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Griffin Daily News
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• Yes. No matter how young a child is, if he says
a dirty word or swears in "just the right place," he
he means it. The big question is how can parents
train him to control his tongue without, of course,
inhibiting his freedom of expression.
Some parents may punish the child even the first
time he uses a dirty word. That may cause more
problems than accepting the fact that a young
ster can fire off an uninhibited obscenity once in a
while. Undoubtedly, he knows the shock value of
the word, but if he is punished he might attach
more importance to using obscenity than the inci
dent deserves. Although the youngster may have
been punished, he might feel that he has gained a
MIRROR Os YOUR MIND • BY JOHN CONWiil
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• Does neatness count in
The executive ability of men or
women cannot be accurately gauged
by how neat they keep their desks
and offices or even their person.
But neatness does indicate an indi
vidual won't waste time and effort
trying to find things.
Yet while the disorganized person
knows he might lose an important
opportunity because of his lack of
neatness, he cannot, as a rule,
help himself to kick his slovenly
habits. For one thing, he may not
realize it, but he undoubtedly adopt
ed his disorganized way of doing
things early in his childhood per
haps as a strike against conformity
and an attempt to establish identity.
Doing the unexpected might have
first drawn reluctant but neverthe
less approving reactions from his
parents and older brothers and sis
ters. From then on, it was natural
to fall into habits of cafeless dress
ing, eating, and so on. It soon be
came a matter of pridj, that he
could accomplish so much in school,
sports and home projects, even
though he was "the sloppiest kid on
weapon that he can use in the struggle against par
ental training and discipline.
Nor does ignoring the obscenity a child has just
unleashed do much good to stop similar perform
ances. For one thing, the youngster probably senses
his parents’ reaction and knows that he has "scored"
by shocking them. If they try to let the remark go
by without any comment, he may bide his time,
until he can strike with more telling and embarras
sing force. Another aspect, according to “Four Let
ter Word Games" (Dell), by Dr. Renatus Hartogs
with Hans Fantel, is that ignoring the obscenity
might deprive the child of the attention he craves.
Sometimes a visit to a child training specialist is
executive ability ?
the block.” Shoes untied, pants
practically hanging off him, he
always seemed to get the needed hit
in a ball game; from the biggest
pile of junk, he could extract just
the right notes he was looking for;
and he enjoyed the reputation of
“never losing a thing."
His habits, he finds, have worked
for and against him. To maintain
his reputation of being careless, he
developed a sharper acuity for
knowing where he put the things he
knew he would need. His constant
struggle to make creativity look
easy won him attention and promo
tion in school and in the business
world. His ability to pick people who
could "keep tabs” on his disorgan
ized procedures at first served to
boost him up in the executive eche
lons. But as he selected aides and
subordinates with more and more
executive ability themselves, he
found himself relying on them not
only to "keep him straightened out"
but also to make the decisions that
he—the superior executive—should
be making himself.
(O 1969. King Feat!
• Why are some people hard to get along with ?
You've met these individuals soci
ally, on the job, in school or even
in your own home. You try to get
along with them, going out of
your way again and again to please
them, but your efforts are repulsed,
perhaps sneered at.
Undoubtedly, the reason individ
uals like this can't get along with
other people is that they can't get
along with themselves. Their hos
tility may be the result of having
been deprived of parental love and
understanding; or it may have come
about in the aftermath of an out
ward, or, perhaps a sensed feeling
of rejection. Their animosity has
become a substitute for self-esteem,
confidence, maturity, security and
other qualities they lack.
No matter what the status of the
antagonistic individual, he overcom
pensates for his feeling of being
deprived of love and understanding
when he needed them. He will re
act angrily and jealously when as
sociates progress, however minutely,
in their play, in their schoolwork, in
their jobs, in their social spheres
ires Syndicate, Inc.)
needed to unravel the intricate connection between
the cause of a youngster’s using an obscenity and
and the cure. And yet with an older child, a parent
might have success talking reasonably to the young
ster and explaining the meaning of the obscene
term and why it shouldn’t be spoken again. Dr.
Hartogs said that he has learned from parents that
one of the best ways to stop obscenity from being
used by a child who does not suffer from neurosis
or personality problems is to warn him that such
language causes him to lose prestige. Even young
sters, he says, have "very keen status feelings"
which parents can use to help children clean up
their language.
and toward achieving happiness in
their home and marital life—al
though other people may have had
to struggle a great deal more than
he to attain these advances.
Yet perhaps the strongest reason
why such a person continues to be
hostile to others even after he reach
es chronological maturity is that he
wants people to keep their distance
from him. He is afraid to “relax”
his guard and let anyone get close
enough to him to see the “real him.”
He may not consciously know his
trouble, but his unconscious certain
ly does, and it promotes hostility
and animosity to prevent him from
establishing a comfortable relation
ship with other people. For that
reflex action, that bit of him that
causes him to repay interest in him
with indifference, or kindness to
him with curt coldness, is a shield
to keep others from realizing what
he has long known about himself
but has refused to admit: that his
arrogance and unsociability are
merely coverups for his personality
and emotional shortcomings.