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.
