p. 12 | An Interesting Meeting

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 1, 1914

An Interesting Meeting

The Parent-Teacher Association of the Washington College church held its regular session September 10, at the home of Mrs. Dr. Miller. The doctor himself showed his interest in the work the association is trying to do, by giving a very interesting and instructive talk on some of the preventable diseases of children.

Among other things, the doctor said the child has more surface of the body exposed to the cold air in proportion to its size than an adult. This is why children catch cold so easily; and colds lead to many very annoying and sometimes dangerous complications, such as sore throat, earache, and catarrh of the bowels.

In the autumn days the ankles, wrists, and neck of the child should be protected, especially nights and mornings. In these parts the blood vessels lie very near the surface, and easily become chilled. Nature in trying to protect the body contracts the blood vessels, thus pressing the blood back upon the internal organs, where it is not needed. In this way congestion is set up, and trouble begins.

Give the child plenty of fresh air and sunshine, but see that its arms, feet, and legs are protected.

A lady asked the doctor what he thought of the present style of dressing small children with very short dresses, and stockings just above the top of the shoe, leaving two or three inches of the child's leg exposed to the cold air. He replied that it is a foolish and dangerous custom.

A talk was then given on “The Teen Period,” or the training of the child in its teens. Many parents do not understand the development of youth, and often serious mistakes are made. The physical nature is undergoing rapid change, and the mental and spiritual natures change rapidly also. Sometimes the children are shy, awkward, and reticent, or bold, forward, and talkative.

The social side of the nature also needs careful supervision and sympathetic management at this time of life. Attachments are strong, and sometimes changeable. The youth are easily influenced, and character is impressed for good or evil according to the character of their associates. The speaker gave an illustration of this, taken from Miss Slattery’s little book entitled “The Girl in Her Teens.”

She says: “I remember a girl of sixteen, dreamy, imaginative, and so much interested in her boy companions that lessons, home interests, and everything else were sacrificed. What to do with her, and what interests to substitute, were questions that both mother and teacher failed to solve. At a most opportune time a ‘new girl’ moved into the neighborhood and entered school. She was practical, attractive, a good scholar, greatly interested in outdoor athletics. Because they were neighbors, the two girls were thrown much together. The companionship deepened into friendship. Soon the dreamy sixteen-year-old was playing tennis on summer afternoons, and reading aloud in the hammock afterward to rest. When winter came, she suddenly decided that school and study were worth while, brought up all her averages, and made up her mind to try for college.” The “new girl,” had wrought a great change in this young life, and did it unconsciously, too.

The following article from the Housekeeper, by John M. Greer, was presented by one of the members:—

“Permit me in a paragraph or two to outline to you just that phase of child growth upon which my subject touches. In the high school we deal with the child who, in many respects, is very different from any other child, and very different from himself when compared to any

other period of his growth. The adolescent student, if we may give credence to those who have most carefully studied his manifestations, is a strange and oftentimes wonderful being, out of joint with his past and unarticulated to his future. He is in a state of flux, when the soul is everything in turn and nothing long, exploring the whole range of feeling, will, and thought. This period marks physical changes most momentous, and mental changes equally important. Consciousness of dawning power marks the period as one of restiveness, lawlessness, and irresponsibility. In vain efforts to find his best self, he develops a sensitiveness to criticism, a reticence, and a changeableness that often strains the patience and effort of those who have his welfare at heart. Under unfavorable conditions this youth disregards parents and elders, becomes passive, indifferent, and finally insubordinate.

“Statistics show this to be the age when the largest per cent of criminals begin their careers, and often ‘just for fun.’ It is the age that needs for guidance caution, a kindly yet firm discipline, and the most experienced and mature judgment. Every high-school teacher daily stands appalled before this emotional maelstrom,—standards, ideals, restraints of childhood slowly going, and the self-control, self-mastery, incident to maturity not yet in the saddle. It is well characterized as ‘the age unlovable and unlovely,’ yet the age most needing love, sympathy, and appreciation.

“If at this age the wild dreams of unrest break loose and begin the process of destruction, it is also the age of seriousness, when the young reaches out after the unattainable; the embryo saint appears and faces the future with lips firmly set, groping after answers to the riddles of the universe. This is the period of outbursts of unusual physical growth and excesses and of consequent long, lank, lolling indolence, betokening exhausted energies, both physical and mental. There is no period in life so difficult to understand, fraught with so many and insidious dangers to our boys and girls, as this period between thirteen and twenty years. Now, anything that tends to intervene between this imaginative child and his parent, pastor, or teacher should not only be discouraged, it should be annihilated.”

Let every parent and teacher who has to do with boys and girls, deal with them tenderly and lovingly but firmly.