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Show 1 tt A LVry i L: - -J SUCCESSFUL PARENTHOOD By MRS. CATHERINE C EDWARDS Associate Editor, Paranfs Maqniln whole mind and uncover an idea which has been lying there growing grow-ing for months or perhaps years. - i PARENTS SHOULD "OPENDOORS" FOR CHILDREN what he leans toward does he work more easily with his hands than his head ? Is he able to visualize visual-ize what he wants to do with raw materials or does he have to see completed objects before he knows what to do with them? In addition to aptitudes which are revealed in his play, often a person's most congenial con-genial and most useful occupation is discovered through a childhood hobby. After the hobby stage, comes more serious reading about the world of jobs. See that there are books and magazines about the house that deal with different trades, professions, and careers. Be sure to supply some literature that tells of careers no one in your family fam-ily ever dreamed of following. Your son or daughter may be different, you know, and it is the prime business busi-ness of parents to open all possible doors to a child's mind. Of course, reading about jobs won't secure one, but can you imagine ima-gine a doctor practicing medicine without keeping in touch with new ideas in medical journals? So in finding his place in the world the young person might absorb dozens of vocational stories and articles without getting an idea, and then one day come across a sentence or a paragraph that will light up his . ? I don't believe many of us would like to go back to the days when parents planned their children's careers for them by selecting one son for the ministry, one for the law, one for business, with little regard re-gard to their possession or lack of gifts for these callings. But there has been a recent tendency for parents to go too far in the opposite oppo-site direction and thus fail to begin be-gin early enough to think about their children's future in terms of their work in the world. I'm not blaming the tragic lack of jobs. We aren't, however, con cerned here with such causes as world upheavals and economic dislocations, dis-locations, but with parental responsibility respon-sibility for helping their children get a start in life. And it is true that this help must begin early and must be more centered upon discovering what the child has to give to the world than on what he is going to get. This doesn't mean that you must begin at the age of five to instruct your child in the rudiments of a trade or profession. But you can supply him with play materials that will give him a chance to show |
