Kind
Anhängsel
Homœopathic
equivalents of endocrinological remedies in pediatrics.
[Dr
At the risk of repeating a truism must begin our brief consideration of the
homœopathic equivalents of endocrinological remedies with the statement that
the most active force for the restoration of normal balance between the
endocrine glands is the homœopathic simillimum, whatever that may be, whether
or no it has ever before been connected with gland function.
Ordinary medicine endeavors to replace the lack of glandular activity by
administering extracts of animal glands and this often means the continuation
of such adjuvant treatment indefinitely. Although the symptoms may clear up
there is no tendency to increase the activity of the deficient glands, indeed
vitality which they have a" may be atrophied by such pandering to their
weakness. The indicated remedy stimulates the vital force and tends to produce
increasing and harmonious action of the glandular tissue.
To speak of any definite remedies smacks, as usual, of pathological
prescribing and yet there are certain remedies whose frequency of indication is
notable in certain syndromes.
For instance: the infant who does not develop, who is late in walking,
teething and talking suggests Calc. Nat-m. Calc-p. or Sil. The symptoms in
these little ones are mostly objective and require watching and deliberation.
Often if the fundamental chronic remedies of the parents are known or can be
ascertained, they illuminate the baby's case,
as remedies run in families. Also, if the miasmatic trend of the family
be known, the suitable nosode may open up the case.
Some fundamental pituitary difficulties cause dwarfism or gigantism.
Dwarfs very often need Med. or Syph. sometimes Mercurius, or if
complicated with cretinism Bar-c.
Giants: Phos. Calc-p. or Sulph.
The fat boy of the comics (adiposa dolorosa) with the piping voice needs
Graph. Calc. or other remedies. In my practice a boy of nine years with extreme
weakness and breathlessness on any exertion and for a hysteric disposition.
Short, fat, blonde, precocious, craving air, no physical signs except big
tonsils and a very rapid heart. Frequent nose bleeds when washing the face,
chilliness; Am-c. 50M., one dose. Within a week, instead of weeping from
exhaustion from the least exercise, the boy was asking to play with his peers
and after one repetition 4 months later was able to practice in the school
scrub football team without undue acceleration of the pulse or fatigue.
The parents came of a deeply psoric stock, the mother also sycotic,
having needed Graph. and Med.
Thyroid difficulties are the most frequent.
In the hyperthyroid cases homœopathy is at its best. Iod. Nat-m. Spong.
and many others will remove the dangerous symptoms.
In hypothyroidism Bar-c. Calc. Iod. and Med. shine. Some of our
physicians prescribe Thyreoidinum in potency. I have had little experience with
it except in slowing the heart. Fucus is very popular among the German
homœopaths and Lycopus is to be considered.
Sometimes in low thyroid conditions Sulph.
Ovarian difficulties offer a famous field for homœopathy and its success
with climacteric symptoms obviates the need for corpus luteum or ovarian
extract:
Apis. Lach. Sang. Sep.
Boys with undescended testicles often respond to Aur-met.. if the
background suggests it; and there is no better gonadal stimulant than Lyc.
These fragmentary suggestions are merely to show that the indicated
remedy profoundly affects the endocrines along with the whole constitution and
to recommend its use instead of the substitutional methods of usual
endocrinology.
Hochbegabung
[Romeo Keller
Studie zum herausfinden, ob anhand der Krankengeschichte der Vorfahren auf eine mögliche Hochbegabung des Kindes geschlossen werden kann.
Auffälligkeiten kamen zum Vorschein:
Der Anteil der Eltern mit Hochschulabschluss ist überproportional gross.
Die körperliche Entwicklung hält sich im Rahmen der Norm; die intellektuelle Entwicklung (vor allem die sprachliche) ist hingegen verfrüht.
Das typische hochbegabte Kind hat ein Verlangen nach kalter Milch, allgemein kalten Getränken/Speisen und Süßigkeiten. Viele haben ein erhöhtes Verlangen nach Salz und Geräuchertem. Abneigung besteht gegen Fettem und zum Teil auch gegen Fleisch.
Die befragte Kinder sind im Verhältnis zum Durchschnitt der Bevölkerung mehr geimpft.
Die Kinder sind fast durchgehend dem tuberkularen Miasma zuzuordnen.
Die Eltern (Mütter) grossteils sykotisch und es ist aus den Fragebogen zu vermuten, dass sie in ihrer Jugend ebenfalls tuberkular waren (wie ihre hochbegabten Kinder)
Die Grosseltern sind auch etwa zur Hälfte sykotisch
Selbstverständlich kann die Homöopathie eine Hochbegabung nicht ändern; sie kann jedoch die Lebenskraft des hochbegabten Kindes so beeinflussen, dass es mit seiner Situation besser zurecht kommt und auch alle zusätzlichen Förderungen besser annehmen kann.
‡ Folgendes hat
anthroposofische Einschlüsse ‡
[Britta Gisder]
Every individual child has his nature which will exist throughout his
life. A child may be formed, but can be formed or can form himself only
according to his nature, which is almost homoeostatic. This homoeostatic state
can be called the constitution. The constitution is “what is” and the
temperament is “what is evolving”.
The Temperament of a child may change over time, and be affected by many
external factors, such as the physical and emotional environment in which the
child is raised, the illnesses to which they are exposed, vaccinations, drugs
used, and so on.
The Sanguine Child
Let’s take a look at the Element of Air: It belongs to no one person or
place, but is shared by all. Air is in constant movement itself and the cause
of movement in other things. It is busy locally and travels far distances with
ease. The sanguine child prefers to skip, or jump, or run on his toes rather
than to walk. A delicate “taster” of food, with a bird’s appetite and a
butterfly’s preference for sweetness, the sanguine child seems to be nourished
more by his five senses than by his three regular meals.
The body opens itself to the air through its many orifices, and the
sanguine child experiences the inner and outer worlds through all of them with equal
devotion. His mouth will be more often open than shut (in complete contrast to
the phlegmatic) and if not savoring words and sounds will be well occupied with
licking fingers, nibbling pencils, chewing shirt collars or other obscure
isometrics designed perhaps to develop mobility of expression or firmness of
jawline, who knows? Not the sanguine child, for sure, who will be totally
unaware that he was doing anything at all. The nose becomes a centre of intense
activity, from the usual childish habits to use as a resting place for biros or
the ends of pigtails, and then on to a sort of clearing house for smells of
which the rest of us are happily unaware. All this, coupled with the birdlike
movements of the eye shows us that the sensory world is never dull for the
sanguine personality, which can present problems in the classroom. The wrong
way to handle a sanguine child is to “sit” on him. He will only find a way of
wriggling free and, most probably, like the air in a joke cushion, make a rude
noise as he goes. The Sanguine’s creative spirit sees potential in every
situation. The air is used by all weaves between individuals and whole nations
an invisible web of relationships, and it is in making relationships that the
sanguine personality excels. Not only does the child need to feel surrounded by
many friends, (the thirst for company is a strong characteristic of this
temperament), but the mature adult is able to develop a real gift for bringing
other people, and also facts and ideas, into relationship. Remedy could be
Sulph.
Paul Herscu N.D:
Most common is the happy-go-lucky, smiling type. While some rare
children needing Sulph may be shy during the first visit, this shyness will
usually only last for a few seconds or minutes at most before their natural
curiosity takes over and they begin to explore both the office and the doctor.
As the initial interview progresses or during follow-up interactions, the
basically obstinate nature of the child becomes more evident. They have so much
energy that it is often necessary to set limits for them while they are in the
office. The doctor, nervous about the destruction of sensitive equipment and
glassware or about having the office in total disarray, asks the child not to
touch this
or that, but the child continually tests the doctor’s patience. The
child will push against such behavioral limits again and again, attempting to
escape their confines (hyperactive Sulph child). They nag at the doctor, asking
why they cannot do whatever they wish.
1st This type of obstinacy springs from the desire for
freedom and the sense that it is absolutely necessary to let their
inquisitiveness run wild.
2nd
3rd Sulph child.seems to be more introverted and prefers to
be alone and indulge in endless science fiction books or movies and tends to
have only a few friends. (Nat-m + child does not want to be consoled/wants to
be alone).
The point is, the Sulphur child is typically all over the office,
exploring everything, touching the pictures, pulling all the toys off the
shelves, and generally making a mess
of the office – something a sanguine temperament simply would do because
it lies in his nature: in constant movement and seeing potential in every
situation.
