European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 02, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Comparing themselves to other human beings children and adults miss their own uniqueness he added to help build their children s Confidence parents should look Lor their child s areas of Talent and interest and steer them in those direction Success Breeds Success and failure Breeds  said Ruth Jones Counselor at bad or Cugnach elementary school if we show a child what he s Able to do then he strives for the next step " parents can expose their children to new experiences such As scouting music lessons or sports. Anderson said but they must be careful to see that the children Are comfortable in the activity. Sec How the child reacts to  Jones said. If parents know their children they know when they re pushing  Anderson said exposure to an activity becomes dangerous when parents hear themselves saying something like. You re going to be an Eagle scout i Don t care if you Don t get hat paper done for  Anderson said parents who play classical music to their unborn babies and teach foreign languages to their toddlers need not All be frowned upon. If you re flashing the Flash cards of famous composers the kid May or May not know they re famous composers but they sure know mom and dad Are there having some fun Anderson said. Whether the interaction is positive or negative depends not on the behaviour but on the Energy that drives the behaviour he said with the hurried child syndrome the Energy is not love but fear. Patents who were hurried out of their youth and into unfurl Fillig careers sometimes compensate for their frustration by rearing their offspring in achievement pressure cookers. If the Parent s focus is the external whether they can get that raise that promotion that degree if their self Worth is based on what s outside i them then anytime it gets shaken there s a tendency of be a lot More exacting with family  he said Grade in the school that guarantees a 1 -to-8 teacher student ratio. During one recent morning 3 year old Konsta Yee sat around a work table with five other youngsters and watched her teacher Kim enc son write words on the blackboard she quickly repeated the word Pup and went to the Board and wrote it herself. The other youngsters including a vietnamese girl who could t yet speak English did the same exercise correctly identifying their special word such As tip. Lag and lug these kids want More and  said enc son who developed the curriculum for teaching Reading writing and mathematical skills they re very eager to learn and Are gaining a lot of knowledge and  she said the intimacy of the class allows her to give individuated attention to each child although the daily routine is formally structured so the youngsters know what is expected of them each session. The mornings Are devoted to educational instruction. Then the youngsters cat lunch Nap and play. James up Hoss professor of education at Wright University in Dayton Ohio said studies Are showing that preschools Are most helpful when they lean heavily on play based programs which can be organized and overseen by teachers. Such schools should Cut across social economic lines he said and avoid paper and Pencil kind of programs that emphasize getting the kids ready for kindergarten. A Pencil is a torture instrument to a  whose motor skills Are not yet ready to handle it said up Hoss. We have created children with learning . One fourth of the people with myopia near sightedness acquired it not from heredity but from too much close up work too soon. That s child abuse Plain Flat out child  Zigler said he is against plans by Many states to extend formal schooling to 4-year-Olds and instead suggests a return to the concept of the Community school As a local Center Lor All the social services required by the surrounding  such schools would provide full Day Quality care Lor 3 and 4-year-Olds, and would be stalled by teachers who supervise the caregivers having certified training in child  says Zigler. While the program would include some instruction appropriate to youngsters level of development they would primarily be places or recreation and socialization the real business of  Vlay 1988 should every child have a brother or sister not really. By Lawrence Kutner new York times he decision to become a Parent begs the next question How Many children for Many people especially those not sure whether to have one or two children it is a question not easily answered. A growing proportion of parents in the United states Are choosing to have Only one child. The number of women who Are having their first child in their 30s and the increasing rate of divorce alter Only a few years of marriage Are also leading to More families with an Only child. The census Bureau reports that the percentage of single child families in the United Stales increased from 18 percent in 1970 to 21 percent in 1985. Are the parents making a mistake in folklore Only children Are More lonely selfish spoiled and maladjusted than children with Brothers and Sisters. The parents of Only children Are sometimes Given similar labels. The preeminent american psychologist at the turn of the Century or. G. Stanley Hall stated emphatically that being an Only child is a disease in  the parents of Only children Are often asked when they will have another child and Are told How much better that would be for the development of each child. After All How else will their child learn to share How will he learn to relate to other children a study conducted during the height of the baby Boom in 1956 found that the most common reason parents gave for having a second child was to prevent their first from being an Only child. But wait say supporters of Only children. Franklin d. Roosevelt was an Only child. So were Hans Christian Andersen and Jean Paul Sartre. Can t this mean that Only children have an advantage Aren t they More Likely to achieve greatness than their friends who have Brothers and sisters7 in fact say researchers who have been comparing children in the tvo situations it s All a Liolion. The studies show thai the differences Between onlys and other children is Loo trivial to even consider especially when compared to differences like sex and economic status said or. Toni Falbo. A professor of educational psychology Al the University of Texas at Austin and Iho editor of the single child family Guilford press 1984. While some studies show statistically significant dil Serences Between groups of Only children and groups of children with Brothers and Sisters much of thai difference can be accounted Lor by problems in the designs of those studies a disproportionate number of Only children for example live with single or divorced mothers because of this researchers say differences in family income or social status May have influenced some results More than the number of siblings. Even when such factors Are controlled and the differences Between the two groups of children Are still statistically significant they May not reveal any practical difference such As when one group has on average a fraction of a year More education or slightly higher sell esteem than the other. And yet. According to Falbo and other researchers Many parents still debate the benefits and disadvantages of being an Only child based on folklore rather than fact. The similarities Between Only children and children with siblings Are much More important than the  said or. John Claudy a psychologist at the american institutes Lor research in Palo Alto. Calil in the late 1970s Claudy conducted several studies that compared Only children with children from two child families eliminating such factors As the presence of both parents and each family s economic status. The children tilled out questionnaires and took tests when they were in High school and again in heir late 20s Claudy found Only minor differences Between the groups. Only children tended to be More interested in solitary intellectual activities like Reading listening to music and hobbies that involved collecting. Children from two child families were slightly More interested in group activities like Leam sports. Even though the Only children As adults had slightly More education on average than the , their earnings were the same. The similarities hold oven among children living with their mothers after a divorce. We predicted the Only children would be at greater risk Lor emotional  said or. Denise Polit. The principal investigator in a 1984 federally financed study of Only children in single Parent families. Instead we found the opposite. They were doing Quile Well and were certainly no worse Oil than children from two child divorced  part of the reason that Only children handle divorce so Well is that the mothers of Only children appear to Cope with the stresses of divorce More effectively than mothers who have two children. Still there Are experiences a child Wilh Brothers and Sisters has that an Only child May not gel at Home. The child from a larger family must learn to share More of the attention his parents pay and May Gam some maturity and sense of responsibility by helping care Lor younger Brothers and Sisters. Psychologists emphasize the importance of having an Only child involved with a regular play group before he starts school. For Many Only children group Day care allows them to build their skills Al dealing with other children from an Early age. School age children May have to schedule More play time with friends since there Are no other children Al Home. Ii you re a Parent of one child and Are thinking about having another make that decision because you want another child not because you want to help the first one Claudy advised. The stars and stripes Page 15