This article discusses the conceptualisation of "enuresis nocturna" by Dutch experts between "c."1950 and 1990, years in which across the West new child sciences rapidly developed. Today, bedwetting is conceived as a mental illness caused by a mixture of nature- and nurture-bound factors. Have organic and environmental causes…

The historiography of child guidance has focused primarily on the United States, where it first developed before travelling across the English-speaking world. The rapid expansion of child guidance in the interwar years was enabled by private philanthropy, which provided fellowships to foreign professionals to study in the United States. This…

This article discusses the science-based diagnostic observation in a Dutch girls' reformatory in the 1950s. Scientisation of the observation implied that to the medical examination upon entry and observation of a child's behaviour were added a psychological assessment, a psychiatric examination, and an inquiry into the family of origin. Inspired…

This article is concerned with the history of the neurological disorder that preceded ADHD: "neurasthenia" or nervousness, conceived of as a functional disease of the nervous system. Around 1900 it appeared on the scene of children's disorders and it disappeared at the time of the pharmacological turn in psychiatry by the late 1960s. In…

In this article, the author discusses plans that were launched at three consecutive conferences on care for toddlers between 1929 and 1938 in the Netherlands. These plans and their realisation are evaluated in terms of what was seen as the missing link in the supply of institutional care for young children. The author identifies the professional…

As in other Western countries in the Netherlands during the first half of the twentieth century, large numbers of school children were sent to holiday camps or "health colonies" to gain weight and recover strength. At first this large-scale hygienic enterprise was led by teachers, who wanted to "save" poor, undernourished…

Discusses the history and outcomes of psychoanalysis and child rearing practices in the 1950s Netherlands to present. Depicts the 20th century as a century of child rearing experts with parents blamed for all that was wrong with their child. States the dynamics of psychology has undermined society's self-supporting and self-healing capacity. (KDR)