The Choleric Child
Element of Fire has the upper hand in the constitution. The choleric
temperament draws itself much into the foreground socially. No one ignores a
fire, its majesty captures everyone’s attention and people naturally gravitate
towards it, grateful for its warmth and light perhaps, sometimes in awe of it,
or simply mesmerized by its activity and its energy. This energy is the
hallmark of the choleric child and cannot in any way be compared to the
constant activity of the sanguine. Even at rest, the energy latent in the
smoking coals is apparent in the clear, direct, penetrating gaze of the, often
dark, eye. Other children are aware of this subtle force and usually defer to
it. This is advantageous for the choleric child in that he can rise to his
instinctive role as leader and allow full play for what he feels are his
superior skills. With an audience to admire him and plenty of children around
to be organized (at which he excels) the choleric child is supremely happy -
and everyone else. On the bad days, he is rejected as being simply “bossy”
which makes him utterly miserable and confused. This unfortunate state of
affairs can occasionally lead to the child destroying a game or project from
which he has been excluded just to “show them” that he still is the boss. But
this uncontrolled raging of fire is rarer than it might be because the choleric
child has a very keen sense of fair play and is a prompt critic of injustice
wherever he sees it. Fire is quick to come to life and can also be speedily put
“out”. In the heat of his enthusiasm the choleric child is often careless of
the finer feelings of others, but when his own soul is wounded he feels this
deeply, and his inner flame is doused. It is difficult for other temperaments
to appreciate that the choleric needs to feel superior, and is most at ease and
works best when he is secure in this position. The tenseness of the choleric,
and his overwhelming frustration when things don’t work out his way leads to
obvious social difficulties, but these are balanced out by his ability to
generate warmth in a group.
Characteristic for this temperament could be: Lyc.
Two distinct types in behavior:
1. fear and apprehension affect every aspect of the child’s life.
2. bossy to the point of being dictatorial and strives to control those
close by (parents/siblings/friends).
Herscu says, “To restate the characteristics of the Lycopodium
psychology mentioned thus far, we may safely say that the children fear being
alone and being around new people and situations“. However, these children may
develop a love of power and therefore a conscious decision is then made to have
only people around who they can control, since this gives them a feeling of
power. Because the feeling of power allays insecurities, it becomes addictive
to Lyc. children, and they develop what can be found in
The Phlegmatic Child
To study the Element of Water, or fluid quality, as we are aware of it
in nature, can be of help in trying to understand the phlegmatic Temperament.
Consider first a droplet of water - smooth, round, completely self-contained, a
little world all of its own. There sits the phlegmatic child engrossed in a
toy, or maybe his fingers only, impervious to please to get dressed for a walk,
or to come and meet the visitor. His chubby form gives the impression of an
extra layer of softness all over him concealing the boniness of his skeleton,
and in complete contrast to the melancholic physique. His often very pale eyes
are like tranquil pools of water, peaceful and happy, so calm sometimes that
one can wonder if anything ever ruffles the surface of his soul - is he perhaps
even “lacking” in some way?
Outer tranquillity enables an inner dance to develop undisturbed, while
the glass-like surface of the water, unruffled by outer influences, allows the
possibility of ordered reflection. The ability to reflect on life’s questions
is one of the talents of a mature phlegmatic temperament, if he has become
interested in doing so. It is often difficult to capture the interest of the
phlegmatic. The melancholic person feels his isolation acutely, but a
phlegmatic feels most comfortable when left to himself, his maxim is “anything
for a quiet life” which may often become the excuse for profound laziness.
The lymph system is the chemist in us, gathering in, distributing,
eliminating, regulating, and it naturally needs substances upon which to work.
These substances come in the form of food and drink. One of the first
observations a parent is likely to make of his phlegmatic child is his
friendship with food. The strong instinct for order, born out of the regulating
nature of the lymph system, can be a boon to the mother of a phlegmatic child,
for this makes him, already at an early age, a wonderful “tidy-upper”. Even
through the teenage years a certain neatness and order about his person is
likely to remain.
The apparent lack of originality is the mainstay of the phlegmatic’s
social talent for stability.
Remedy for this particular temperament: Puls.
Easily we can see the Pulsatilla youngster’s gentle, clingy, fearful
nature. The first characteristic noticed about these children is how close they
sit to their parents in the doctor’s office. From infancy through the teen
years the child is oversensitive and cries easily. Eager-to-please is another
characteristic, these children are very friendly within an intimate, familiar
group such as the family, showing and needing lots of affection. The Puls.
child finds out early how to get what she or he wants by being affectionate,
yielding, and submissive - essentially by producing whatever behavior it takes
to win the attention and security so craved.
Emotions flow freely in the Pulsatilla child (sadness/tears). The tears
that so easily flow help the child both physically and emotionally. Any time
the child is angry, sad, irritable, frustrated, or perhaps just teased by
siblings or parents, he breaks down and sobs; this is an act that renders him
great psychological relief. Emotions connected with the theme ‘water’ and
therefore relates to the phlegmatic child very well.
The Melancholic Child
From the earth element, or mineralizing quality at work in the world, we
can build up an impression of how the melancholic temperament works within the
human being. Picture to yourself a rock lying on the sandy beach, alone,
self-contained, hard and cold to the touch, very still and seemingly unmoved by
what goes on around, weighed down by its own mass, sinking slightly into the
ground below. A rock speaks to us of ancient times, and the melancholic child
often appears before us as “a little old man”. The face is pale and the gaze of
the child is veiled as if the eyes, although open to the world are, in fact,
gazing inward. A dreaminess is there, expressed occasionally in a sigh. No
child is still for long, but the very melancholic child will not enjoy
energetic games as much as those pastimes which require inward activity –
drawing, listening to stories, writing poetry. The inwardness of the
melancholic accounts for his isolation, the inability, often, to relate
harmoniously to others. At times such a child may become the butt for childish
humor, the unfortunate victim of practical jokes which cause him deep
unhappiness.
Once the rock has warmed through by the midday sun, however, then its
isolation can be alleviated, for its company is sought by birds and animals
looking for a quiet place to “be”. Long after the sun has gone down, such a
rock will continue to give out a gentle heat to the comfort of its immediate
environment, and is considered by all a blessing. So we look for ways in which
we can warm a melancholic child both physically with extra warm clothes, cooked
food, maybe a hot water bottle in bed, and also warm his soul with
encouragement, understanding and sympathy, confirmation of his being,
persuasive enthusiasm and very gentle humor. This little rock cannot “give” to
the knocks of life and he therefore will feel all the bumps and bruises, and
tweaking of the hair as you comb, really more than his siblings and allowances
should be made accordingly.
Remedy could be: Calc.
Calc. child discovers early in life that they are slower than others their
age. During play, they find themselves slow at games and sports - perhaps to
the extent that other children taunt and laugh at them. To avoid this ridicule,
they may become quiet, withdrawn loners who play by themselves and do not seek
out friendships with others. In Calc., the turning inward accompanied by a
sense of self-assurance allows them to become self-reliant. This self-reliance
is illustrated by the child who can be left for an hour to play alone while his
mother cleans the house. An ability to change their minds quickly is
characteristic of Calc. toddlers. They are self-willed and desire to do things
at their own pace and at a time of their own choosing. Obstinacy is a major
clue to the remedy. Obstinacy is a sign of the basically strong character of
the child. One can also observe this in the interview. The children look
directly at the doctor with a strong, serious stare rather than relating with
the shyness of a Lyc. or the timidity of a Puls. They just sit quietly, looking
directly at the doctor. Another keynote is that the child is independent by
nature. This individuality combined with slowness can benefit the Calc-carb.
child as it often leads to very deep and lengthy concentration, even in the
very young. Sadness and seriousness may also be major factors of the Calc.
personality.
[Michaela Gloeckler, M.D.]
When we look at what R.S. has to say with regard to difficult children,
we will not find diagnoses such as "minimal brain dysfunction",
"aggressive behavior", "hyperactivity" or "change
brought on by the child's environment." So as contemporaries now dealing
with this terminology, we have to first try to come to an understanding of the
way R.S. describes children, a way which can help us draw nearer to the true
nature of the child.
In terms of 6 constitutional types:
large-headed and small-headed,
earthy and cosmic,
fantasy-rich and fantasy-poor.
Together with the 4 temperaments this typology connects the fundamental
constitutional characteristics with the help of which a child learns to express
himself in the most varied ways and to reveal his inner being. It is the common
task of pedagogy and medicine to assist the child during his school years with
the full individualization of his constitution necessary for this expression.
