Don't Push your Kids Too Hard

(Dr. Benjamin Spock on bringing up today's children)

Today's children are under stress. It is stressful for children to have to cope with groups, with strangers, with people outside the family. That has emotional effects, and, if the deprivation of security is at all marked, it will have intellectual effects, too.

We know now that if there's good day care it can substitute pretty well for parental care. But we have nowhere near the amount of subsidized day care we need. We're harming our children emotionally and intellectually to the degree that they're in substandard day care.

Children raised in single-parent homes are more stressed than other kids. It's harder to raise a child in most cases with one parent than it is with two parents. The parents can comfort and consult and back up each other.

Our emphasis on fierce competition and getting ahead minimizes the importance of cooperation, helpfulness, kindness, lovingness. These latter qualities are the things that we need much more than competitiveness. Competition imposes strains on children. It teaches them that winning is the important thing. We’ve gone much too far in stressing winning.

I was in Japan lecturing, and they told me that the rate of suicide among elementary schoolchildren is shockingly high and that Japanese elementary schoolchildren commit suicide because they are afraid that they aren't getting grades high enough to satisfy their parents.

We can at least bring up children with a strong feeling that they're in the world not just for their own fulfillment — although I think fulfillment is fine — but also to be useful and help others. Children should be brought up with a strong feeling that there are lots of problems in the neighbourhood, the nation and the world, and that they're growing up to help solve those problems.

That emphasis on helpfulness should begin at a very early age with things as simple as letting them help set the table. Never say, «It's easier for me to do it myself.» You should encourage children to be helpful, and not by scolding them or forcing them but by supporting them or complimenting when they're helpful.

In bringing up children there are specific things to avoid. Absolutely no violence on television. Don't give war toys. These are poisonous to children. This whole Rambo spirit is a distressing thing.

Watching television is harmful to kids. A lot of what they see brutalizes sexuality. Every time a child or an adult watches brutality, it desensitizes and brutalizes them to a slight degree. We have by far the highest crime rates in the world in such areas as murders within the family, rape, wife abuse, child abuse.

If children are brought up with tension and harshness, then they'll do the same with their children. Everybody acquires his attitude and behaviour toward his children by how he was treated in his own childhood. What was done to you in childhood, you are given permission to do. To put it more positively, parental standards are what makes for a better society, and poor parental standards are what makes for a deteriorating society.

2. Answer the following questions:

1. What does the article deal with?

2. Is this problem of any importance nowadays?

3. What effects may stresses produce in children?

4. Why are the children more stressful in single-parent homes?

5. What feelings must we educate in children?

6. What is the most necessary feeling to be brought up in them?

7. What role does TV play?

8. What is spoken about parental standards?

9. What are the parents worried about nowadays?

3. Give English equivalents for:

разочарование; ценности и привычки; обеспечить поддержку; финансовая ответственность; двусмысленный; безопасность; чувство общности; поощрять; родительская забота; удовлетворять родителей.

4. Fill in the prepositions:

1. It is stressful … children to have to cope … groups, … strangers, …. people outside the family.

2. Children raised … single-parent homes are more stressed than other kids.

3. Our emphasis … fierce competition and getting ahead minimizes the importance … cooperation.

4. That emphasis … helpfulness should begin … a very early age.

5. Parental standards are what makes … a better society.

5. Develop the following situations making up dialogues:

1.Your son came home from school in low spirits and said that the teacher had been unfair to him. What would you do?

2. Your daughter is in her first year at college. She wants to go away for the weekend. Would you permit her?

3. Your mother decided to remarry and invited her friend to dinner. You don’t like him. What would you do?

4. Your parents are going to divorce. Would you try to prevent the divorce?

5.You come to a family psychotherapist for advice. Your son is addicted to TV. It doesn’t matter for him what to watch. You are in despair because you can’t change the things.

6. Discuss the following questions:

1. In retrospect do you think your parents brought you up well? For which things are you particularly grateful to them? Which things do you wish they had done differently? Are you going to bring up your children in the same way?

2. Why do couples choose to have children? Or perhaps they don’t choose, it just happens without thinking too much about it? If you haven’t got children, would you like to have some, and if you have, are you glad to have them? Why?

8. Solve the problem:

You are a counseling psychologist. You have to answer the following letter:

1. We started trying drugs together a couple years ago. I stopped, but Lisa kept going. Now it’s so bad, she doesn’t even recognize me a lot of time. Her parent’s don’t care about her, and are even threatening to throw her out of the house. I’m afraid that she’ll soon have to become a prostitute or something in order to support her habit. I want to help her very much, but I don’t know what to do!

2. I’m 15. My parents got divorced five years ago. My father drank a lot and made life miserable. Although he made good money, we were always broke. After they got divorced, I had to stay with my father, although my mother had custody. She had no money and she wouldn’t pay child support. When Mum met another man, I was invited to live with them. Now she is thinking of leaving him. She has told me I’ll have to go back to my father. I will not put myself in that position. What should I do?

9. Translate into English and tell what you think about it:

Сегодня родители совсем растерялись, поскольку встречаются с многочисленными и разными способами воспитания. Бабушки и дедушки настаивают на суровой дисциплине и хорошем шлепке при необходимости. Но современные книги по психологии и руководства советуют объяснение, настойчивость и обсуждение как лучшие методы воспитания. Родители обычно следуют этим современным советам и становятся более уступчивыми. Они боятся, что могут травмировать ребенка несправедливым наказанием, создать у него комплексы, критикуя его неправильное поведение; сделать его несчастным, отказывая в покупке того, о чем ребенок мечтает. Проблема в том, что трехлетний хочет игрушку, десятилетний хочет велосипед, а восемнадцатилетний требует машину. Их ожидания и требования растут, а родители попадают в сложное положение, если не могут удовлетворить их потребности. Дети становятся нахальными и требовательными, с ними невозможен компромисс.

О детях заботятся с раннего детства, и жизнь родителей подчинена их требованиям и желаниям. Детям нужна любовь, но настоящая любовь, а не вседозволенность без границ.

Если им не указаны моральные рамки и настоящие ценности, они быстро попадают в неприятности и скоро начинают курить, принимать наркотики и совершать противоправные поступки. Обычно они обвиняют родителей в том, что их неправильно воспитали, и поэтому родители чувствуют себя виноватыми, не зная где и когда они сделали ошибку. Они больше не хотят слушать «умных» психологов и начинают воспитывать детей согласно своему инстинкту. Если еще не поздно, ситуация меняется. Дети, имевшие избыток счастья в детстве, не могут иметь твердых взглядов и реагируют позитивно; позже они следуют модели своих родителей и не могут правильно воспитывать своих детей.

11. Speak on the following topic:

How to bring up today's children.

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