successful if he had followed this or that other course.  Nothing is more apt to deprive a child of confidence in himself than to tell him brutally that he does not understand, does not know how, cannot do this or that, or to laugh at his attempts.  His educators must persuade him that he can understand, and that he can do this thing or that, and must be pleased with his slightest effort.