Understanding our child's feelings

We want to help each teen-ager of ours grow into the best person he can possibly be.

We want to understand him as a maturing individual, taking into account his potentialities, not pushing him but helping him to move ahead.

We want to learn better how to allow him enough freedom for growth of the independence which he needs to assume bit by bit.

We want to become sensitive to how he may be misinterpreting facts and imagining things and then building on what he imagines rather than on what is actually true. For in this way we shall be able to see more clearly where he needs help in setting himself straight.

We want to know how to provide adequate guideposts and adequate boundary lines so that he does not go too far and do unwise things which might get him into trouble.

We want to know enough about our own hopes and fears and expectations to prevent these from causing unnecessary conflict between us and inadvertently getting in the way of what we are sincerely striving to do for him.

Toward these ends, we shall need to lay the groundwork on two great corner stones.

UNDERSTANDING OUR CHILD'S FEELINGS and UNDERSTANDING OUR OWN FEELINGS

These are the firmest foundations for SUCCESS in bringing him up.

Curiously, we build the first best when we build the second first. Then the structure of our relationship rises all the more solidly and the major problems of living with our teen-agers are well on their way to being solved.