DO PARENTS WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT GROWING CHILDREN?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 55, 14 June 1948, Page 6

DO PARENTS WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT GROWING CHILDREN?

It is quite probable that more unnecessary worry is devoted by parents to growth—or possible lack of it—in their children than to any other aspect of their development. The root cause of this worry about children, particularly after they have reached school age, is the common failure to understand something about the very important matter of growing. Children to a large extent inherit their bodies from their parents. Growth of bones, in particular, takes place principally during the child’s school life.

There are certain stages fairly common and typical. Most children under school age are chubby and plump through lack of regular exercise. The vigorous activity of school life soon wears off this “puppy fat.” The children in a kindergarten or nursery school don’t put on weight quickly. That just means that they are losing unwanted superfluous weight more quickly. Furthermore, in early school years the children’s bones grow rapidly and from five to about eleven years of age the natural thing is to become “rangy” or “skinny.” Why worry about this natural process? Until school age is reached children don’t have as much physical activity as they do at school. In addition, the meals ordinarily change a little in their composition and there is a change in the conditions under which meals are eaten. A little more hurry, perhaps, about breakfast; and cut lunches eaten at school might be swallowed in just a few minutes. But even if meals are just the same as before, the child will still loose the babyish plumpness. It is the visible sign of growing up —unless you keep overfeeding the child to such an extent that he retains the plumpness without necessarily being as healthy as the next boy, who’s getting thinner. Meanwhile, try to show your growing child the significances of the word “posture.”