As work with these
6 types is not as widespread as that with the 4 temperaments, it is my
hope that this contribution will help to stimulate further interest.
R.S. bases his description of large-headed and small-headed children on
the three-fold nature of the human being He made the fundamental statement that
viewing the nature of the human being as threefold must become second nature to
the teacher and the physician. For not until we have inwardly experienced the
reality of these 3 systems - until we have arrived at our own intuition of the
forces and functions connected with them - can these insights guide us and
awaken our understanding for what children suffer and experience - but also for
what they need in the classroom.
Let's examine then the threefold nature of the human being and its
connections to the surrounding world more closely. There are 3 ways for the
human being to be connected with the world in body, soul and spirit.
1st the connection through the senses of hearing, taste,
smell, touch and sight. Bound up with the senses is our thinking, which brings
sense experience to consciousness. This nerve/sense connection to the world is
such that our nerve and sense organs work better, the more successful we are in
actually immersing ourselves in the qualities of the world - in perceiving and
picturing in our minds the true reality of what is. In the acts of perception
and thinking, we make ourselves similar to the world, we carefully adapt
ourselves to what is there, and try to understand its true nature. We search
for concordance with our surroundings through observation and thought. If, for
example, someone I am talking to has seen a particular flower and I decide and
go to look at it as well, then we have both seen the same thing. We meet in
viewing an objective truth. In the upper sphere of our nerve/sense system, we
have the capacity to take in the world - to let it impress itself upon us - as
it is. The richness of our soul life
is formed from these impressions.
2nd Relationship to the world through our metabolic system
(mouth/intestinal tract/anus) is quite different. Think of the weekend shopping
cart, filled with all the good things you picked, right down to the ice cream
and the frozen fish and spinach for the freezer. During a whole week, all this
makes its way through the body. Here we have exactly the opposite of what
happens in the nerve/sense system. When the digestive process proceeds
normally, nothing remains the way it was. We immediately begin to
"impress" ourselves upon "the world" with our teeth. When
we press down and bite into something, it changes as it receives our imprint.
In the further course of digestion we dissolve, analyze and mineralize these
substances. The world dies in terms of its own existence and is born anew in us
through metabolic activity, becoming human substance. A dying and a being born
takes place, but what is typical for the metabolism is this building up of the
substance of the human body from plant and animal substance which have
"died" as well as from dissolved mineral substances. This new
creation, totally individual and formed only once in material existence, is
created through the metabolism, through the building up of the individualized
protein of the body. Just as we become world in the process of perception, so
the world becomes human being through the work of the digestive organs.
3rd connection to the world is through respiration. Here we
are not dealing with solid and liquid substances as with food, or with light,
air, sound and warmth as with sense impressions, but with an opening to the
surrounding air. Here in the middle sphere of the body a very peculiar process
takes place. Something of the world is taken in (as in metabolism) and is then
exchanged (i.e. oxygen and Carb-diox.). We extract from the air we breathe in
about 4% of the oxygen, then breathe out the Carb-diox. which has been formed
in us and which is no longer needed. But the peculiar thing is that the major
portion of the air we breathe in is exhaled unchanged. With respect to this portion
of the air that remains unchanged, we discover a similarity with the activity
of our nerve/sense system, where we take in the world as it is and allow it to
remain unchanged. The strange thing is that quantitatively speaking, it is not
the individual element which predominates in this middle sphere, but the part
which we allow to remain unchanged as "world," due to the fact that
in inhaling and exhaling the major portion of the air we breathe goes in and
out "unused". In the middle sphere of the body that the concerns of
the world and personal need are harmonized in a wonderful way to the advantage
of the world. In our bodily nature, we have at our disposal a surplus which
allows us to give ourselves over to the world to an extent which is greater
than any demand we need to place upon it.
In our middle sphere we also breathe between the "heavy" and
the "light" spheres of the body. Related to this, we have 2 peculiar
features of the opposite poles of the nervous and the digestive systems.
The nervous system, with its centre in the brain, floats in the
cerebro-final fluid, which gives it buoyancy and partially frees it from the
effects of gravity. But when we examine the intestinal cavity below the
diaphragm, we see how the organs hang down very much subject to gravity. In the
case of a slim person, for example, the stomach really hangs down; in the case
of a heavy person, where the inner walls are cushioned with fat, it is pushed
up somewhat. So it is clearly visible that below the diaphragm, the influences
of gravity are at work on the metabolic system, whereas the nervous system is
largely free of these influences, buoyed up according to Archimedes' Law. We
experience the faculty of soul connected with each of these three systems in a
corresponding way.
We experience the content of our conscious thought life as being light
and bright, not material or heavy, even when we have "heavy"
thoughts, they are light in this respect. In this middle sphere - in the lungs
located in the chest cavity - there is a constant negative pressure, which
increases during inhalation and continues as we exhale so that the lungs do not
collapse. Thus in the process of breathing in and out - of sucking in and
pressing out - a balance of upper and lower, of lightness and heaviness is
created, which is also characterized by lightness. For we experience our
feelings as being correspondingly light and flexible, even though certainly
more clearly bound up with our bodies than our thinking is. By contrast, we
feel that our willing is completely bound up with our body and its heaviness.
It is as if we had to wrest each movement from the force of gravity moving our
limbs in opposition to it.
Through our bodies we are connected with the world in a threefold way.
We relate to the world through our soul life in a threefold way as well, for we
live in willing, thinking and in the middle, feeling - searching for the
balance between ourselves and the world. The rhythm of our breathing is in
harmony with the rhythms of the cosmos.
At rest we breathe 18x in a minute = 1080x in a hour = 25920x in a 24
hour period. This is the same as the number of years it takes the sun's point
of sunrise at the vernal equinox to pass through the entire zodiac. 25920 years
are a so-called "Platonic world-year".
Time and again R.S. referred to this special connection of human life
with the course of the world. What is contained in the sun cycle through the
year - winter and summer (cold and heat) with the transitional periods of
spring and autumn - is comparable to one 24-hour period experienced on earth,
with night and day (also cold and heat) and the wonderful mood of transition at
dawn and dusk in between.
In the case of the infant and of the small child, the nerve/sense system
and the metabolic system are connected, but without the benefit of a vigorous,
autonomous middle sphere as yet. When children start school, it is the
principal task of teacher and physician to support the formation of this middle
sphere both pedagogically and medically. For it is in this sphere where
personal needs and the concerns of the world should be harmonized, that we feel
ourselves to be truly human. If someone speaks to us in an unfriendly way, we
feel touched by unhumanity, whereas an understanding look or an appropriate
gesture comfort us and are experienced as an expression of our common humanity.
It is in this sphere of accord with the world - where knowledge and experience
of oneself and of the world can meet in harmony - that our humanity lives. Our
task is to help strengthen and encourage this humanity through education.
There are children in whom the nerve/sense system and the metabolic
system are out of balance right from the start. R.S. speaks about these
children in the above mentioned lecture of February 6, 1923, in which he also
makes the comforting statement that in reality there is no one in whom the two
systems interact in total harmony. The scales are always tipped a little more
to one side or the other. For this reason it is important to look at every
child with the silent question - how are these three systems interrelated in
your case? How can I help you to strengthen your middle sphere? !!!!!!!!!
In the course of the lecture referred to, R.S. describes the
characteristic features of the two types of children that we can readily grasp
in connection with this threefold division - namely the small-headed and the
large-headed child: "We have the nerve/sense system. But we only
understand it rightly if we are aware that the nerve/sense system is actually
governed by laws which are not the physical-chemical laws of earthly
materiality. Through the nerve/sense system the human being is raised above the
laws of earthly materiality. For in its formation, the nerve/sense system is
entirely the product of pre-earthly existence. The human being has the
nerve/sense system that he has received in accordance with his pre-earthly
existence so that - because in reality all the material laws of the nerve/sense
system have been raised above earthly materiality - his nerve/sense system is
also capable of the parallel development of all the functions related to the
soul and spirit." 4
Now in the case of a child in whom the head is overdeveloped by
comparison with the torso and limbs, this is an indication that the nerve/sense
system is not harmoniously integrated into the other members. Referring to this
constitutional type, R.S. noted that the child's astral body and ego do not
really want to take hold of the nerve/sense system. For this reason, such
children have a tendency to daydream - removed from the earthly activities
around them - rather than taking an alert and active part in them through open
sense-organs. Just as the brain floats in the cerebro-spinal fluid - for the
most part unaffected by gravity - and is protected within the skull, so these
children are in danger of giving themselves up too much to the particular
dynamics of the nerve/sense system. The phenomenon of
"large-headedness" connected with this is not only a question of
external measurement (it can be more or less clearly recognized by the
circumference of the head). Most importantly, it is a question of the thought
function outweighing an alert grasping of one's surroundings through the senses
due to faulty integration of the nerve/sense processes into the rest of the organism.
