"FLAMING YOUTH."

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 173, 24 July 1930, Page 8

"FLAMING YOUTH."

MODERN GIRL'S PROBLEMS.

UNDERSTANDING NEEDED.

Y.W.C.A. ACTIVITIES

"The awkward age, the boy-crazy age, the shy age, the chivalrous age, all happen in front of our eyes. It is perhaps inescapable that adolescence should be a time of surprises and even of drastic adjustments, both for the girl and those who feel responsible for her welfare. But the excesses of 'flaming youth' which strike fear to the hearts of so many parents are not inherent or inevitable. The general secretary of the Auckland Young Women's Christian Association, Miss Jean Begg, makes this comment in the forty-fourth annual report 0f the activities of the organisation, which is to be submitted at the annual meeting on Monday evening next.

In the work of the Y.W.C.A., the report states, there is need for a large understanding of girls, their requirements and problems. A common-sense handling of girls by expert leaders is the aim. The girl is "growing up" when she joins the association, and the task of those responsible is to assist her in adjusting herself to each level of growth as she comes to it.

Miss Begg adds that many unfounded fears 011 the part of parents and youth I leaders, and many of the actual difficulties into which adolescents fall, are due to confusion and lack of understanding of the essential elements of healthy development. So the Y.W.C.A. endeavours to supplement the home and he Church —the two factors which should have the greatest influence and be the goal and guidance of young people. A girl to-day cannot be shut off from the world; she must grow toward something. Guidance demands a goal. The goal of youth is maturity, and the Y.W.C.A.'s job, Miss Begg states, is to combine with the home and the Church to help girls grow into whole women, whose latent abilities have been given a chance to grow, whose capacity for abundant living and informed citizenship makes them an asset within any home or community.

"Most of our young people come through with a remarkable readiness to do the right thing in every situation as it arises." In helping girls to assume responsibility or to cultivate desirable social attitudes, the ideal of the Y.W.C.A. is to arouse them to care abouf a larger part of the world and about a greater variety of human relationships than the little circle of their own home.

During the past year the Y.W.C.A. has extended its work to the industrial girl, besides building up its voluntary leadership and opening new avenues in sport. Over 1000 girls in factories have been influenced by the organisation in its latest enterprise. Every effort is being made to develop an intelligent contact with industrial groups ancl to educate women in the most "important subject of the employed girl. 1.