Verhovayak Lapja, 1947 (30. évfolyam, 1-24. szám)
1947 / Verhovay Journal
OUR PART IN PREVENTING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY October 8,1947______________________________Verhovay (Continued from page 8) home, church, school and society. Let us start with the home, the cradle of the child’s mental and character development. Primary influences. Children are natural imitators: they copy father, mother, Superman, Dick Tracy, Boston Blackie, or the “though guy” on the street.— depending on which appeals most to them. Outside of some vague and pliable tendencies, the normal child’s innate urge to imitate has neither object nor direction at the awakening of consciousness. Very soon, however, the little child begins to react to the individuals surrounding him. Attracted by some and averse to others, he develops personal likes and dislikes of various intensity. With the development of mental processes the child, then, proceeds to objects, and later to ideas, but these are always associated in his mind with the persons first having represented them. Thus, the child will instinctively reject ideas represented by persons disagreeable to him, while he will be recaptive towara the suggestions of those he likes. The child’s world is full with people competing for his attention and his mental development will take the direction of the strongest attraction. In other words, though children are natural imitators, they will copy only that which attracts them. Now goodness, truthfulness, honesty and continence are noble virtues but they will not appeal to the children if they are represented in a manner which, or by people who fail to attract them. This is the reason why some perfectly worthy people are total failures as parents. Perhaps by intolerance, perhaps by unreasonable severity, or by a lack of understanding they have alienated the affections of their children who, as a result, oppose and ridicule everything, including the best, for which their parents stand. Children never evaluate ideas on their own merits. They consider the source. If the source is wrong, every suggestion, idea or rule emanating from that source is considered wrong, to be opposed and discarded at the first opportunity. On the other hand, children from utterly undesirable homes have happened to turn into fine citizens to the great, though undeserved, glory of their parents. The reason, of course, for that seeming miracle is the same as in the above instance. Irresponsible parents often disgust and embitter their children who, if they are made of better stuff, will oppose the manner of living which their parents represent to them. Of course, this does not mean that irresponsible parents have a better chance for rearing fine children, than truly devoted parents. The fine citizen emerging from an undesirable home is the exception rather than the rule; it is the accidental result of the repellent influence of an atmosphere which the child having an exceptionally strong personality may be able to reject because of the sufferings imposed upon him by his surroundings. Influences multiply as the child advances. Grandparents, uncles, aunts step into his life. Here is an example of how good suggestions, emanating from repellent sources, may produce undesirable tendencies: suppose grandmother makes the parents of a child miserable and unhappy by her constant criticism and unjustified demands. Suppose, further, she keeps preaching thrift to her grandchildren. She will- never understand why they turn into spendthrifts, yet, for the children this‘is the natural course to take, for in their minds the virtues held forth by their grandmother are associated with the detrimental effects of her attitude on their home. Or another example. Suppose the father is considered a devoted church-member who tries in every way to make his children follow in his footsteps. Suppose, further, that in his home-life he utterly fails in living up to the moral standards for which the church stands. Maybe he abuses his wife, makes her miserable and unhappy, maybe he is unfair to his children, or perhaps he does not provide for his family. The children, seeing their mother’s sufferings, being frustrated in thenown natural inclination to trust and believe in their father, develop an antagonistic attitude toward him. This antagonism will be directed not only against his person, but, also, against everything he says, does, demands or believes in. As a result, his children will never develop into good church-members, on the contrary. At the earliest possible opportunity they will drift away from the church which they never will be able Journal to believe in because it was primarily represented by a repellent example. Thus it follows that children always are affected by their parents’ example but not always in the expected manner. Character development contrary to the parents’ example indicates that the parental example has discouraged rather than inspired following. Good instructions and fine examples, therefore, are not sufficient: they must be presented in a manner both attractive and convincing to the children. Consideration must be given here to some other important traits of the juvenile mind. Children are highly sensitive and amazingly keen-eyed critics. Parents may easily conceal from their environment their difficulties and weaknesses by “keeping up appearances”, but that will never do for the children who are extremely quick to detect pretensions and have a sixth sense for emotional tensions at home, however carefully they may be hidden. Pretensions disgust and tensions discourage and emotionally unbalance children. Either, or both, will make them antagonistic toward a way of living and thinking the ineffectivness of which they see demonstrated in their parents’ lives. Children are attracted only by success, and if they see unhappiness defeat goodness and moral standards at home, then they are easily tempted to follow foul examples, for these often prove attractive by their resourcefulness as well as their lack of social and moral pretensions. It follows that parents can do the most to prevent juvenile deliquency. Success depends primarily on the personality of both father and mother and their relationship to each other as well as to their children. No parent can be more successful in disciplining his children than he is in disciplining himself. Where a warm, harmonious, absolutely sincere and tension-free atmosphere prevails and the success of moral goodness is demonstrated by the happiness, dependability, tolerance and sympathetic understanding of father and mother, there the normal children will joyously take to and after their parents and rarely, if ever, be tempted to imitate the examples of undesirable elements to which children turn only for lack of more attractive and convincing guidance. Church and School. Church and school are the second largest influences in PAGE 9 the life of the growing child. Of these school takes the first place because the child will spend the greater part of his days in the class room. Some parents display an antagonistic attitude toward either church, or school, or both. If there is a truly harmonious relationship between such parents and their children, that antagonistic attitude will be copied by the children who, as a result, will become misfits at school. The friction will not make the child happy'' and sooner or later he will subconsciously blame his parents for the friction from which he must suffer. Thus his confidence in them begins to weaken and, as, .a result, his hitherto favorable response to their influence slowly disappears to give way to mistrust, disobedience and, finally, antagonism. Few of such parents .realize how great a share they have in creating a friction between their child and the school, or church, and how their more or less antagonistic attitude backfires, ultimately undermining their previously happy relationship j with their offspring. Children must be prepared for school and church and, once they are there, the parents must back* up the influence of the pastor and teacher, otherwise the children may lose all respect for the authority of either one and become the prey of the influences of undesirable elements. A great deal is said about both the wholesome and harmful influences to which the modern child is subject. Many parents believe that children will not go astray if all detrimental influences are eliminated from their environment. This, however, is impossible for no child can live in complete isolation. Unable to protect their children against outside influences, parents try to exonerate themselves by blaming juvenile delinquency on the environment, comic books, bad company, movies, . while church, school and community are made responsible J for not providing more edifying diversions. This is all wrong. If the parents, teachers and churchmen are able to represent honesty, integrity, loyalty and goodness, and if these are exemplified in a manner attractive and convincing to the children, then the undesirable influences will be rendered powerless, for the normal child will be driven by his own nature to follow and imitate the examples of those whom he loves and trusts. Naturally, there will be incidents of aber(Continued on page 10)
