CHILD TRAINING A Guide to Successful Parenthood

Most parents want to understand their children. Having or not having this desire to understand will determine in part whether or not they will be good parents. Parents may make mistakes in bringing up their boys and girls, but it is possible to do a generally good job, in spite of the mistakes, if they make use o£ what they are learning about the physical, mental, and emotional growth o£ children and the condi­tions that affect that growth. Sometimes it is not easy to understand why Bill and Sue and Jerry behave as they do. Many mothers and fathers either become bewildered or lose patience with their children and act on impulse rather than understanding. Since most parents have never had any real opportunity to learn the stages through which children normally develop, they often judge them by adult standards o£ achievement, and in their anxiety to have fine children they try to punish or scold them into behavior for which they are not yet ready. They are unhappy or concerned because their two-year-old is not generous or their ten-year-old is not neat.
Many of the problems that develop between parents and their chil­dren come from the fact that too much is expected too soon. There are two important things for parents to know if they are really to under­stand their growing boys and girls: the way in which all children grow; the child's own pattern of growing.