KNOWLEDGE IS NECESSARY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1938, Page 8

KNOWLEDGE IS NECESSARY

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. But so that mothers and fathers will not feel over-weighed unnecessarily by the burden of parental responsibility, they should read some of the many books written for parents on child psychology and child development, or attend lectures on the same subject. It is strange that it should be essential to study how to work with bricks and mortar, how to assemble the part of a car, but that for the most important and universal and subtle of all jobs, the bringing up of children, study is so often not thought necessary at all. With some knowledge of the development of the child’s, mental, emotional and physical capacities, parents would understand how to meet the needs associated with them. With, this knowledge much of the anxiety that arises from doing. work without adequate preparation would be avoided. The child’s individuality must be respected, yet he needs control. How are these two aims 'to be reconciled? The over-anxious parent will not learn how to do it, because anxiety is ruinous to the parent-child- relationship. The child needs to feel secure in the love and understanding of its-parents; but the parents’ sense of insecurity and uncertainty, which are so often the basis of anxiety, creates a state of tdpsion that inevitably brings personality, difficulties, and behavour problems in its train.