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Show SUCCESSFUL PARENTHOOD THE CHILD'S FIRST IDEA of what is right and what is wrong is dictated by his own comfort what he wants is right and what he doesn't like is wrong. Gradually he learns through their loving care that what his parents say is right is really right; but this is only the first step in character building, which is the slow process of learning learn-ing to judge the right for oneself, one-self, and then to do it. By the time the child goes to school he should have had some experience in making his own judgements of right and wrong. If he has been kept to strict obedience to his parents commands, it will be hard for him 'to decide on the proper , conduct when something out of the ordinary happens. For example, ex-ample, suppose he has been ' told that he must come straight home from school so his mother won't be concerned about his whereabouts. Then oneN afternoon on the way home he finds a neighbor child crying because her puppy is lost. Knowing something of the habits of wayward puppies, he is sure he could find the child's pet. Does he dare delay his arrival home for this kindly deed? The school child who has advanced ad-vanced in character growth to the point where he knows that a rule can be broken if it serves a generous gen-erous purpose to do so, will feel free to keep his mother waiting (Also, the incident could be used to impress upon the child that while you think he did right in helping his friend, a telephone call to his mother would have been an added good deed.) Parents are familiar with most of the necessary steps in character growth learning to accept responsibility re-sponsibility for one's own actions without looking for "outs" or blaming someone else; learning to give oneself as well as sharing one's income; learning to see the other fellow's point of view; gradually gradu-ally achieving "faith, hope and charity" in one's daily living; and many others. There is another step one we don't always recognize and that is, learning to overcome over-come that exaggerated sense of unfairness to ourselves which we all carry to some extent ex-tent as a hangover from childhood child-hood injustices. These often arise when parents don't listen lis-ten to a child's reasons for what he does or if they do, perhaps they cannot follow the child's logic, so he is left with the baffled feeling that he is forgiven because he is little, not because he is right. Learning that he must accept a certain amount of being misunderstood misunder-stood without feeling resentment is a most useful character attribute. attri-bute. It helps particularly, for example, ex-ample, when teachers refuse to see the virtue in a child's having spent extra hours in unrequired reading on an assignment that interested him, to the neglect of an arithmetic arith-metic problem (though in later life this gift for research will be valued) It helps in accepting the fact that the slow child is given more help by the teacher than he is. A feeling of being treated unfairly, harboring all through childhood, will likely cause trouble in adult life. So help your child knock off any chips you may detect on his shoulder. |