It is some time before a child's will can so overcome his
newly-acquired tendency to grasp every possible object that he can
keep his hand off of anything that invites him. The many battles
between mothers and children it the subject of not touching forbidden
things are at this stage a genuine wrong and injustice to the child.
So young a child is scarcely more responsible for touching whatever he
can reach that is a piece of steel for being drawn toward a powerful
magnet. Preyer says that it is years before voluntary inhibitions
of grasping become possible. The child has not the necessary brain
machinery. Commands and sparring of the hands create bewilderment and
tend to build up a barrier between mother and child. Instead of doing
such thing, simply put high out of reach and sight whatever the child
must not touch.

Another way in which young children are often made to suffer because
of the ignorance of parents is the leaving of undesired food on the
child's plate. Every child, when he does not want his food, pushes the
plate away from him, and many mothers push it back and scold. The real
truth is that the motor suggestion of the food upon the plate is so
strong that the child feels as if he were being forced to eat it every
time he looks at the plate; to escape from eating it he is obliged to
push it out of sight.

[Sidenote: The Three Months' Baby]

But this difficulty comes later. Now we are concerned with a
three-months-old baby. At this stage the child is usually able to
balance his head, to sit up against pillows, to seize and grasp
objects, and to hold out his arm, when he wishes to be taken.
Although he may have made number of efforts to sit erect, and may have