Unit 2. What Makes a Good Parent? Family Discipline and Changes in Parental Authority

Study and learn the topical focus vocabulary list. Provide Russian equivalents to the vocabulary items.

Focus Vocabulary List

1. permissive; permissiveness (excessive/extreme ~; syn. overindulgence; sheer negligence); lax authority; (parental) laxity

2. authoritative; authoritativeness

3. prone to obey authority (syn. docile, n docility/obedient; to pressure smb into obedience); ant. indocile/disobedient/recalcitrant

4. to rebel/make (adolescent) rebellion against parents (syn. resentment; to be resentful of smth)

5. to roughhouse; roughhousing; to be at war with smb

6. to admonish smb for smth

7. to spank/paddle smb

8. to impose harsh rules on smb; to impose smth by authority from within/without

9. to persuade smb through fear; to be fearful of smth

10. to bring smth under control; to take/(re)assert control over smb; to set controls/limits/strains on oneself; to put strains on smth

11. to degenerate into smth ( ~ deliberate cruelty or meanness); to inflict (psychological) wounds on smb; to recover from smth (~ traumatic experience)*

12. declining achievement (~ in classroom)

13. to hold smb responsible for smth; to take on/accept responsibilities for smth; to take the blame for smth*

14. a broken/split home

15. to be in the workforce (Br.)/laborforce (Am.); syn. to be in the workforce

16. alarming/troubling statistics*

17. the root cause*

18. to zero in on smth; to give high/low priority to smth*

19. to take hold (about an idea, concept, etc.)*

20. to get (the) wind of smth*

21. a fad (in child care)*

22. a nationwide revival of interest in parental authority

23. to retain one’s faith in the “liberated child” philosophy

24. to resort to/to condone occasional (ant. permanent) resort to smth*

25. to be fanatical in smth (~ one’s desire)*

26. to baby smb

27. to downgrade (enthusiasm); ant. to reinforce (skepticism)*

28. to benefit visibly from smth; gratifying results*

29. to bridge/close/stop the gap*

30. intrusion of alien values (through television); to guide children away from violence

31. to fit into life

32. to be independent of smb (ant. ~ dependent on smb)*

33. …whose name is a Legion…*

Study the texts, identify the active vocabulary items and discuss the questions following the texts.

Text A

Permissiveness: “a Beautiful Idea” that Didn’t Work?

Recent fads in child care are on the way out as parents reassert their control over offspring. Results, many families find, are gratifying.

At the Theraplay Institute¹ in Chicago, a small child from a “permissive” home was gently but firmly admonished by an adult for misbehaving. The youngster soberly conceded the point without a whimper – and her parents, watching behind a one-way window from the next room, were amazed. “I can’t believe it,” the father said, shaking his head.

“My kid is learning to behave without kicking and screaming in the process.”

It was a typical session at the institute, which is teaching about 400 children a year to overcome the effects of excessive permissiveness at home.

A nationwide revival of interest in parental authority and responsibility is only one of many evidences that further the growing worry over the health and future of the American family. Sociologists, psychiatrists and other scholars are warning that a return to stability in national life cannot be achieved without a strong balanced family base. More and more, too, critics are zeroing in on the home – not society at large – as the source of troublesome youngsters.

Parents of juvenile criminals are sometimes finding themselves on the receiving end of multimillion-dollar damage suits brought by the families of the victims. Some communities are experimenting with the idea of holding parents responsible for paying the costs of vandalism committed by their children.

Recently the president of the National Education Association announced that educators are tired of taking the blame for declining achievement in classrooms, when much of the root cause is lack of support and motivation in the home. He said: “We must ask: Why are we seeing more of such students? And what is happening to families and homes in this era of increased mobility and single-parent split homes?” Alarming statistics reinforce skepticism about the way the American family is functioning. One out of every 6 American children is living with only one or neither parent. Half the mothers of school-age children are in the workforce.

There are other factors that many see as putting new strains on family solidarity and stability. Among them the intrusion of alien values into the home through television, and – as much as anything else – the emergence of a permissive theory of child rearing that became popular in recent decades through the writings of Dr. Benjamin Spock² and other classics on child-rearing. This theory was critical of punishment in any form, or denial of rewards to indocile children. Parents, instead, were encouraged to discuss problems with their youngsters, resorting to persuasion rather than punishment.

