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rood13.titiloelieytieofleWE NEVER HAD TROUBLE BEFORE; b W. Paine IE; Stein St pages; $7.96.aBy ROBERT BETTS -■ Copley News ServiceDoes this “tifir' soand1responsive chord? If so, welcome to the club of confused parents — and be comforted as well as enlightened.Many are the books offering tips on how to cope with teenagers. This book has muchin the way of sympathy, understanding, warmth and humor. For the worried parent who wonders where things wait wrong, there’s consolation in the assurance that the' first parent who won’t have trouble over a teen-ager has yet to be bom.Most family problems don’t happen in problem families, the author points out They happen to parents who love and care for their children, and to kids who are fundamentally good.His book is for such families. It is written in the spirit of“preventive maintenance,” but it also is full of suggestions fordealing with parent-teen-ager conflicts and with crisissituations.Paine calls on wide experience as a youth and family counselor to show the kind erf circumstances and events that make for parent-teen-agercrises, how they can be prevented and, when not caught in time, how they can be dealt with.He familiarizes parents with the teen-agers’ world of the mid-1970s. He covers Hie broad range of teenage experience: long hair, “weird” clothes, language, sex, food, study, values. In treating these and such serious subjects as drugs,. pregnancy, running away and attempted suicide, hedemonstrates an uncommoncapacity for seeing problems from both the parents’ and the teen-agers’ points of view.; He says bis book is mostly “a book about common sense, butone thing I’ve noticed about common sense is that it’spretty uncommon in a crisis. The common sense solution is always tjie one we think of later, looking back on what we actually did.”Parents who have come through crisis situations, perhaps a little wiser than theyv. '\.‘iwere before, will nod their beads to that, as they may to some other of Paine’s observations.w In a chapter titled “Getting Through,” he comments: “Many parents have found thatthe main problem they have is ikit ~ thaf they' can t ’ communicate, 1? . thatthCTcom-lunicate only too well; they understand their kids perfectly and disagree with them totally. At bottom, it is a basic difference of opinion about what is right and what is wrong.” , * He’s not out merely to make a case for teen-agers. He’s concerned about human beings, the members who make up a fsmily. Although his book is addressed to parents, hebelieves there is much in it “that will be both interesting and profitable to teen-agers.'’On the subject of “Getting Attention” (something all humans try for), he says Hie “great dilemma' for every teenager is that he is a secret schizophrenic. One part of him wants ultimate, freedom, the other part wants ultimate security. One side of him says, ‘I don’t give a damn what you think!’ and the other side says,. ‘But I need you to jelieve nme!”’Runaways are in a similar dilemma. “In a sense, kids who run away want their parents to find out what it’s Iffi a to be powerless, to be stuck in a• /SIMM CLEANyour own carpelsDOIT OUR RHtSERVAC-'tJicto«Mct ctyptf rimiMg mtckmtfeat lifts dirt wdm mi mUm. A Mt at carpets.Joes tfct jofcprwiHiw awmmw (tap ip to a bmini dollars for.iI1ieSteam is a generic term commonly used to tacrlbet!)• hot water ex traction process of carptt cleaning.mmSherwin-WOlkims18 Mml Si* CrawfkMTel.: 774-4632painful situation witout until somdone elsmove, ur course, a wants you to want hii you just yawned and \ ydur business as usua point of running would■i •• -• 4 ---W ■ »«pol ngive wl. / best job9Concern-Jrunninga local IIkPOLITIC
Newspaper Details
Greenfield Recorder
Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
Thu, Apr 01, 1976
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 Apr 2020
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