The Unfolding Life: A Study of Development with Reference to Religious Training — John Shaqi
The Unfolding Life: A Study of Development with Reference to Religious TrainingLamoreaux, Antoinette Abernethy
Religion
The Unfolding Life: A Study of Development with Reference to Religious Training
Lamoreaux, Antoinette Abernethy
Child development; Child psychology; Religious education
The feverish excitement is not at all to the distaste of the adolescent
but, on the contrary, he courts it. The "reading craze" is at its height
in this period, and books which give "thrills" are sought by both boys
and girls. There is increasing necessity of wise oversight in the choice
of reading when the mind is so inflammable and easily led, and the fact
that a book is on the shelf of the Sunday School library is unhappily
not always a guarantee against the need of further parental inspection.
The abounding energy of this period, when brought into conjunction with
the enlarged vision of life, often gives rise to a restlessness and
desire, to leave school and go to work. This is augmented by the new
money sense, which is strong about the age of fourteen, and leads to an
effort to secure money to save as well as to spend. This desire ought to
be met by a regular allowance or an opportunity for earning a stipulated
sum. Its neglect is often the explanation for the breaking open of
Sunday School banks or theft from household funds.
But even the satisfying of this desire will not allay restlessness, and
many a school-room seat becomes vacant in the early teens. If, instead
of the harsh measures so often used, the boy could know he had not only
the loving sympathy but also the pride of his parents in this harbinger
of approaching manhood; if, in place of force, he were given choice,
after all the considerations had been carefully weighed; if he could
feel the confidence of father and mother that he would do the manly
thing because he is almost a man, he would rarely fail to meet the
issue, for "at no time in life will a human being respond so heartily if
treated by older and wise people as if he were an equal." The result
will be not only renewed zest in the erstwhile hated task, but a new
bond between parents and son that will help to hold him true when
greater crises come.
The strong appeal that sympathy and consideration now make to the
adolescent is due to the new consciousness of self that has come to the
life. It has many manifestations. There is a welcome external one that
is evident in care for the personal appearance. The days of maternal
solicitude for linen and ears come to an end in this period, and it is
well, for the new standard of correctness is so high as to be
unattainable by any one save the individual himself.
A new sense of pride in one's family and position appears, and an
aristocracy based on the accidents of birth succeeds the democracy of
childhood. The girl who was sincerely thankful that she was not as
others and assumed Pharisaic superiority because she had been born a
Republican, an Allopath and, crown of all, a Baptist, lived in this
period some years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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