Some family and child specialists retain their faith in the “liberated child” philosophy. For instance, Dr. E. Gerald D., head of the child and adolescent outpatient clinic at New York Hospital, says young people are “no longer in the dark as they were 50 years ago.” He adds: “They know what goes on. I think they are great – exciting and stimulating. One of the reasons that adults don’t like them is that they ‘don’t know their place’ as they did 100 years ago, or even 20 years ago.”

Now many family advisers are intent to downgrade enthusiasm for other popular trends such as raising children in communes by lone parents.

Dr. Dennis G. of the outpatient clinic at the University of Chicago Medical School says: “A child needs two loving parents. When one parent is absent, physically or emotionally, the child can face deep traumatic experience.” Permissiveness has been strongly advocated.

The renewed emphasis on old methods has created many problems for parents attuned to philosophy of the recent past. In some cases, a whole program of re-education has been necessary.

At Chicago’s Theraplay Institute, parents are encouraged to learn from the work of professional therapists. Ann J., director of Theraplay, advocates that children should be raised with definite rules and strains in the household, or they may become confused and embittered, unable to set controls on themselves. “A family is not a democracy,” she adds. “Children need a time to be babied, a time to be told how to live, and a time to be loved physically before they are ready to behave as adults.”

Her recommendation is that “parents should be the meanest mom and dad on the block with rules, and the most loving mom and dad on the block with playful physical activity.” That advice is echoed by many other counselors and scholars, some of whom condone occasional resort to “paddling” the recalcitrant child when all else fails. Many children, themselves, seem to agree that permissiveness is not the sole culprit in parental shortcomings.

Many parents often are found to be too strict with their children, imposing harsh rules without much thought to a particular youngster’s needs. Power-income parents, fearful of outside pressures, tend to give low priority to time spent playing with their youngsters or simply listening to them.

Nor is a return to authoritative households seen as likely, by itself, to solve the disarray in today’s families.

What is needed, counselors say, are broad-scale adjustments in social and economic institutions to provide support for family stability. As more parents place their toddlers in day-care centers or nursery schools, such agencies are being called on to provide for parental participation on a regular basis to keep each child’s family in the picture. Day-care centers provided by employers for children of working mothers have not taken hold in America as rapidly as in Europe.

Even so, counselors say, children can benefit visibly from visits to the offices or factories where their parents work. Understanding more about their elders’ activities is described as an effective way of bridging the gaps that exist between the two generations.

Another major effort involves better preparation of teenagers and young adults for parental responsibilities and children’s needs. One approach: the home and family classes for high-school students, now being offered increasingly by school systems across the country.

Some experts say that help may soon be coming from yet another factor – the tendency of today’s young people to marry and bear children at later ages than in the past. This, the reasoning goes, could produce parents who are more mature and better able to fit into the responsibilities of child rearing than their parents were.

Even so, some scholars warn, changes within the family cannot achieve the needed stability and effectiveness in child rearing without support from outside institutions.

In the past, some critics feel, schools, courts and other institutions were all too willing to take on responsibilities once those of the family, as evidenced by the growth of counseling, psychiatric programs and nursery schools.

Now, they believe, the time has come for outside institutions to search for ways to support the family in carrying out its functions, not take them over. Says Sam L., a youth coordinator for the probate court in Pontiac, Mich.: “What we’re seeing is a recognition that the courts, and perhaps the schools, have accepted a lot more responsibility for raising youngsters than they should have. Now we’re renouncing that.”

Answer the following questions on the text.

1. Instability of family as an institution of national life arouses nationwide concern in the United States. Consider the following points:

   1. Why is emphasis laid on parental responsibility?

   2. Where do educational institutions come in?

   3. How does the social structure affect family instability?

2. What are the basic components of the theory of permissiveness? What is the origin of this theory traced to? What are some of the possible reasons why it has been so popular?

3. What social evils does the author blame on permissiveness? Do you agree that permissiveness is the root of the US nationwide upsurge of violence?

4. What wide-ranging measures are suggested by the author in order to achieve family stability and effectiveness in child-rearing? As you speak, consider the following points:

   1. parents: working out a cooperative and flexible child-rearing approach;

   2. social and economic institutions: 1) stimulating parental participation in child-upbringing; 2) preparation of teenagers and young adults for parental responsibilities and children’s needs.

5. What conclusion does the author arrive at? Do you agree with it? Find arguments to prove your point of view?