| In the age of AIDS, raves, video, and crack, streetwise teenagers’ views of life and parents still seem familiar |
KRISTY, aged 17, from York: I think years ago there were so many restrictions and my mum was brought up really badly. She’s 37 now. She was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything, which is why she got married at 16, just to get away. I go to nightclubs and pubs, even though I shouldn’t. My mum likes me to be in by about one o’clock in the morning and she never goes to sleep before I am in. She doesn’t say I have to be in by then, but I am.
HANNAH, 14, Golders Green, north-west London: when I was eight I was allowed out on my ownas long as it was not far and my parents knew where I was. Normally I was allowed to stay out until dark. My parents have never hit me. If I am naughty they sit me down and explain why I was wrong and ask why I did it.
CLAIRE, 16, from Goole: I am an only child so I am spoilt. I don’t really feel I have any restrictions at all. As far as drugs or real drinking is concerned, my mum knows I would never do anything like that anyway. She trusts me and I do not let her down. I will definitely be stricter. I get away with murder but my kids will not.
ALISON, aged 16, from Bath: I’m going out tonight to a club and it will be 3 am before I get in. I have just finished my GCSEs so my parents won’t mind so long as they know I’m catching a taxi home and what time I will be in. I started going to clubs when I was 14. Sometimes I used to get into arguments with my parents about it. Although I’ve been going in pubs since I was 14, I don’t drink a lot.
JEREMY, 16, from Glasgow: I think I’ve had a clear sense of what’s right and wrong since I was 10. I’ve been living with an older cousin and his wife for the past year. There are rules, like during the week when there’s school, in bed by 12, no smoking in the flat. I think I’m a lot harder on myself now than I was when I was younger.
Source: Independent on Sunday, 4 August 2016
Answer the following questions.
1. Who has the strictest parents in your opinion? 2. Do these teenagers have to be home earlier or later than you? 3. Are you allowed to do the same things? 4. Do you think it is dangerous to allow ten-year-olds out on their own without an adult? 5. Are your parents stricter than the parents of these teenagers?
Speak about the problems of generation gap in Great Britain and in Russia.
Exercise25. Complete the sentences with the most appropriate word from the box.
| abandoned | criticised | neglected | quarrelled | separated |
| adopted | humiliated | offended | retired | scolded |
1. Keith’s parents … him badly when he was a baby.
2. The small child was being … by its mother for getting dirty.
3. Tom deeply … Ann by ignoring her at the party.
4. David is not my real father, I was … by him when I was small.
5. Ian and Fiona are … and they may get divorced.
6. I … with my boyfriend but we made up in the end.
7. Jack … on his 65th birthday and received his pension.
8. My parents … me for having a ring in my nose.
9. Julie’s mother … her when she was a few months old and she grew up in an orphanage.
10. My boss utterly … me in front of important clients, so I resigned.
Exercise 26. Read and translate the following text.
Pre-reading task: find the meaning of the following words and practise their pronunciation:
in consequence, docile, prone, frustration, adult, hence, docility, to flourish, pal, to thrive, aloof, recreation, status, adolescence, urban, yearning, embittered, dignity, physician, flatly, meanness.
THE DIFFICULT CHILD
The difficult child is the child who is unhappy. He is at war with himself, and in consequence, he is at war with the world. A difficult child is nearly always made difficult by wrong treatment at home.
The moulded, conditioned child, the child who is disciplined and repressed – the unfree child, whose name is a Legion, lives in every corner of the world. He lives in our town just across the street, he sits at a dull desk in a dull school, and later he sits at a duller desk in an office or on a factory bench. He is docile, prone to obey authority, fearful of criticism, and almost fanatical in his desire to be conventional and correct. He accepts what he has been taught almost without questions; and he hands down all his complexes and fears and frustrations to his children.
Adults take it for granted that a child should be taught to behave in such a way that the adults will have as quiet a life as possible. Hence the importance attached to obedience, to manner, to docility. The usual argument against freedom for children is this: life is hard, and we must train the children so that they will fit into life later on. We must therefore discipline them. If we allow them to do what they like, how will they ever be able to serve under a boss? How will they ever be able to exercise self-discipline? “To impose anything by authority is wrong. Obedience must come from within – not be imposed from without.”
The problem child is the child who is pressured into obedience and persuaded through fear. Fear can be a terrible thing in a child’s life. Fear must be entirely eliminated – fear of adults, fear of punishment, fear of disapproval. Only hate can flourish in the atmosphere of fear.
The happiest homes are those in which the parents are frankly honest with their children without moralising. Fear does not enter these homes. Father and son are pals. Love can thrive. In other homes love is crushed by fear. Pretentious dignity and demanded respect hold love aloof. Compelled respect always implies fear.
The happiness and well-being of children depend on a degree of love and approval we give them. We must be on the child’s side. Being on the side of the child is giving love to the child – not possessive love – not sentimental love – just behaving to the child in such a way the child feels you love him and approve of him.
Home plays many parts in the life of the growing child, it is the natural source of affection, the place where he can live with the sense of security; it educates him in all sorts of ways, provides him with his opportunities of recreation, it affects his status in society.
Children need affection. Of all the functions of the family that of providing an affectionate background for childhood and adolescence has never been more important than it is today.