1. The "large-headed" and
the "small-headed" child
Large-headed child:
Walks somewhat unconsciously, moving
dreamily around the classroom, lost in thought. He seems not to take in his surroundings
very actively, and shows correspondingly no spirited reactions. He can often be
observed standing somewhere and looking dreamily around. You don't get the
impression that he is observing things very carefully; he seems to have more of
a general impression of what is going on. When you arrive at school, you
usually find such a child already at his desk, or else by the window and in the
winter, over by the heating. He finds it somewhat difficult to concentrate and
to differentiate precisely, and tends to listen and grasp things in a
superficial way. He cannot hold things he encounters clearly in his thoughts so
as to have them at his disposal. On the other hand, he is full of images and
dreams, has a rich soul-life and is endowed with a certain cheerfulness.
Temperament is predominantly sanguine/phlegmatic.
The question now is what can be done to help balance things out. What
feelings and sensations have to be awakened in order to stimulate the child to
differentiate, to make things clear to himself - to bring them "down to
earth"? Figuratively speaking, he must learn to feel the difference
between cold and heat - particularly the delimitation and contraction which
takes place in the presence of hazy, shimmering heat - as opposed to the way we
experience cold, which we brace ourselves against, which wakes us up. We use
the term "biting cold", not "biting heat". And each of us
can experience the way that being cool-headed helps us to reach a clear,
rational view of things. For this reason, R.S. recommended creating sensations
of cold (head) to help these "large-headed" children. For some
children, wiping the head with cool water in the morning is sufficient; others
need to be wiped down to the waist. What happens when this is done? Through the
sensations that are thus awakened - sensations of differentiation between hot
and cold - the child's thought life is connected to the functions of the
sense-organs. For the imbalance between the systems has come about because the
child's ego and astral body are only willing to connect with the bodily
instrument of the nervous system in tentative fashion. If, however, strong
stimuli are given which encourage a differentiation in perception and shake the
child out of his hazy dreaming, then the astral body and the ego are stimulated
to a stronger connection with nerve/sense activity. The child would really
prefer to just dream and let things pass before him rather than go into
something that hurts, bites, is cold, that engenders consciousness and
self-awareness. By wiping the child gently with cool water in the morning, we
are helping him into the world of the senses - the world of differentiation, of
coldness, of hardness, of clarity. This is one aspect of the therapy. We create
a bit of winter, so to speak, so that alertness and clarity may develop.
As a second aspect, R.S. recommended supporting this process of
awakening to the sense world through the metabolism, in order to promote a
balance in the systems from this point of view as well. We can understand why
when we ask how the ability to differentiate - the elements of the analytical,
the hard, the unrelenting - live in the metabolism. They live in our capacity
to dissolve substances, to separate them out of their compounds. This is one
aspect of metabolic activity. Its other task is the diametric opposite: after
the substances taken in have been broken down and isolated, then the metabolic
system performs the creative task of building up the body's own substance. The
more we are truly ourselves in healthy metabolic activity, the better we are
able to give ourselves over to the world via our nervous system. Here R.S.
calls our attention to a law of effects on opposites: if the child's head has
been wiped with cool water and he is more aware, then in his metabolism the
breakdown and processing of foodstuffs will be correspondingly supported. If,
on the other hand, the organism is stimulated to separate substances out and to
take them into the life of the body - working in synthesizing fashion - then
the ability to synthesize and connect in thinking will be correspondingly
strengthened. R.S. recommended that physicians get detailed information on
family eating habits. A child may, for example, be getting too little salt if a
low-salt diet is being followed in the home because a parent has heart
problems. And as a crystallic compound formed from the diametric opposites of
acid and base, salt has a special significance. For if the organism doesn't
learn to dissolve salt, to take it into its total context and to process it,
then the functioning of the nervous system and metabolic activity cannot be
kept in proper balance. Sufficient salt in the diet, or medication in the form
of Plumbum compounds supports the organism in the analysis of solid substances,
of pure salt substances. In this way, the conscious capacity for clear
differentiation - separating and connecting - is stimulated via the metabolism.
All these things are aids for the large-headed child.
Small-headed child:
Does not give himself over to the
dynamics of the nerve/sense system. In his case, the dynamics of metabolic
activity are not sufficiently under control, because the child's astral body
and ego do not take hold of the metabolism properly; they are not willing to
connect themselves in sufficiently close fashion with this death and
resurrection of substance. What happens when this connection is not close
enough, when the child's individuality does not sufficiently penetrate his
metabolism? A child who is always somewhat tense, having to hold his own against
the particular dynamics and forces of the substances he eats. These children
are to some extent driven, so to speak, by the nutritional and digestive
processes. Often eat greedilyhastily/in fits and starts/depending on what os
offered.
Their bowel movements are often irregular (Occasionally very solid,
incompletely digested stool/sometimes no bowel movement 2 days, and then
everything "moves along" again).
The child's behavior also has something impulsive/driven about it. If a
child is at the mercy of the warmth generated by metabolic activity - but also
of the forces and the particular dynamics of various substances, because these
have not been sufficiently controlled and processed - then may become
excitable/bad-tempered/choleric/driven due to the after-effects of the
substances.
When these forces have spent themselves, he may brood/pale/exhausted/in
a corner/burdened by melancholy and by substances.
R.S.: "Of the human being's three systems, it is the metabolic/limb
system which is the most dependent on continuing external material processes
within itself. So when we become familiar with the processes that take place on
the earth through physics and chemistry, it is these processes that have their
continuation within the human being insofar as the metabolic/limb system is
concerned. But we learn nothing about the laws which govern his nerve/sense
system“. He continues: "If a child's ability to synthesize, to be
constructive in his imagination is too limited, if he cannot make things clear
to himself in pictures, if in art he is a kind of little Botocudo (Brazilian
Indian) as is often the case with children today - this is a symptom that the
metabolic/limb system is not in order ..“.
In this case the astral body is not willing to take hold of the metabolic/limb
system properly, and so it requires some support. How can we help to deal with
the particular tendencies of the metabolism?
How can the child's astral body and ego be supported through the
metabolism with respect to their integration into the total organism? A
marvelous way is through warmth in the form of a warm tummy wrap after the
noon-day meal or in the evening before bedtime. Modern medicine would say:
warmth relaxes the autonomic nervous system and stimulates the digestive nerves
in harmonious fashion. It thus stimulates, relieves tension, and promotes
digestion.
R.S.: "The divine spiritual powers cause it to be warm in summer
and cold in winter; these are spiritual effects which are achieved by the
divine spiritual powers through material means“. The application of warmth is
external summer therapy, which supports the transformation of matter into human
substance. From the point of view of diet, these children can also be helped by
the use of a key substance = sugar to stimulate the metabolism. Their diet
should be richly varied and easily digestible, and always include something
sweet for dessert. Nowadays the indication that these children need a good
helping of something sweet sounds rather strange. We should keep in mind,
however, that R.S. was speaking 3 yrs after the end of the First World War -
when sugar was still in very short supply and there were many undernourished
children in the schools. For the children we have been talking about the
important thing is the invigorating effect which sugar originating in the
blossom and fruit warmth of plants has on the metabolism. Nowadays we have to
add that the sugar should of course be part of a healthy meal and not enjoyed
in the form of sweets between meals.
These aids can be complemented medicinally by giving homeopathic doses
of Arg-met = Silver, a substance that completely conforms to this will to
synthesize of the metabolism, giving the child's astral body and ego the
opportunity to find a connection to the digestive processes.
R.S. followed these 2 guidelines for therapy with several fundamental
instructions for teachers and school physicians with respect to pedagogy.
Knowledge is only beneficial when it is sought after - only then does it
leave the other free, only then can it truly be of help. This is something that
we school physicians have to practice: viewing things with a loving eye such
that images of the situation arise, not judgments. When we are asked, we can
then safely speak from our view of these images, advising, trying to
characterize things, to depict processes, and to answer in such a way that the
teacher can accept what we have said and find the proper pedagogical
application.
So what can be done from the pedagogical point of view to help
large-headed and small-headed children? What can be done every day in the
classroom to help strengthen the middle sphere in these children?
