The problem child

by Alexander Sutherland Neill

256 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1926

About the author

1883-1973

Reviews

[Branden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the four books by Neill that was later combined by Hart to produce the 1960's Summerhill book, a radical approach to child rearing by A.S. Neill. It was Hart's plan to help the Summerhill School though a financial struggle, and it helped make Summerhill known as a place and model of schooling. This led to an American Summerhill Movement that sparked over 100 Summerhill-inspired schools to be founded in the 60's. Most unfortunately closed by the end of the 60's but laid the groundwork for the free school movement to be continued in an alternative form through Sudbury Valley School and other Sudbury-inspired schools.

Daniel Greenberg's first introduction to Summerhill was visiting the first Summerhill-inspired school in the state of New York, then called The Fifteenth Street School. After closing, The Fifteenth Street School is now the Chelsea Day School for elementary.

Before psychology was 'medicalized' or standardized, the time of Freud and Jung, people just practiced it. Neill was one of them and began publishing his ideas, although mostly about education but included his ideas on psychology, in 1916. Another book, by the same name, The Problem Child by Alfred Adler was published in 1930. A note of interest.