HOW PARENTS CAN HELP IN OTHER WAYS to Adolescence

HOW PARENTS CAN HELP IN OTHER WAYS With adolescence comes an upsurge of growth and emotions and aggressions that cannot be stopped. Nor would any intelligent, sensitive parent want to stop. It is a vital force. We can hope to guide it constructively; never should we dam it up.

Parents, who show sympathetic understanding can expect not only an immediately happier home life than would otherwise be possible but the reward, too, of love and respect from their children in later years. If we parents find our adolescent children's behavior seemingly outlandish, we can do well to recall our own behavior as adolescents. Did we resent the authority of our parents? If we are honest, we must admit we did. We can then understand why our children object to strict rules. If we remember our daydreams and grandiose plans-and is there any one of us who did not have them?-we will hear out tolerantly, not derisively, our children's plans to remake the world or to become artists, writers, composers, or explorers when we think they should enter the family business.

We can think of the adolescent as half-child and half-adult, and if we do, we may more easily "weather" the storms and be able to be gentle and firm rather than threatening and authoritarian. We would do well to consider, too, as Dr. Benjamin Weininger, a psychiatrist, has suggested, that adolescents often have the correct attitude toward living. They are intense about life, and idealistic, and hopeful they can play a part in making life better for everyone. They may not be very practical in their attempts to achieve ideals but their outlook on life is worth respect.

As parents, our job is to help the adolescent child reach maturity, social as well as sexual maturity. We have talked about the sexual aspect. What can we do to help in the attainment of social maturity? As much as possible, we should give him or her a sense of place and participation in the family. We can, and should, discuss-or at the very least, explain-family decisions. We can acquaint him or her with details of the family budget, providing a true picture of what things cost in terms of parents' outlay of time and energy. We can let him see for himself that his share is reasonable, not the result of an arbitrary decision.

 We can help to build a sense of adult responsibility about financial matters by giving a child a regular allowance, once a week for younger children, and then, at 16 and over, once a month. It may be helpful, too, to provide older children with personal checking accounts; they realize then that they are being treated as responsible individuals. We can do everything possible to enable our adolescent boy or girl to have Friends. We can let a daughter, if she wants to enter a profession rather than marry at the same age as her mother did, work it out her own way. We can avoid adding to social pressures that often make a girl marry before she is ready. A girl who feels shy or inadequate won't have her problems solved by marriage; marriage doesn't solve emotional problems and may only add to them. Similarly, we can let a son who may want to forgo a lucrative family business for the lesser financial return of teaching follow his interests. If he comes back to the business later, it will be from realistic desire and not with resentment at having been forced into something. And we can help our children to learn to know us not just as parents but as human beings-as individuals who make mistakes but want to do our best for our children because we love them. And we can remember that it is far better to show our love than it is to talk about it.