What are "winter" and "summer" qualities of the
middle sphere? They correspond to the coldness and warmth of the feelings of
antipathy and sympathy.
Antipathy: drawing boundaries, meeting things head on, closing oneself
off.
Sympathy: opening oneself up.
In between, being at rest, as in breathing. Opening, closing, rest -
always threefold, with the turning point, where breathing in becomes breathing
out, in rest.
Correspondingly, inner peace and quiet is the middle-point in our
feeling life.
In every lesson there is an opportunity to allow the children to
experience the full range of emotions. Antipathy, terror, and crying all
obviously increase the strength with which we breathe in, holding ourselves
back. When we sob, we drew in the air spasmodically, irregularly, until our
limit is reached. On the other hand, laughing is exhalation, opening up,
sharing - it is a long breathing out. We pour out our feelings, so to speak, in
laughter, until we are red in the face and completely "laughed out".
Opposite processes: antipathy, in which we step back behind a limit
(crying as a process of in-breathing);
sympathy, in which we open ourselves up (laughter as a process of
out-breathing). R.S. encourages us to bring the children to the point of
laughter and then - now serious again and full of compassion - to bring them
almost to the point of tears in every lesson, so that through their living
experience of the content of the lesson, the children can experience and build
up this middle ground between the two extremes. They may be angry, irritated,
or indignant - this is followed by complete sympathetic participation in what
is being said. Regardless of whether the subject is English or arithmetic, if
the teacher wants to bring the children to an experience of these feelings of
warmth and coldness in every lesson, he will scarcely have time or an
opportunity to look at his notes, as this would interrupt the flow of the
lesson while he considered what he still wanted to do. For this reason, R.S.
stated that teaching from memory is a pedagogical and therapeutic necessity.
The therapeutic aspect underlying this identification with the content of the
lessons was formulated by R.S. as follows: "The teacher should really try
not to bring himself as a private person into the classroom. Instead, he should
have a picture of what he will become through the material he is dealing with
in a specific lesson. Then he will become something through the material. And
what he himself becomes in this way will have an extraordinarily enlivening
effect on the whole class. The teacher should have the feeling that when he is
indisposed, he can overcome the indisposition - at least to a certain extent -
through his teaching; then he will have the most favorable effect possible on
the children. He should teach out of the mood that teaching is beneficial to
himself as well, for if he has a morose disposition, for example, he can become
cheerful while teaching“.
The effect of such an attitude toward teaching can be directly
experienced. However, the identification with the content must be so strong
that, for example, a particular song you want to sing with the children fills every
pore of your being, so to speak you are completely caught up in your enjoyment
of it. Even if you're not quite sure of the words yet, don't search desperately
through your songbook: instead, just hum the song at first, but really
"get into it" and enjoy the tones. This gives the children the
opportunity to enter in soul (in the middle sphere, with their feelings) into
what you're talking about or presenting.
In terms of this therapeutic aspect, artistic activity in the lesson has
a special effect, for in artistic activity we have this complete identification
in its purest form. Let's take eurythmy as an example.
This art form can only be created if we enter into the sounds and
processes without reservation. This identification is expressed in a threefold
way: in the movement, in the feeling of the movement, and in the character, the
personal note that each person gives to his movements. We practice the arts for
a great variety of reasons, but in the final analysis they are the high path to
schooling ourselves in identification.
Such teaching is based on the teacher's presence of mind. Anyone can, of
course, suddenly forget what he wanted to say. But it is in just such a
desperate situation that he may then begin talking about something that is of
far greater importance for the children than what he originally intended to
say. This also involves a certain amount of risk, but it is this element of
risk that makes us interesting to the children. A teacher who is a model of
self-confidence and mastery can, of course, teach well and perhaps also
maintain good discipline. But he produces a different effect on the children
from the teacher about whom the pupil senses, "He still has to work and
learn like I do - I can really learn something from him. He doesn't have
everything yet, but is still working on things." And this is exactly what
pupils should be learning in school - how to work - for what we teach them in
terms of content will be forgotten again. However, the way in which we guide
them to inner and outer work - that ability will remain with them for the rest
of their lives. The way we have exerted ourselves is the most essential thing
for our pupils, and that we succeed in making them part of this process, this
struggle. It may become so quiet you could hear a pin drop as the teacher
recounts a personal experience where he is totally wrapped up in feelings of
fear, concern or joy. The more his individuality is revealed the more the
pupils really experience their teacher as a human being - the easier it is for
them to come to love him and to learn from him. And love, as we all know, is
the best foundation for discipline. Pupils always have a tendency to be cheeky,
but they "stifle" it, either because they feel sorry for the teacher
or because they love him. But in-between times, they're cheeky. Compassion and
love are the forces we rely on.
The last means of pedagogically strengthening the middle sphere (spoken
of by R.S. in the same lecture as above) is the moral disposition of the
educator - the most important means of working hygienically through teaching.
What the teacher is in moral terms, what he has made of himself through his own
efforts, what he has achieved in overcoming his weaknesses, not putting his
personal problems first, but giving himself over to the content of his lessons
and to the children - all of these things enable him to have a hygienic effect,
making him a healthy role model for the children that he teaches. For health
both of body and of soul is the result of work which the being active in the
body and soul of the child must perform on the way to integrating all the
functions and individual activities of the organs in harmonious fashion.
2. The "earthly" and the
"cosmic" child
In the language of current conventional medical diagnosis we regularly
find descriptions of final states. Several of these we mentioned in the
preceding chapter: minimal brain dysfunction, problems of aggressive behavior,
various problems brought on by the child's environment, hyperactivity. Causes
of these illnesses: "brain hemorrhage", "neonatal Sepsis.x", "multi-factorial causes",
"cause unknown", and so on. With this type of diagnosis and of
research into causes, attention is not focused on the preparation by the
organism to receive an illness.
What is the nature of the human being? When someone has died or has not
yet been born, we imagine him as pure spirit, cosmic, somewhere far away. But
when he has arrived and has started crying, eating and soiling his diapers, we
experience him as very much of the earth, physical - often as a burden as well.
Not all children are born into situations where they fit smoothly into the
daily routine; families often have to make very earthly adjustments. What then
is the nature of the child? The human being is connected both to the earth and
to the cosmos as a whole. This is why his being can manifest its relationship
to the heavens, to the spiritual world, as a characteristic. This same human
being, however, also reveals his connectedness with the earthly through what he
has received from the earth - his metabolism, his limbs, his ability to be
active. On the basis of previous lives, each person brings with him the very
individual relationships of his own being with the heavens and the earth, and these
live in the varied forms and configurations of his etheric body.
R.S.: the head, with its spherical curvatures, is an image of the vault
of the heavens. It is here that thinking can raise itself to the spirit. You
may have been struck by children whose head had a particularly well-formed,
sculpted appearance, which contrasted to some extent with the formation of
their limbs/speaks of the well-formed plasticity of the head that predominates
in these children. Something from the past has been given to them in their
etheric body which was able to work particularly on the development of the head
system. By contrast, the rest of the body's forms have been developed to
varying degrees. We seldom find a person, in whom as a child, the head and the
rest of the body are equally well formed such that we have the impression of
already encountering the individuality of the child as a unity. Some children
have faces which we could call "typical" children's faces, where it
is difficult to experience in the facial expression or in the formation of the
head a finished form penetrated by the personality of the child. Conversely,
there are children who have hands with soft, rounded fingers and a weak
handshake. Here we ask ourselves whether the individual is already fully
present or whether that is yet to come. Then in the 5th grade, we get a real
handshake from such a child and realize - now you've arrived!
Earthly child:
A handshake from a three-year-old
which gives us a very different impression. During the examinations to
determine school readiness, we sometimes come across children with dirt on
their hands and under their nails. Their parents did wash their hands at home,
but on the way to school all kinds of things happened ... Here we see the
connection to the earth, the relationship to it - I'd like to say the gift of
interest at first sight in everything earthly. An airplane, a car, the earth in
all its detail, and especially the colorful, noisy television set, so
enormously stimulating to the senses - all this is fascinating. These children
love the earth, love all its details; they are totally caught up in the world,
and are endowed with a gift for facing earthly existence. Action are often
correspondingly impetuous, "headless".
R.S.: description of a child's nature is not an analysis of defects
indicating what the child lacks or what is not in order. It is a description of
the gifts, characteristics, and relationships of the child's own being. We have
children who are gifted in dealing with the earth and their surroundings, who
have a very practical orientation, but who are not quiet and thoughtful enough,
and so are not really able to put their gift to good use. This is why they need
our help. We also have heavenly gifted children who bear inner riches somewhere
within themselves, riches which they cannot yet really express, really make
fruitful for the earth because they are not yet sufficiently gifted in dealing
with the earthly. Since these aspects primarily involve the functioning of the
etheric body and of the way in which relationships of the child's being are
brought from the past and expressed in the plasticity of his form.
