The Adolescent Boy and Girl, Part 5

Parent and Child, Volume III
by Mosiah Hall

(Page 10 of 10)

This is the glory of our life and our work. You are making the youth of the twentieth century, as I said to you, and you are doing something grander; for every bit of good that you give here in Utah will spread back to us in Massachusetts and you are moulding the race into conformity with that which is deepest and most permanent and most eternal in environment, and hence all the powers of Nature are on your side.

"We are two," said Abbe Bacha to Mahomet, as they were plodding from Mecca to Medina. "No," answered Mahomet, "We are three. God is with us." We cast in our efforts with this grand tide of events which is sweeping on toward a better age and better race, and we cannot fail. Therefore, let us gird up our loins, be strong and of a very good courage; for, as I have said to you once before, you shall lead these little people into the land of hope and promise which the Lord swore unto their ancestors, their fathers, that He would surely give them.

General Subject

The Adolescent, or High School Age

Read carefully the foregoing lecture on "Growth During the High School Age," by Dr. Tyler, for all these succeeding lessons.

Lesson VI

Athletic Needs Of Boys And Girls

1. What steps have ever been taken in your community to provide for proper athletic sports for the young? What success came of these efforts?

2. Give two reasons why wholesome physical recreation is necessary for growing children.

3. What games and sports do you consider best for boys? For girls? Why?

4. What dangers come from uncontrolled athletics?

5. What do you think about the value of school athletics that develop only a team?

6. What can be done, (1) by the parents, (2) by communities,

(a) To provide for wholesome games and sports for all the children?

(b) To provide proper leadership and supervision of these things?

(c) To regulate the excesses and check evils of the athletic spirit?

(d) To provide proper places in which to play?

Lesson VII

Social Needs

1. During what years does the desire to be with "the crowd" manifest itself most strongly in boys and girls?

2. What difficulties come to the parents in the management of boys and girls during this time?

3. In what ways can parents best exercise control over the companionships of their children during this vital period?

4. In what ways can the social needs of boys and girls be provided for in the home?

5. How far can and should parents go in participating in the pastimes of their children? What can be done to keep up the spirit of companionship between parents and children?

6. What can communities do to put down the "street corner" habits and the "hoodlumism" that comes of the boy gangs?

7. What pastimes and practices can be fostered to bring about a higher-minded companionship among young people?

Lesson VIII

Keeping Our Boys and Girls At Home

1. What are the first indications that our home is losing its hold upon our boy? Our girl?

2. What influences are at work in each instance?

3. Is it because conditions outside the home offer more, or is the home offering less of that which the boy or girl desires?

4. When you find your boy going to the pool room do you throw his deck of cards into the fire and advise him as to what will happen if he attempts to use such things in or about the house?

5. When your girl shows a preference for taking her leisure at Smith's or Brown's rather than at home, do you at once adopt a code of rules and proceed to make emphatic statements as to your intention to enforce those rules and also to impose certain penalties?

6. Did it ever occur to you that "desire" may be diverted, but that it cannot be destroyed?

7. Is it not best to divert by substitution rather than by prohibition? Also to substitute in kind as near as may be?

8. What are you doing in your home to satisfy the desire which takes your boy or girl to the neighbors or the public places?

9. What share are you taking in the interests of the growing boy or girl?

10. Parents, are you companionable? Do you get into the boy or girl's field of discussion? Do you talk with them rather than to them? Do you get into their games, their troubles, their pleasures, their life?

Lesson IX

1. What certain acts or omissions entitle a boy to be classified as "wayward?"

2. The first sign of waywardness is the breaking of what commandment, if any?

3. Under any condition would you let your boy know that you considered him wayward?

4. Should your regard for, as shown by your treatment of the wayward boy, differ in the slightest degree from your regard for your treatment of the circumspect, dutiful, and obliging boy?

5. Does the worst tendency of the boy call for any more from us than mere direction?

6. Is not the boy's worst offence a bad form of satisfying a good desire?

7. What is your method of dealing with your boy? Is it "Never do that" or "Better to do this?"

8. Do you ever undertake to show the boy how much more of the thing he is after he can get out of a method that is all around helpful than one that is all around harmful.

9. How would it do to substitute jointly planned "Do's" for unqualified "Don'ts"?

10. In almost every instance can you not justly ascribe the boy's waywardness to an unnatural companionship on your part or to no companionship at all?

Lesson X

Spiritual Development in Boys And Girls

"Training the Child in the Way He Should Go"

1. Quote from the Doctrine and Covenants a passage wherein parents are admonished as to their duty in teaching the Gospel to their children.

2. Give three first steps in religious training in children.

3. What difficulties and successes have you, as parents, met with in cultivating your little ones? proper habits in prayer, in attendance to Sunday School and in other religious duties? To what do you ascribe your success or failure?

4. At what age do boys and girls grow most careless as regards religion? (Study the statistics of your Sabbath School on this point.)

5. Is it true that our religious training fails most just at the point where the boy and girl are in greatest need of it? What are the causes of this failure?

6. What can and must parents do to reinforce the Sunday School and our other organizations in their efforts to guide the boy and girl safely during their teens? during the critical periods of life?

Lesson XI

Life Lessons During The Wayward Age

1. Show, by citing examples from history, that youth is a period of strong religious tendencies. What can be done to keep the "dreams of youth" on high ideals?

2. What stories? what lessons? to boys and girls at this time? What books appeal most impressively to boys and girls at this time?

3. Recalling the things that left deepest impress on you for good or ill during the period of "the teens," what advice would you give as to cultivating in a child right feelings for religion?

4. Wherein do we as religious teachers most fail to get the boy or girl?

5. In what way should the Bible be taught during this age?

6. What individual work with boys and girls can and should be done by parents and teachers to guide the children past the dangerous places?

Lesson XII

Temptations of Boys And Girls

1. What are the commandments children are likely to break first?

2. In what ways are homes often responsible for habits of lying, stealing, profaning the name of God, and other sins?

3. How are the seeds of impurity often sown by thoughtless parents in the home? Discuss here the vulgar story, and other evil suggestions.

4. What loose habits in companionship and courtship are being permitted by parents to lead their children into evil?

5. By what effective means can parents co-operate to check the looseness and rudeness and sinful practice that blight our homes and communities?

Child Study and Training
1916