OCR Text |
Show Send for this. It’s full of new beauty ideas and aids. AAAS AI A deodorant! so safe you can use | it 2 ways Do you always stop your child from fighting? Do you keep him from watching tv? Do you fall for Child-= Rearing Myt 50° S! 77 lovely rooms shown in full color. Over 125 decorating ideas illustrated. By THOMAS AFFELDT, M.D. Easyto follow short cuts to help you make your curtains and draperies. Director, Adolescent Program, Forest Hospital, Des Plaines, Ill, For women only “He can’t learn to read,” she said. ing odors with new easy-to-use “He just sits there staring at the can now destroy these embarrass- EST Porat fast een (1) Quest helps keep your whole body odor-free. Can be used even in the most intimate areas. (2) Quest destroys odor on sanitary napkins—destroys odor under bras and girdles —as no ordinary deodorant can. Saves hard ing ‘Mailing regulations require Zip code. CONFUSED MOTHER brought her six-year-old son to my office. Womenhave a special odor problem caused by body sere one and perspiration. Fortunately you ‘Try that wears outfabric. Quest today. It’s the spe- cial deodorant for you and your clothes, too. QUEST Tiosaicent: Exhausted? aes ing A FAMILY AFFAIR , loss of sleep and a tormentiteh are often telltale signs of Worms . . . ugly parasites that medical experts say infest 1 out of every8personsexamined. Entirefam- ities may be victims and not know it. ee ewes ae Now! Rid your home of mice completely eeee ‘s— CLEANEST .. . no muss—no fuss— no messy traps... just pull tab—bait feeds book. But I’m sure he’s bright.” As a child psychiatrist, I suspected what might be wrong. This family had accepted one of the child-rearing myths so com- mon today. The particular myth they believed in was that parents must not quarrel or display anger in front of their children for fear .of “traumatizing” or a ing ‘them. psy I explained to the distraught mother that as a result of their mistaken attitudes the boy was afraid to show any feelings of anger and aggression. And learning— particularly reading—demaends aggression. “Before we can expect his school work to improve,” I told this worried mother, “we will have to show him that aggression can be harmlessly released. It might help him if he saw you and your husbanddisagree occasionally.” The parents were skeptical and perhaps a little shocked, but no more so than many of my patients who have enthusiastically embraced popular myths of child-rearing that circulate over coffee tables and at parties, These theories may seem liberal and enlightened, but, followed too closely and too literally, they can cause severe emotional trouble. A common cause of anger in a youngster is hostility toward brothers and sisters. Jealousy, resentment, disappointment, and rivalry are bound to crop up from time to time among children reared together. Wise parents let their offspring vent these feelings in natural ways. A good neighbor of mine, for example, rarely intervenes when her boys burst into occasional fights or shouting matches. “Naturally, I make quite sure that no one really gets hurt. But I realize that some fighting really can be a good thing,” . she told me. She is right. Her boys are the closest of friends. I recently treated a teen-age girl who Family Weekly, March 19, 1967 was extremely depressed by intense guilt over jealousy of her sister. Her parents not only frowned on any quarreling between the girls but blocked off other outlets as well. They absolutely forbade the teen-ager to watch any violence on television, for one thing, under the mistaken popular notion that tv-brawling can cause juvenile delinquency. I have found that youngsters release many hostile feelings through tv programs. AsI told these parents: “Don’t try to shield your daughter from every ‘bad’ influence. You'll do more harm in the long run by being overprotective in such matters as these.” On the other hand, some parents are too eager to treat their children as adults. At a block party recently, a young father bragged to me about the “family council” system he and his wife used. Like some other parents I have encountered, they ran their home as a “democracy” with each member casting a “vote” on all major decisions. This seems fair enough—but it isn’t— to the child, at least. A child is not a small adult. Consequently he should not have to assume adult responsibilities. I have known youngsters who have been expected to “vote” on where the family will live, whether the youngster will go to a public or private school, even whether there should be a new baby! a These decisions are far beyond a child’s emotional capabilities. His security comes from having parents act like parents—giving him direction and making family decisions, with the ultimate authority resting in the father. All parents are confident they are rearing their children in the best possible way. Yet superconfidence is perhaps the greatest mistake of all. It is. important to be fiexible—to recognize a myth and forsake it without feeling guilty about having embraced it. This open-mindedness is as important for the parent as for the child—whose “problem behavior” reflected the myth in the first place. @ |