Guiding the Adolescent

Washington, D.C.: Children's Bureau of the Social Security Administration, 1946. Very good to near-fine. Minor dust soiling.. Revised edition, published by the Children's Bureau of the Social Security Administration, of an educational booklet for American parents and families, guiding them through the turbulent teen years. Includes sections introducing adolescence, physical growth and changes, sex education, mental development (interestingly, broken into three sections: "slow", "average", and "superior"), productive leisure time, the importance of friends and how to handle "boy girl relations". Includes two interesting chapters titled "Asocial Conduct" and "Evading Reality" which advise parents on how to handle stealing, "incorrigibility", cheating, truancy, and underage drinking. "Daydreaming and romancing" is dismissed as "harmful to healthy mental development. Boys and girls should be helped to realize that they can win the recognition they desire through active effort in some given field rather than through such unsatisfactory methods as romancing and daydreaming" (p.65). Concludes which a brief section on the needs of parents, and encourages them to persist in trying to understand their teens, Single vol. (9.25" by 5.75"), pp. 84, in original illus. self wrps depicting teens roller skating and talking on a park bench. Note the booklet's attitude towards sexually active young women: "The girl who permits promiscuous petting with unlimited privileges gets the reputation of being 'easy' and 'common'. As a social asset, she is less valuable..." (p.76).