What treatment did R.S. recommend for the earthly children? Independent
of their temperament (sanguine, choleric, melancholic or phlegmatic) this child
has a slight, melancholy overtone in their nature, a certain predisposition to
be out of sorts. If someone is already out of sorts and then something
unpleasant happens to him, it's obviously easier to upset him than someone who
has a cheerful disposition and can take more as a result. The melancholy
overtone is the result of the fact that this gift for dealing with the earthly
also means being burdened by the earth. The hereditary factors (what grows
towards the child from the earth) predominate in these children when they
incarnate. The heavenly is not strong enough to balance out the earthly, and so
they tend to be overwhelmed and defined by what comes from the stream of
heredity. The recommendation here in terms of therapy is that the children's
needs be met at the point which they are at. This is a kind of axiom which
teachers and physicians should continually bear in mind in teaching children
with special needs. If a melancholy overtone is present, meet the child with a
melody in a minor key and then guide him into a major key; the mood should only
be changed after you have struck the child's own tone. As a rule, earthly
children have a real gift for movement, so it is easy to meet them there. Inner
movement is music, singing; outer movement is of course bodily movement. Thus
music and eurythmy are the key elements in therapy for earthly children. This
can present a real challenge to the teachers, since these are precisely the
children who throw themselves on the floor during eurythmy and don't want to
participate. And yet it is eurythmy which has the greatest therapeutic value
for them. To be able to help here requires the strongest identification on the
part of the teacher, of course, for what is the crucial factor? These children
have a gift for movement; they also tend to be musical, and often enjoy
listening to music. (R.S. has indicated, however, that this musical ability may
be a latent one which first needs to be awakened.) What is it that these
children have to learn through movement and music? They have to learn to be
involved with their feelings in what they are doing, and they can only do this
if the teacher himself feels a strong sense of identification with the task at
hand. Let's look at an example this in eurythmy.
If you have a class of these little rascals, you could begin with
something which allows the children to move quite freely. Their needs are being
met at the point which they are at some of them will be really happy to be able
to "let off steam", especially if the previous lesson was one where
they had to sit still. From such free movement you can then turn to practicing
a movement whereby, for example, you have the earthly children watch the rest
of the class, with the task of observing where a movement or form is being well
done. Then these children should be allowed to do the same thing in front of
the rest of the class. The children's attention is called to the beauty of a
movement. What happens through this? A feeling is aroused for their own gift.
The children learn to develop a feeling for the particular gift that they have
been given in their own nature - namely, the ability to move and to relate to
all that is earthly. Through the frequent repetition of such experiences, the
individuality of the child learns to recognize his gift more and more and thus
to deal with it.
Thus, feelings should be awakened for music and movement, and for the
elements of the beautiful, of light and dark, of tense and relaxed. Through
this the child becomes aware of what his abilities and interests are. And these
feelings, once awakened, in turn help to wake up the still sleeping head, for
if we feel like learning something, thoughts come to us far more easily than if
the feeling life is a grey area. It is the feelings which can awaken the
sleeping thoughts, so that the heavens can also begin to speak to this child.
Thus it is crucial that the feeling life be awakened first, and that the child
learn to have a sense of the gift of his own nature.
"Cosmic" child:
Brings a certain mobility in thinking, R.S.: attention for all the
subjects which require observation and reflection: history, geography, natural
history, literature, poetry. Here, too, the teacher is
challenged to meet the child's needs at the point which he is at. But
now it is a question of presenting every thing to be observed in such a way
that strong feelings are aroused in the child. After a parents' evening once I
was told how one mother reported that her son, who was in the fifth grade,
would come home every afternoon during the history block and tell her the
latest news from
Both the earthly and the cosmic child are in special need of artistic
treatment of the content of their lessons, for art is always concerned with
feelings and experience. To characterize a true artist, we could take the
example of an opera singer who - after singing a magnificent aria that was so
enthusiastically received that bouquets of roses covered the stage at her feet
- now sits dejected in a corner because she didn't sing one particular passage
quite cleanly. Now she knows exactly how she will sing the role of Santa in
"The Flying Dutchman" for the hundred and seventy-third time, and the
next time she will again see how to improve still more. And we might think that
when we've practiced a poem for 4 weeks, we can give a good recitation ... This
indicates that we are not yet on the path of true art, where perfection is
never reached, but where one learns to set to work and to arrive at the
experience of beauty that can only be achieved through artistic practice. The
teacher needs to be an artist who can present the stories he tells the class in
dramatic fashion. For example, in stirring words and with personal sympathy and
interest he can describe granite - what it experiences in the evolution of the
world, in the northern mountains, along the fjords, what weighs it down, why it
exists. He needs to do this in such a way that sympathy, a connection to the
feelings and to reality, and an interest in the world are engendered.
Such teaching brings the cosmic child down to earth because he also
senses and feels through the teacher's portrayal what he experiences in
thought. In the process, interest in the world, in his surroundings, is
awakened, and his own being is able to find a connection with the
metabolic/limb system (= tool on earth) via the feelings thus awakened.
Conversely, the "headless" child with the gift for movement,
the gift for dealing with the earth, comes into his own through experiencing
the power and beauty of a form and the ability to master a movement, slowly
finding the connection to the capacity for thought, the spiritual capacity,
that he has brought with him from pre-earthly existence. The sum and substance
of R.S.'s indications for the treatment of earthly and cosmic children is the
development of "feeling for the world". The world is not made up
solely of light, color and stories; it also consists of musical movement - of
sounding earthliness. To strive to experience all this in the depth of one's
feelings - that is the task. Some teachers may think to themselves "I
can't do something special for each child during the lesson - that's
impossible." But if the teacher takes this key thought as his guideline -
to develop a feeling for the world - and works on his gestures, his expression,
and his intonation because he knows that for the earthly children each timbre,
each modulation of the voice signifies a feeling, then he is educating them in
the middle sphere which mediates between heaven and earth, between thought and
action - the sphere of the feelings. When, on the other hand, he makes manifest
and embodies the feelings within what is being observed, he then pulls the cosmic
children into the realm of feeling within what is being observed, he then pulls
the cosmic children into the realm of feeling for the world. In both cases it
is the strengthening of the middle system that is essential; thus, the former
type of child can participate with no problem in exercises intended for the
latter and vice versa.
In closing, a final word on eurythmy. For this artistic form of teaching
eurythmy is the most important means of self-education - the most important
training ground - for the teacher himself. Today it is more and more difficult
for children to really hold themselves erect, to be present in their gestures
and in their movements. The attractions of the outer world make many children
more earthly than they otherwise would be. When the teacher works especially
hard on his posture, on his gestures, on the way his ego manifests itself
through his body, this has a great effect on the children. It is important,
however, that eurythmy be studied and practiced with the three aspects of each
sound as they are represented on the eurythmy figures. We shouldn't learn only
the form of the movement - how to form a "B", for example - but also
the quality which is hinted at in the color of the veil, and which R.S. terms
feeling. So we should feel the quality of "B" - as in the blue cloak
of Mary, for example. Even more importantly, we should become acquainted with
the character of the sounds, which is indicated by brush-strokes in a third
color on specific areas of the human figure or of the garment. That is where
the will impulse for the form of the movement imbued with feeling manifests
itself. If we enter into the three aspects - firstly, on the level of thought
as to the meaning of the form and how it is made, secondly, on the level of
feeling as to what it expresses and whether I truly live in it with my
feelings, and thirdly, in terms of its character - then through this threefold
effort we are schooling our own threefold human nature such that our ego is
then truly present within it.
People often ask whether the earthly aspect isn't always associated with
the small-headed child and the cosmic with the large-headed child. Observation
has confirmed that this is not the case. There are both large-headed and
small-headed children with the earthly or the cosmic aspect. Having a large or
a small head is the expression of the physical condition and of the interaction
of the nerve/sense and the metabolic systems. Accordingly, treatment aims at
supporting the physical functions such as nutrition and sense perception. In
the case of the earthly and the cosmic child, things are different, for here
the child's being is addressed on the etheric level. Here everything depends on
whether the child's I can individualize the head or the limbs in a suitable way.
