By Margaret Lowenfeld

Behind every child’s failure lies the failure of a parent and one of the most frequent causes of this tragedy is the gulf of misunderstanding between the child and the grown-up. If this gulf is to be bridged, we must learn to understand the child, and the beginning of all our difficulties lies in the fact that we so often look upon the child as a grown-up only smaller. But the difference between a child and a grown-up is not merely one of scale; the child’s mind is completely different; it differs from ours in quality, in perception and in the way it works. If we are to understand children, we must know the structure of their minds, and this knowledge must be reinforced by imagination, insight, and a vivid memory of our own childhood.