InfoGuide4Parents.com

The tools of learning are indeed many, but those which will concern your child most aside from you, his parents, are: (1) Time, (2) Books, and (3) Teachers. Indeed, without the proper understanding and use of the tools the whole process of learning is drudgery, characterized by disinterest and delay.

Your child can be made conscious of the great time element involved in his or her education, for time is indeed the first tool of education after parents. He can be taught to use that time wisely. Time is one of the great responsibilities that life places before us, and it is the most limited blessing that we have on earth. In life we meet few people, indeed, who have learned the value of time.

Much has been written about the way in which the mass media of communication affect children. Paul Witty has systematically studied this question over a period of years; he has summarized information on how many hours a week children spend viewing television, which programs they watch, what effect television has on their reading.

Elementary school children spend, on the average, about twenty-seven hours a week looking at TV programs. Their parents spend about the same amount of time; teachers and high school students spend less. Except in individual cases, there is no clear evidence that watching TV decreases reading. But it will be interesting to hear what some teen-agers say about the influence TV has had on them.

It is not difficult to get clues as to how a child is feeling. He reveals this by his facial expression, by twisting and squirming like an animal that wants to get out of a cage, or by subdued docility, as well as by the words he says.

Of course, we cannot observe feelings directly; we have to make inferences from the clues we observe. The way a child feels about himself, his reading, and his parents’ efforts to help him improve is of great importance; his feelings and attitudes govern his responses to the reading situation in which he is placed.

There are three aspects to family life which can be used to strengthen it: family meals, family projects and family rituals.

Young people can find a lot of material on how to get married but very little on how to stay married. In these words a shrewd student once characterized the current literature on the family. There is much truth in this observation. Nowhere do our efforts to promote successful family life fail more conspicuously than in the lack of emphasis upon the family as a project in group living, and the effort to find and encourage techniques in family group living. The scattered attempts that have been made in this direction tend to be specialized, and carry with them little implication of their larger importance.

It isn’t magic! Wrapping a gift so that it is handsome, tasteful, and secure really isn’t a trick at all, though it takes a little practice at the beginning. The basic procedures which follow are simple and foolproof.

One helpful tip is to keep all your wrapping materials together, throughout the year. Have a drawer or shelf or box that’s handy, and stow them away. Get together a supply of paper, ribbons, tape, tissue, and gift cards (plus a pair of scissors that’s attached to a long string, perhaps, so that it stays put and doesn’t wander off on a dozen other errands). In addition, collect trimmings: fake flowers, a broken string of dime-store pearls, feathers, odds and ends of notions. You’ll be surprised at the way they can spark up a gift wrapping.