Y o u r  T e e n a g e r

by Martha Harris

available Karnac Books

 

Reviews click here

Appendix by Meg Harris Williams: Martha HarrisŐ Philosophy of Education click here

 

CONTENTS

 

BOOK 1 – Your eleven year old

  

CHAPTER 1 – THE ELEVEN YEAR OLD AND SCHOOL

Starting secondary school.  How parents can help.  The strains of competition and refusal to go to school.  Learning and competition.  Comparison with others.  When to help.  ParentsŐ attitudes.  School discipline.

 

CHAPTER 2 – HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

Collecting, keeping pets, games.  Games and character.  Enthusiasms and crazes.  Reading  - the right choice of literature.  Television and conversation.

 

CHAPTER 3 – FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

            Roles in the family.  Growing up within the family.  The need for privacy.

 

CHAPTER 4 – DISCIPLINE, ENCOURAGEMENT AND PROTECTION

Blaming other peopleŐs children.  Questioning our own attitudes.  Punishments.  Criticism, encouragement and praise.  Why children disobey.  How can we stop them doing things which are harmful to them?

 

CHAPTER 5 – GRATITUDE, COURTESY AND DEVELOPING CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS

Behaviour towards the rest of the family.  Setting an example.  Religion, where does it come in?  Cheating with other children and at school.

 

CHAPTER 6 – YOUR ELEVEN YEAR OLD AND SEX

Curiosity about sex.  Menstruation.  Masturbation and `wet dreamsŐ.  Physical changes and appearance.

 

CHAPTER 7 – THE NEED FOR FRIENDS AND FOR TIME TO BE ALONE

            Conformity with other children.  Privacy.  Family conflicts and friendships outside the family.

 

CHAPTER 8 – SOME ELEVEN YEAR OLDS IN DIFFICULTY

Persistence of childish behaviour.  Bed-wetting.  Laziness.  Trying to understand the childŐs behaviour difficulties.

 

BOOK 2 – Your twelve to fourteen year old

  

CHAPTER 1 – RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PARENTS AND TEACHERS

            Encouraging your young adolescentŐs grown-up self.  Taking sides

 

CHAPTER 2 – ENJOYING SCHOOL; EXPANDING INTERESTS; COPING WITH COMPETITION

Help with homework.  Work pressures at school.  The effect of parentsŐ attitudes to success.  Facing up to failure.  Ups and downs in feelings about school.  Atmosphere at home.  Work and competition.

 

CHAPTER 3 – SCHOOL, HOME AND WORK

            Thinking about the future.

 

CHAPTER 4 – HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

            Reading and TV.  The pleasures of discussion.

 

CHAPTER 5 – FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

            Rivalry goes on.  Brothers and sisters; can they harm each otherŐs personality?

 

CHAPTER 6 – DISCIPLINE, ENCOURAGEMENT AND PROTECTION

The help of parental discipline.  The importance of encouragement.  Rules, regulations and punishment.  Pocket money.

 

CHAPTER 7 – COURTESY AND CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS

            The need for courtesy.  Learning from adults.

 

CHAPTER 8 – YOUR YOUNG TEENAGER AND SEX

Menstruation.  A case of delayed puberty.  AdolescentsŐ theories about sex.  Masturbation.  Sex in books, films and TV.  Protection against sex crimes and sexual promiscuity.

 

CHAPTER 9 – FRIENDS

            Ups and downs in friendship.

 

CHAPTER 10 – BAD COMPANIONS

The need for protection from bad companions.  The pull to be like the rest.  The bad influence.  When a child steals.

 

BOOK 2 – Your teenager

 

CHAPTER 1 – THE TEENAGER AT SCHOOL

Can parents help in the school?  Providing special help outside school.  Can you act as tutor yourself?  Preparing the ground by being a learner too.  Learning with friends.  Making use of the teacher.  Irene and the art teacher.  Sharing knowledge.  Getting things into the open.  On not seeing eye-to-eye.  Objectives with which we can all agree.  The teenager enters the adult world.  The teenager impinges on his parentsŐ world.  Speaking well.  When our child does better than his parents.

 

CHAPTER 2 – WORK AND FURTHER EDUCATION

Growth continues, learning continues.  Who decides?  A decision can be modified.  Anxieties about work.  Conflicting expectations.  Parental pressures.  The loss of friends.  Feelings exist, though unexpressed.   Helping towards independence.  Being - and feeling – understood.  Seeing ourselves as others see us.  On giving advice.  Time for thought.

 

CHAPTER 3 – LEISURE INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES

After the party.  `Will you come and join the dance?Ő  Recreations and their meanings.  Adolescent driving and road safety.  Recreation as an escape.  Recreation as recreation.

 

CHAPTER 4 – FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

On being parents of teenagers.  Disappointment with oneŐs children.  Parents can help each other adjust to their familyŐs growing-up.  A teenage girlŐs view of her parentsŐ marriage.  How attitudes to parents change.  Recovery from disillusionment.  From parental discipline to self-discipline.  Rosemary: undesirable friendships.  Changing relationships between brothers and sisters.  Joanne and Lisa: teenage sisters.

 

CHAPTER 5 – THE TEENAGER AND SOCIETY

Teenage rebellion.  Politics in the family.  Society and the internal wards.  Idealisation of other societies.  Julia: flight to another country.  Searching for a cause.  Richard: flight to apathy and daydreams.  The anti-social teenager.

 

CHAPTER 6 – SEX AND LOVE

The basis of sex enjoyment.  Identification with the parentsŐ marriage.  The boyŐs sexuality.  The sexual development of the girl.  Worries about appearance.  Attitudes to babies.  Abortion.  The permissive society.  Preparation for sex and parenthood.  Matthew: teenage infatuation.  Elizabeth: disappointment in love.

 

CHAPTER 7 – TOWARDS FINDING AN IDENTITY AND LIVING CREATIVELY

Creativity.  Changing attitudes.  Introspection and relating to others.  The struggle to find an identity.  First identifications.  Trying to be sincere.  Identity realised in work and marriage.  Fleeing from oneself.  Jeremy.  Flight to drugs.  Jane: changing and resolving identifications.  Learning to be more objective.  Teenage impatience and  panic about wasted time.  Fear of the envy of parents and the grown-up world.  Conquering fears of a malign Fate.