Over and over again we are impressed with the fact that most
disagreements between people--whether between adults or between
children, or between children and adults--are due to misunderstandings.
As soon as parents resolve not to treat their children arbitrarily,--
that is, on the basis of their superior strength and authority,--they
adopt a plan of "reasoning" with them. This plan might work very well,
if the parents only understood the children's way of reasoning, if
they but realized that the child does not reason as do adults, that he
reasons differently in each stage of his development.

Our manner of reasoning depends very closely upon our language. But
every significant word that we use has a distinct meaning in the
mind of the individual, depending altogether upon his experience. As
the experience of the child is very meagre, compared to that of the
grown-up person, it is no wonder that our everyday remarks are
constant sources of misunderstanding to children.

The little girl who had been frequently reproved for not using her
_right_ hand came to have a positive dislike for her other
hand, which she naturally understood to be _wrong_ hand, and
she did not wish to have anything wrong about her person. A boy was
trying to tell his sister the meaning of "homesick." "You know how
it feels to be seasick, don't you? Well, it's the same way, only
it's at home."

Children are apt to attach to a word the first meaning that they
learn in connection with it. Only with the increase of experience
can a word come to have more than one meaning. Moreover, the child
will apply what he hears with fatal exactness and literalness.