Only an etheric body which has been penetrated by the I is capable of
completely adapting to what comes from heredity and of transforming it
adequately. Where this does not take place to a sufficient extent, one of the
two opposing spheres will predominate. In this case, therapy focuses primarily
on the feeling life, because feelings can mediate between the etheric and
astral bodies. The activity of the etheric body is stimulated by feelings.
"To experience" means, in fact, to be able to immerse oneself - one's
attention, i.e., activity of the I - in the etheric body through the medium of
the feelings. The basic concepts on the nature of the human being which R.S.
introduces into pedagogy are like letters that, read in connected form, for the
first time make the nature of the child so clear that we also know how we can
help through a particular treatment. However, we must first approach the
individual child with each of these basic concepts and see for ourselves what
they aid us in recognizing in our observations. A consideration of the
temperaments, for example, helps us to recognize different qualities in the
child than a consideration of whether the child is large-headed or
small-headed, earthly or cosmic.
3. The "fantasy-rich" and
the "fantasy-poor" child
"Fantasy-poor" children are those who have difficulty calling
images and ideas to mind, whereas "fantasy-rich" children have the
problem of not being able to let go of something once it has entered their
consciousness. "Richness of fantasy" should be understood here in the
broadest sense as the thought content of consciousness, also as recall and
memory. In his book "Occult Science"'12 R.S. calls our attention to
the fact that the human I lives in remembering and forgetting, just as the
astral body lives in waking and sleeping - in the lighting up and extinguishing
of consciousness. There are people who are tormented by the fact that they
can't forget, and others who suffer because they can't remember. In both cases
they are touched in the central core of their being, in their I. Self-awareness
depends to a great extent on whether experiences and memories can be
consciously dealt with in such a way that they neither intrude nor are
inaccessible. The child's emotional health for the remainder of his life depends
on whether we succeed in creating the basis for a healthy experience of the I
and self-awareness. This is the task we are faced with in the treatment of
these two types of children.
Let's first ask ourselves where thoughts come from in the first place.
Isn't the etheric body also the bearer of the thought life? "Knowing that
the human being's ordinary powers of thought are refined formative and growth
forces is of the greatest importance. Something spiritual reveals itself in the
formation and growth of the human organism. For this spiritual element then
appears during the course of life as the spiritual force of thinking".
This is the way R.S. describes the origin of thought; it is this description we
must understand and keep in the back of our minds when we approach the
treatment of fantasy-rich and fantasy-poor children. Just think how in the
course of three times seven years the human body grows from 50 centimeters to
one meter eighty. The growth forces which bring this about, which differentiate
the organs right down to the elaboration of the central nervous system, become
available step-by-step for human thinking. Characteristic steps in the
development of the power of thinking take place which correspond to the body's
growth.
In the second half of life, a gradual process of involution begins. The
forces of regeneration now become increasingly weaker. The nervous system loses
some of its water; all the organs gradually begin to atrophy, and regeneration
becomes more and more difficult. When the body can no longer be used, death
occurs. In the case of the person who is growing old in healthy fashion, the
development of his powers of thought is miraculously able to continue even
though his body has entered the involution of old age. This is possible because
the etheric body's power of regeneration have now been freed up and are
available to the activity of thinking as new, creative possibilities. They make
possible the new qualities of thought in old age.
A person in the first half of life, who thinks with the growth forces
that have been freed up, thinks in a more personal way, looking at things in
relation to himself. He goes to school, then on to higher education, striving
to find his place in the world; for him, his own plans are his central concern.
The leitmotif here is "self-realization". This corresponds completely
to the dynamics of the growth forces, which are focused on building up one's
own body. This tendency is then still connected with thinking. In the second
half of life, on the contrary - from approximately the age of 40 to 50 onwards,
when we are in a position to really become conscious of the quality of these
powers of regeneration - the disposition becomes increasingly apparent to think
in a way that is no longer so strongly bound up with one's own body and own
self-preservation.
It suddenly becomes easier to think of others in a more selfless way, to
make the concerns of the world central, and to strive for
"world-realization" rather than "self-realization". The body
becomes heavier, burdened by this or that limitation; thinking becomes
healthier, more selfless, more self-sacrificing. The wisdom of old age arises,
for these new possibilities in thinking are the result of a renunciation
(refuse to recognize) of the regeneration and youthful freshness of one's own
body.
It is important to prepare young people for a developmental process
which will enable growth forces, as they are released from the body, to be
released in such a way that they can be taken up by the I, and remembering and
forgetting can be dealt with in as conscious a manner as possible. This
capacity cannot develop if we merely let ourselves be carried along by the
daily flow of events. We have to regularly take a few minutes in which to think
about what has happened, to practice gaining an overview of what we have
experienced, then consciously forgetting it again. This is an exercise of the
will.
R.S. wants to draw our attention to the preparation for such
possibilities when he describes fantasy-rich and fantasy-poor children. He
indicates that in children who have an imbalance in either direction, we are
dealing with a disturbance in the metamorphosis of the growth forces.
Let's turn once more to the process of the freeing up of the growth
forces from the body. Initially, we have unconscious life forces bound up with
the body; when these forces are freed up from the body, we then have
unconscious thought life. This thought life - which is initially available for
getting to know the world only at an unconscious level - is made conscious
through the transmission of impressions either in school or by life in general.
We all know much more at an unconscious level than we do consciously. It then
depends on the strength of our will to learn whether we become clear on how
much latent knowledge we have. On becoming acquainted with anthroposophy, some
people say that what they read in R.S.'s works is as if spoken from their own
heart. They had actually already thought that many things were so - they just
hadn't known it clearly. Thoughts are there, but we are often not clearly
enough aware of them.
This whole question is closely connected to health and illness. Do the
forces which are freed up from the body and are to become conscious thought
forces spring from a body that is ready, and are they really "in
excess" - are they free to be taken up by the I in thinking - or have they
been freed up prematurely from the body, so that the particular dynamics of the
growth forces from the organs are still present, connected with the body? In
this case they may suddenly manifest themselves as involuntary inner
soul-content of a compulsive or hallucinatory nature.
R.S. states that mental illness comes about when a premature or untimely
metamorphosis of growth forces takes place.14 A fantasy-rich child, one who
cannot let go of ideas and images, is not mentally ill in the true sense of the
word. However, he is in a situation in which more growth forces have been freed
up than the I can freely cope with. His thoughts have retained their own
dynamics which bind them up with the body and which cannot be sufficiently
controlled by the I. You can actually see this in the children. If the teacher
has said something that is important to him, it may be taken in by a
fantasy-rich child, who then continues to think about it till the end of the
lesson and is thus no longer open to anything else during that time. In a
manifestation such as this there is already a tendency to illness, for illness
is, in the final analysis, always connected to the phenomenon that the
integration of the many possible functions and activities of body and soul can
no longer be managed by the I. Instead of this integration, we have
manifestations of isolation and fixation.
Or we have the opposite situation, where the teacher says something, and
it goes in one ear and out the other. The I is powerless to hold the thoughts.
We are often glad if the children have learned anything at all, so we don't pay
much attention to whether their knowledge is of a fixed nature or whether it
has been taken in in a living way. We must learn, however, to pay attention to
this. At various stages in the lesson are the children able to grasp things and
then let them go? Or do they get stuck on certain things? A breathing process must
be introduced here as well: taking in, holding, and releasing, so that one is
free again for something new. In the case of the opposite extreme, a teacher
may teach a whole main lesson, and what he presents does indeed reach the
child, but lands deep in his body - his consciousness remains open and clear,
without the slightest memory of what has gone on ... In terms of the treatment
indicated by R.S., we again have the fundamental rule of therapy mentioned
previously: Meet the children's need at the point which they are at.
What point is a fantasy-rich child - who has a tendency to have
compulsive thoughts, who is unable to forget, to let go of ideas and images -
at ? When we adults have too many problems on our mind and don't know how to
deal with them any more, how to come up with some fresh ideas, we start
running, moving, in the hope that through the movement and the fresh air,
something will also start moving in our minds. Movement is also the remedy for
the children we have described. The main point is to take subjects where this
"getting in motion" can be consciously practiced - for example, in
writing, where the teacher should make sure that the children don't get stuck
on individual letters, but really write in a flowing hand.
Singing is also a "moving" subject. When you are afraid, you
are also troubled by ideas and images you cannot shake off. In this situation,
some people start singing, and then actually feel freer. Singing can be of real
help to the fantasy-rich child, for his whole body is permeated with the
vibrations of his own activity, allowing the images and ideas in his mind to
flow freely again, without obstruction.
