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Show SHOT SSFUL ftK fc"Why can't you be more ladylike?" lady-like?" Clinging to tomboy ways is usually a reaction to the difficulties difficult-ies of growing up. Parents can best discourage the tendency by buying attractive clothes and encouraging more feminine pursuits such as dancing. "Crushes" on a teacher or older girls should not be laughed at; neither should they be encouraged for a long perr iod. Instead, opportunities for other friendships can be encouraged, en-couraged, perhaps by helping the girl acquire a new skill, so that the tennis club or the photography group will ask her to join. A girl who experiences exper-iences family life as pleasant will be able to see herself as a mother of a growing family and will accept her future role more easily. In all these matters, however, it should be remembered that the adolescent is especially sensitive to criticism. Usually he is even more acutely aware of his shortcomings than are his parents. Often he is inwardly appalled by his mistakes. mis-takes. Parents can help best by pointing out that we will all make mistakes and fall short of our inner in-ner standards, but that honestly recognizing faults and constantly striving to improve is successful living. Fifteen-year-old Nancy was sec-4 retly ashamed of her home. And because she knew her folks didn't have much money, she felt disloyal to them for wishing they would fix up the house. Finally Nancy admitted ad-mitted her feelings to herself and decided to do something about them. She saved her allowance and when she had enough money she asked if she might paint the living room. The result was so attractive that Nancy's mother was inspired to dye the faded drapes. Dad got interested too, and built racks for phonograph records. Unfortunately guilt feelings are not always a spur to constructive con-structive action. Sometimes a sense of guilt degenerates into self-pity, martyrdom, alibi-ing, blaming and rationalizing that is, cloaking over real reasons with "noble" ones. Or a person takes an attitude of "As long as I feel unhappy about it, I'm still paying for my mistakes so I don't need to do better." Parents need to recognize these signs of guilt feelings when trying to help adolescents. What do teen-agers have to feel guilty about? A teen-age magazine reports these as the most important import-ant ones, according to a recent survey sur-vey of high school students: being jealous of brothers and sisters, being ashamed of parents, thinking a lot about sex, liking the wrong people, losing tempers easily, not being loyal to principles, persisting persist-ing in bad habits, failing to make the most of opportunities. This list points up the fact that the parents' problem isn't one of getting teen-agers to realize that they have faults, but one of helping them to do something constructive. A friendly suggestion is more likely to be followed than a stern command. com-mand. For example, it doesn't help to say to a tomboyish teen-ager, |