Child study has enabled us to see how necessary affection is in ensuring proper emotional development; and the stresses and strains of growing up in modern urban society have the effect of intensifying the yearning parental regard.
The childhood spent with heartless, indifferent or quarrelsome parents or in a broken home makes a child permanently embittered. Nothing can compensate for lack of parental affection. When the home is a loveless one, the children are impersonal and even hostile.
Approaching adolescence children become more independent of their parents. They are now more concerned with what other kids say or do. They go on loving their parents underneath, but they don’t show it on the surface. They no longer want to be loved as a possession or as an appealing child. They are gaining a sense of dignity as individuals, and they like to be treated as such. They develop a stronger sense of responsibility about matters that they think are important.
From their need to be less dependent on their parents, they turn more to trust adults outside the family for ideas and knowledge.
In adolescence aggressive feelings become much stronger. In this period, children will play an earnest game of war. There may be arguments roughhousing and even real fights. Is gun-play good or bad for children?
For many years educators emphasised its harmlessness, even when thoughtful parents expressed doubt about letting their children have pistols and other warlike toys. It was assumed that in the course of growing up children have a natural tendency to bring their aggressiveness more and more under control.
But nowadays educators and physicians would give parents more encouragement in their inclination to guide children away from violence on screen.
The world famous Dr.Bahjamin Spock has this to say in the new edition of his book for parents about children care: “Many evidences made me think that Americans have often been tolerant of harshness, lawlessness and violence, as well as of brutality on screen. Some children can only partly distinguish between dramas and reality. I believe that parent should flatly forbid programmes that go in for violence. I also believe that parents should firmly stop children’s war-play or any other kind of play that generates into deliberate cruelty or meanness. One can’t be permissive about such things. To me it seems very clear that we should bring up the next generation with a greater respect for law and for other people’s rights.”
Answer the following questions.
1. What makes a child unhappy? 2. Why do you think a child who, according to the text “sits at a dull desk at school” will later sit “at a duller desk in his office”? What is implied here? 3. Why do many adults attach such importance to obedience? Is it really in the child’s interests? 4. What are the usual arguments put forward against giving more freedom to the child? Are the arguments well-founded? 5. Why is it wrong to pressure a child into obedience? 6. What kinds of fear does a child experience? 7. What kind of atmosphere is necessary for child’s proper emotional development? 8. What new traits and habits emerge in adolescence? 9. How and why did Dr. Spock’s attitude change regarding the adolescents games of war? 10. Why is it so dangerous for children to be exposed to violence? 11. How should the new generation be brought up?
Summarise the text in three paragraphs specifying the following:
1. The prime importance of home in the upbringing of children.
2. The negative and harmful role of fears in a child’s life.
3. The impact of aggressive gun-play on children’s character.
Exercise 27. Below are the statements expressing different opinions. Imagine that you are expressing these opinions, try to make them sound convincing, hold your line.
1. There’s never a problem child, there are only problem parents.
2. Anyone who expects quick results in child upbringing is an incurable optimist.
3. Under dictatorial control adolescents work submissively, show little initiative.
4. Happiness may be defined as the state of minimal repression.
5. Healthy children do not fear future, they anticipate it gladly.
6. The adults who fear that youth will be corrupted by freedom are those who are corrupt themselves.
| Listening |
Now listen to their conversation and answer the questions:
Who did Jim have a fight with and why?
Why is Nadia pleased her parents separated?
Listen to the dialogue again and make notes to answer the questions.
| Jim | Nadia | |
| 1. Who do they live with? 2. When did their parents split up? 3. What do they think about their parents’ new partners? 4. How do they feel about their mothers? 5. What’s their attitude to their parents’ divorce? |
Fill in the gaps in the sentences with the words/phrases from the dialogue.
1. Jim doesn’t get on well with his ….
2. Nadia has two little ….
3. Nadia’s father has … but her mother hasn’t.
4. Nadia’s … has three children from her ….
5. Nadia thinks it was hard for her mother being a ….
Look at the results from a recent newspaper survey of children’s attitudes to divorce. Comment on the results. Do a survey of attitudes among the students of your year. Compare your results with the results of the newspaper survey.
| Divorce – the side-effects | Children with parents together | Children with parents divorced/separated | ||
| AGREE | DISAGREE | AGREE | DISAGREE | |
| Marriage should be forever | 76% | 9% | 71% | 18% |
| Children’s parents should stay together even if they are unhappy | 30% | 56% | 19% | 69% |
| It is better for children to live with both parents than with one | 77% | 10% | 59% | 22% |
| It should be made more difficult to get divorced | 43% | 36% | 30% | 47% |
| I am 28 and have been married for seven years. I have two lovely children aged six and four. My problem is that I have fallen out of love with my husband. He does nothing to help in the house, watches TV all the time and drinks too much. He also had an affair with his secretary a few years ago. I nearly left him but I stayed because of the children. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days with somebody I don’t love but I know my children need both their parents. Please tell me what to do. |
Start your answer like this:
“There are two obvious things you can do: stay with your husband, or leave him. If you stay with him …”
Topics for essays
1. Parenting Styles
2. Being an only child in the family
3. Problems of children upbringing.