All My Children

Parents who do not consider that the child’s pleasure may not be parallel or equal to their own can create serious problems for him. An example of this can be observed in roughhousing play between parents and children. Children usually enjoy such play, but only up to a point. Most infants and small children enjoy being thrown up into the air and caught, if this is done with moderation and great care, and not for too long. Such limited play reassures them that they can safely lose contact for a moment with their parent without danger; further, it gives them confidence that their parents can turn potentially dangerous situations into safe ones. Continue Reading »

Few other types of play can quite compare with doll play for eliciting deep parental involvement. Still, there are many other aspects of children’s play which can affect a parent deeply, through recollections and other feelings it activates, particularly when a child’s play reminds the parent of having played with the same toy, or having played in similar fashion. Also, the older the child gets, the more easily do play activities echo not only the parent’s own childhood experiences, but also his present hobbies or recreations. For example, the teenager who can play a serious game of chess has an experience very similar to his parent’s in doing so. Continue Reading »

On the other hand, such parallel investment in play can work well for a time and then backfire through adult motives. The following story is an illustration of the point, and it involves a partly happy but much more unhappy memory that haunted a highly successful man all his life. The man’s father was very much involved in stamp collecting, so the youngster needed little urging to become an avid stamp collector too. Continue Reading »

Learning to read, so basic to all academic achievements, illustrates not only these parallels, but their importance if intellectual subjects are to be learned well and to attain deep personal meaning. The child who through playing games of progressively greater complexity has mastered the knack of controlling to some measure the largely chaotic tendencies of his unconscious and that of harnessing its energies for largely conscious and reality-oriented purposes will find it relatively easy to apply the same skills to the learning of reading. Continue Reading »

Christmas is not the only children’s holiday which symbolically celebrates childbirth, fertility, and the rebirth of nature; May Day, which is hardly celebrated anymore in the United States, with its dance around the Maypole also used to be an occasion for festivities enjoyed particularly by children and youth, although with the active participation of the entire community. It was truly a day when “young and old came forth to play.” Continue Reading »

Depending on what being Jewish means to you, your guidance to your child can be as specific as you prefer. Ultimately, what you’ll probably do is assess your child’s needs and determine how Jewishness fits into that picture. I want to supplement your ideas with a few suggestions that have occurred to me in speaking with Jewish parents. Continue Reading »

What Does It Mean to Be a Catholic?

Catholicism is so much a part of religious life in Western culture, both in fact and in fiction, that many people feel they know what a Catholic is without looking deeply into the religion itself. But Catholicism is, in fact, a very complex religion. Even if you are a devout Catholic, don’t assume that your youngster understands Catholic beliefs and rituals. Take the time to discuss even highly Popularized symbols of Catholicism, particularly because your interpretation of what a Catholic is may differ sharply from popular depictions. Continue Reading »

Norm-Referenced Tests

Most ’standardised’ tests have at their core an assumption that abilities are evenly distributed across a population, such that an equal number of cases will fall above and below a statistical mean. Tests are constructed so that children’s scores will spread out across this range. In using a standardised measure we expect half the children to whom it is applied to be below average. Continue Reading »

We shall be passing a critical eye over some of the language assessment procedures which have been devised, together with a sample of the remedial packages which are available Commercially Up to this point we have discussed language acquisition within a framework of the normal developmental process. Similarly, the approach we have taken to children with language difficulties uses the parameters for describing communication skills which have emerged from the study of normal ;development. No apology is made for this. Continue Reading »

What Does It Mean to Be a Protestant?

If you’re Protestant you are probably well aware of a religious tradition that includes the earliest settlers of our country, and you may have passed that on to your child.

Awareness of Protestant history can help a child better understand the common qualities Protestant denominations share.

Perhaps with the aid of a story or picture book, explain to your child that Protestantism is the name for several religious groups which were formed during the Great Reformation of the early sixteenth century. Continue Reading »