Understanding Teen-agers

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30420, 20 April 1964, Page 2

Understanding Teen-agers

(fi.Z. Press Association) INVERCARGILL, April 19. “Sometimes teen- , agers want guidance; sometimes they revolt and cannot bear it It is hard for parents and teachers to grant that children of this age may have opinions, ideas and knowledge as good as their own,” I said Miss Jean E. Ballard at Gore on Saturday. Miss Ballard, who is principal of Queen’s High School, | Dunedin, in Gore on Saturday, was taking part in a seminar ■ on teen-agers. “It is a good idea to get into the habit of talking over some of the things about which teen-agers are likely to have as strong feelings as we have," said Miss Ballard. “There are fewer arguments and misunderstandings—when we make an effort not to be i dictatorial. The shift in philo- > sophy to a democratic way of having every one in on decisi ions, instead of having orders from above, is a trend of toi day with its accent on youth.” The seminar was organised i jointly by the Adult Education Department of Otago Uni: ■ versity and the Otago Association for Mental Health and its ! Southland sub-branch. j Dealing with teen-age as a , phase—the period between i childhood and adulthood—- ; Miss Ballard said it signified ' an attitude reflected in such expressions as “the awkward

stage,” “he's typically adolescent,” “grow up,” “be your are.” “he’s passing through a phase.” One -writer, she said, claimed that such an attitude sprang from a deep-rooted under-valuation of adolescence and an equally deeprooted over-valuation of adulthood. “It is an easy attitude for !us to fall into,” she said. “We must think of their age as an end in itself—as an integral part of living—not just as one having preparatory value. After all, we don’t want Ito consider adulthood as a | preparation for old age.” Adolescence Miss Ballard said there was a need to consider the onset, duration and termination of teen-age. In girls, adolescence ranged from 11 to 16. The difference in physical development between boys and girls had obvious significance for the grouping of children in : the classroom and playground. "We group them more or less according to age.” she

said, “but children of a given age, though of different stages of physical development, find themselves together in situations demanding social and mental co-operation and competition. These changes at puberty are responsible for a rise and fall of certain interests and attitudes. For instance, girls become interested in boys. Giris become at- | tractive to boys.” Miss Ballard pointed out that in addition to discrepancies in onset and duration of puberty among a group of adolescents, the individual followed a pattern of growth not uniformly distributed throughout his entire body. For instance, an increase in body bulk might not be paralleled by an increase in breadth. She instanced other irregularities in growth and gave a warning that criticisms by adults could easily lead to self-consciousness and embarrassment that made teenagers much more awkward than they might otherwise have been.