Someday soon, we hope that all middle and high school will have required courses in child rearing for girls and boys to help prepa...re them for one of the most important and rewarding tasks of their adulthood: being a parent. Most of us become parents in our lifetime and it is not acceptable for young people to be steeped in ignorance or questionable folklore when they begin their critical journey as mothers and fathers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black chil...dren without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The young love and cherish people and places from which they receive the skills and the emotional support which enable them to mak...e it in the world or to meet their basic human needs. The same people and places are often the first recipients of the frustration and anger--violence, vandalism, disrespect--of young people who are not making it well in the world. I suspect that this is the reason that personal and school property violence is increasing more rapidly than school burglary and dropout rates.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many more children observe attitudes, values and ways different from or in conflict with those of their families, social networks,... and institutions. Yet today's young people are no more mature or capable of handling the increased conflicting and often stimulating information they receive than were young people of the past, who received the information and had more adult control of and advice about the information they did receive.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children in home-school conflict situations often receive a double message from their parents: "The school is the hope for your fu...ture, listen, be good and learn" and "the school is your enemy. . . ." Children who receive the "school is the enemy" message often go after the enemy--act up, undermine the teacher, undermine the school program, or otherwise exercise their veto power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Playing games with agreed upon rules helps children learn to live by rules, establish the delicate balance between competition and... cooperation, between fair play and justice and exploitation and abuse of these for personal gain. It helps them learn to manage the warmth of winning and the hurt of losing; it helps them to believe that there will be another chance to win the next time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children who grow up in stimulating, emotionally supportive, highly verbal, and protective environments where the caretaker teache...s and models skill development are usually ready for school. When the child is able to meet expectations, he or she receives praise or a positive feedback in school. This also compliments the caretaker--a child-rearing job well done. The caretaker or parent and school people feel good about each other. The child receives a message from parents that the school program is good. The positive emotional bond between parents and child is extended to the school. The school staff can then serve as parent surrogates. This facilitates learning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are now a nation of people in daily contact with strangers. Thanks to mass transportation, school administrators and teachers o...ften live many miles from the neighborhood schoolhouse. They are no longer in daily informal contact with parents, ministers, and other institution leaders . . . [and are] no longer a natural extension of parental authority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While most of today's jobs do not require great intelligence, they do require greater frustration tolerance, personal discipline, ...organization, management, and interpersonal skills than were required two decades and more ago. These are precisely the skills that many of the young people who are staying in school today, as opposed to two decades ago, lack.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sustained unemployment not only denies parents the opportunity to meet the food, clothing, and shelter needs of their children but... also denies them the sense of adequacy, belonging, and worth which being able to do so provides. This increases the likelihood of family problems and decreases the chances of many children to be adequately prepared for school.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »