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Show Wise Parents Will Compromise With Children Joining, "The Gang" Rarely in a child's life does he need love and understanding more than when he starts to school. Release from home control and association with "the gang" may change him in ways that will shock parents. But they'll be wise not to confuse delinquency with a child's natural enthusiasm for his new world. "Mixed with your pleasure at seeing them reach this milestone are the tiny fe ars that flutter around the edges of your heart," says an. aricle in the September issue of Good Housekeeping magazine mag-azine "The fear of letting them go for the first time into a world you can't control . . . the fear that the standards . and values of your home will be forgotten . . . for the more appealing ways of 'the gang.' " The article predicts that such fears will take shape "the first time Johnny comes home, swaggering swag-gering a little . . . and treats you to a vocabulary your family has frowned on for generations." According Ac-cording to the author, you will have to enforce your will, compromise, com-promise, or abandon the problem and hope for the best. As proof that the best solution often is compromise, the author cites the case of parents whose little girl started a boycott of a new child in the neighborhood. Instead of forcing her to associate assoc-iate with the new girl, the wise parents invited her family to their home to prove to their child that the new neighbor was no different than her other friends. The result was a funful afternoon for both children and a lasting friendship. As another instance, the article art-icle tells of the boy who came home from his day's "gang warfare" war-fare" and turned on the radio full blast to listen to blood-and-thunder adventures. Instead of forbidding him these programs, his parents insisted that he turn down the volume and saw to it that his listening never interfered with his sleep or their own relaxation. relax-ation. "What Johnny's parents gained by treating his first thrusts at independence in this way was not a model child," says the article. "They gained much more. They won from Jim respect and trust, and they could be confident he would become the kind of person they would respect and trust as well as love." |