In the case of the fantasy-poor child, the teacher should concentrate
all his love and attention on helping the child to learn to make use of his
senses. For through this activity of the senses, his thought life can be firmed
up into ideas and images which can be recalled. Having the children watch while
someone is painting, or observe carefully or listen attentively - these are the
means. Instrumental music, where precise listening is required, is also useful.
R.S. encourages having the children sing and play instrumental music in the
same lesson, so that making music oneself and listening to music can alternate.
In this way, the children have a hygienic effect on each other, even though the
fantasy-rich children are supposed to make music and the fantasy-poor to
listen.
Eurythmy plays a special role in the treatment of these two types of
children. This seems obvious in the case of fantasy-rich children who cannot
let go of ideas and images. For them it is of tremendous help to be able to
move with the whole body - in threefold walking, in skipping, and in running.
The vowel sounds have a special effect on these children, for the vowels live
in the bloodstream and form the organs. When the children practice them while
doing threefold walking - in movement - they have a calming effect on the ideas
and images arising too intrusively from the organism. They stimulate the growth
forces to development of the organs, and anchor the forces there, so that they
cannot so easily be freed up. In his curative eurythmy course 15 R.S. describes
how the vowels stimulate "self-becoming", the consolidation of the
development of forms. Fantasy-poor children, who have difficulty bringing ideas
and images to consciousness, can also be helped through eurythmy. They can
benefit by practicing the consonant sounds, mostly while standing in place
(i.e. only with the arms). Consonants help to dissolve fixed forms, to
counteract deformations - they "de-self".
A eurythmy teacher once told me how she had put this indication of
R.S.'s into practice. The problem was with a high school student who, according
to his mother, sat for hours on end every afternoon trying to do his homework
because he had such difficulty remembering what had been done in school. In
good-natured fashion, this student was willing to participate, together with
some fellow classmates, in a fairy-tale play that was being planned by a local
group of eurythmists. The high-school students were used as a narrative group
whose function it was to demonstrate mostly consonants while standing in place.
This involved practicing for an hour twice a week. As performance time neared,
it also meant extra rehearsals after school, which the student in question took
part in without a murmur. When the teacher asked him if this wasn't becoming
too much for him, he said, "Oh no, after yesterday's rehearsal I was in
top form and even finished my main lesson book." Here we can see that the
consonants - especially if they are practiced while standing in place - have
the effect of loosening up the spiritual forces somewhat from the
metabolic/limb system. They bring the organs into a situation such that rigid
forms are loosened up, allowing them to get accustomed to new possibilities of
form and to change in a healthier direction, with the growth forces more easily
freed up for thinking.
Thus we see how self-awareness - so important for later life - lives
between remembering and forgetting, and how the I is really called upon to
stand at the threshold of consciousness as master of sleeping and waking, of
remembering and forgetting. This picture of the I standing at the threshold and
watching over its soul-life can accompany us in every eurythmy and music class,
and in every lesson in which these elements are dealt with.
When we look at the large-headed or small-headed child's body size and
form, we are dealing with the seal of the I in the physical body. For this reason,
the treatment is also physical. In the case of the earthly and the cosmic
child, we are not dealing with the aspect of form, but rather with the process
of how this form originated. We get the impression that here the seal of the I
lies more in the functioning of the etheric body, and so the therapy is also
concerned with the functional aspect of the soul forces. Awakening strong
feelings stimulates the growth forces to the full development of forms by
enabling the I - via the stimulated astral forces - to work its way into the
etheric/physical constitution. With the fantasy-rich and fantasy-poor child,
our attention is focused on the content of consciousness - how the I deals with
what the astral body brings to consciousness, what lives in sleeping and
waking, and what is present in the I as remembering and forgetting. Here, our
therapeutic efforts are also aimed at helping the child to develop his middle
system so that a true "in-dwelling", a feeling of his own humanity,
is possible. Here we perceive the seal of the I in the astral body.
Time and again R.S. calls teacher's attention to the task of learning
how to breathe properly. In the descriptions of children which start from one
of two polarities respectively, with therapy leading to a balance in the
middle, we have a manifestation of the archetypal principle of respiration as
the harmonization of two polarities: movement and rest. Quiet and concentration
are the prerequisites for any meaningful sense/nerve activity. On the other
hand, willingness to move is the prerequisite for any metabolism/limb activity.
Learning to breathe properly means - in terms of the anthroposophical view of
the human being - learning to live in our three-fold organism, learning to find
the middle sphere.
In terms of the classroom, learning to breathe properly means receiving
the subject of the lessons with interest, manipulating it and making it one's
own with joy. Of course, where there is love, there is always pain. Receiving
something with interest or love does not necessarily mean that it is always
easy - it may also involve an effort. But if the teacher is imbued with his
subject matter and presents it in the way described in connection with the
large-headed and the small-headed child, then even a child with great learning
difficulties can be touched by it in such a way that his sympathies for it are
awakened, enabling him to enter into it step-by-step. Thus, dealing with the
treatment of these opposite types of children can also be of assistance to the
teacher in coming up with ideas for "learning to breathe properly" in
his lessons.
Frei nach: Philip Incao, M.D.
Human being a growing/changing/evolving being. In childhood, where
change is most rapid, the frequent inflammatory illnesses mark milestones in
the child’s growth and development. For adults illness can be analogous to the
shedding of skins by reptiles. If we see the human body as a vessel for our
consciousness, it is then the instrument of who we are. Or you could say that
our magnificently constructed body is a full orchestra – but it is not the
music. Our bodies are not ourselves, but express ourselves. As we constantly
grow and change, the body has to grow and change with us.
Childhood Infections
The process of acute inflammation in childhood infections helps to
connect that child’s not-yet-manifested potential consciousness to the
instrument of her or his physical body, which as anyone can observe, goes
through constant remodeling. Every change needs not only formation of new
tissues, but also the destruction and elimination of old ones. Inflammation
refines the human body by getting rid of unneeded, worn out materials, and
expelling them. The vehicle for this process is the immune system, and in
children through fever/mucus production/vomiting/diarrhea.
The word ‘infection’ for childhood illnesses, is of course a misnomer,
because it focuses attention on the bacteria or viruses as invading, causative
agents. But the infectious agents commonly blamed for most illnesses are
already inside us or constantly around us. They become active enough to cause
symptoms only when there is an accumulation of wastes and debris produced
naturally by a growing body. Then the immune system starts up, and through
inflammation and fever cleanses the body and establishes a new balance. Many
parents report seeing distinct developmental leaps in their children after
recovery from an inflammatory illness.
Killing the Messenger
Attacking the bacteria with antibiotics is really “killing the immune
system’s messenger“. Evidence that the whole acute inflammation and fever cycle
is normal lies in the fact that animals experimentally raised in germ-free
environments fail to develop either normal immune systems or healthy
intestines. Shutting down fevers and inflammation with antibiotics not only
suppresses an essential, natural process that builds immune capacity, it drives
the toxins deeper into the body. They surface later in chronic illnesses. The
huge increase seen in recent years in chronic illnesses such as asthma and
allergies, and in immune disorders, follows the indiscriminate use of
antibiotics and vaccines.
Of course, when excessive bacterial activity threatens to “burn the
house down,” then antibiotic use is fully warranted. Call your doctor if a child
or adult appears to be steadily losing strength during a high fever.
The essential viewpoint is that we and our bodies do not and should not
stand still. We grow, we change, and we age. In childhood (more slowly and
subtly later) we transform and mold our bodies through incarnating into them.
Illnesses may signal either that change is occurring or that our inner poisons
have accumulated to the point that they provoke a healing crisis - as in the
bronchitis that is provoked by smoking or the hepatitis provoked by intravenous
drug use.
Inflammation and Plasticity
The brain develops, as physiologists have discovered, through the
functions it carries. In a child brought up without language, the “language
center” of the brain fails to develop, not the other way around. The healthy
brain is elastic and flexible, and needs to stay so to convey our thoughts and
intentions. Alzheimer’s Disease/other dementias can be seen as a loss of
plasticity such that the instrument can no longer “play the tune”. If the neurons
don’t work properly, the consciousness is disturbed. Chemicals called cytokines
(= signaling molecules used extensively in intercellular communication) known
to be mediators of inflammation. Certain cytokines have been shown specifically
to increase brain plasticity. That suggests that the process of inflammation,
mediated by cytokines, increases the ability of the nervous system to integrate
with the body. It helps us to be healthy, whole and functional human beings who
can actively unfold our potential.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum