~ Painting by Arthur John Elsley, ~ 1860 – 1952
by Fr. Daniel A. Lord, Some Notes on the Guidance of Children
CHILDREN MUST BE WANTED
For the adolescent boy and girl, the student of high school age or just beyond, the wise and competent parents make home the normal center of their entire life. Children are quick to feel whether or not they are welcome.
We grown-ups find their noise disturbing and their heavy clatter annoying. We are inclined to allow ourselves at their expense the luxury of nerves. Boys and girls spot that attitude at once.
If the returning boy flushed and excited from the victory of his team over the traditional rival is greeted with the loud command to pipe down and cut the shouting, he crawls up to his room with the feeling that he is unwanted by a pair of utterly unsympathetic parents.
When the girl rushes in with a bevy of her schoolmates and finds mother regarding them as an unwelcome squad of storm troopers, the girl takes her friends elsewhere and thinks of her home as the place to which she goes only when she can’t find another place where she will be welcome.
Even though parents may not have established a close and comradely relationship with their young children, they can woo them with this air of loving to have them around the house and of being delighted when they bring their friends home.
NATURAL LOVE OF FUN
The desire of young people for recreation is a perfectly normal and wholesome one. Fathers and mothers rise high in the children’s estimation when they seem to recognize this and make possible a decent amount of wholesome fun.
Children sometimes get the idea that their parents have lost the power to enjoy anything more strenuous than the shuffling of a deck of cards. They take it for granted that any youthful voice raised above a stage whisper is going to set all the parental nerves a-tingling.
Parents who want to win the approval and esteem of their children will be extremely wise to smile cooperatively on their children’s good, healthy animal capers and afford elbow room for their strenuous games and dances and laughter, which are part of expanding humanity.
If parents feel themselves outside the circle of their children’s confidences, if they have isolated themselves or allowed themselves to be insulated, they had better start winning back their children, not with wise council and solemn man-to-man and woman-to-woman sessions, but with a game of catch or badminton in the back yard, with an invitation to have their children teach them the current dance, with a picnic for which they provide the food and during which they take part in even the most strenuous games, and with a party thrown by the whole family for the whole family and the family’s young friends.
Any child who suddenly realizes that his parents are still very much alive and not at all the ancients they seemed to be, people who like youngsters and are quite capable of sharing their games, laughing at their jokes, and taking part in their recreations, has found a new respect, and the beginnings of that friendly confidence and comradeship which should be the goal of all families.
CULTURAL TASTES
From the parents normally come the children’s cultural bents. The youngsters get their first taste in books from those books which their parents hand them. Even after they enter high school, they are not beyond an interest in what their parents may be reading.
If parents actually set this cultural example and threw in the way of their children the fine books of the world, books read by themselves and made accessible to the youngsters, we should not be afflicted by the avalanche of uncomic comics and ghastly unhumorous “funnies” that are now giving children a lasting attack of mental indigestion.
During these adolescent years parents are really shaping or at least giving a final polish to their children’s cultural tastes.
These tastes may be manifested in the musical records they collect and play, in the use they make of a camera, in the interest they take in decorating their rooms, in a thousand youthful hobbies or enthusiasms.
Whatever the form, the children’s tastes spring directly from the tastes of the parents.
And if instead the children are allowed to squander their time in daydreaming or in paging through the movie magazines, if they get their exercise in petty rows among themselves, the parents had better make a sincere examination of their own consciences and follow it with a feeling of deep sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment.
Visit Finer Femininity on Facebook and Instagram, X.
“Youth is at the same time the most beautiful and the most dangerous period of life; it can be the most blessed, or the most fatal of seasons. It is the time of poetry and romance, of dreams and visions, of aspirations and ambitions, of the noblest impulses and the grandest resolves. But it is also the season of inexperience and immaturity, of impulsiveness and impetuosity, of conceit, of hasty ideas, undigested plans and precipitate action. By one heroic decision a young person can lay the foundations of future greatness; and by one misstep a youth can start headlong and irresistibly to utter and irretrievable ruin.”-Rev. Fulgence G. Meyer, 1920’s
Painting by Denys George Wells (1881 – 1973, English)
NEW PODCAST!
Scruples are the source of anxiety or sadness, of many organic ailments, bashfulness, and many personality disturbances. If not controlled in time, scruples can become the occasion of despair, moral relapses, and even moral perversion.…
Agnes’ Clayspirations!
Available here.
Our granddaughter, Agnes, who is 10 years old, has started her own little business! It is called “Agnes’ Clayspirations”. She is very good at what she does and, so far, has given her creations away for gifts to all the ladies in the family. We are impressed! Here is her Mushroom Clayspirations that she has on our shop. She will be doing more when she finds time. She’s a busy little lady looking after Esther and doing school! 😉
Catholic Calendars are a necessity for those who want to live the liturgy within the home! And I just love planners!
Available at TAN BOOKS!
35% off of Children’s Books! Available here at TAN BOOKS!
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.
This is timely in many regards, thank you!
Hopefully the dads can pick up the slack when mommies are pregnant. Being involved in rigorous games is just not happening usually at that time. 🙃
Are you expecting, Mary Ann? 😀