Parents are often upset when their children praise the homes of their friends
and regard it as a slur on their own cooking, or cleaning, or furniture, and
often are foolish enough to let the adolescents see that they are annoyed.
They may even accuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about
the friends' parents. Such a loss of dignity and descent into childish
behaviour on the part of the adults deeply shocks the adolescents, and make
them resolve that in future they will not talk to their parents about the
places or people they visit. Before very long the parents will be complaining
that the child is so secretive and never tells them anything, but they seldom
realize that they have brought this on themselves.#
Disillusionment with the parents, however good and adequate they may be both
as parents and as individuals, is to some degree inevitable. Most children
have such a high ideal of their parents, unless the parents themselves have
been unsatisfactory, that it can hardly hope to stand up to a realistic
evaluation. Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they
realized how much belief their children usually have in their character and
infallibility, and how much this faith means to a child. If parents were
prepared for this adolescent reaction, and realized that it was a sign that
the child was growing up and developing valuable powers of observation and
independent judgment, they would not be so hurt, and therefore would not drive
the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.#
The adolescent, with his passion for sincerity, always respects a parent who
admits that he is wrong, or ignorant, or even that he has been unfair or
unjust. What the child cannot forgive is the parent's refusal to admit these
charges if the child knows them to be true.#
Victorian parents believed that they kept their dignity by retreating behind
an unreasoning authoritarian attitude; in fact they did nothing of the kind,
but children were then too cowed to let them know how they really felt. Today
we tend to go to the other extreme, but on the whole this is a healthier
attitude both for the child and the parent. It is always wiser and safer to
face up to reality, however painful it may be at the moment.&