January 1987, page 4 Children Should Not Pay For said during the Conference held Weber State. in Dr. Alvin Families Alive September at Dr. Poussaint, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard University and consultant to “The Cosby Show,” told conference participants that children must come first when such a model, one that we’ve made almost into a deity, that we can’t think of different kinds of possibilities,” he said. The federal government, for example, will not fund programs for single Changes blems, said Poussaint, “You “Those two elements are surfacing everywhere as the primary things that, have shifted out of our life style that: have to be put back in if we want can work ethic yourself to death at Burger King and your salary | at the end of the year will be $3,500 below the poverty line, before taxes. If you make minimum wage you'll come out with $6,059 for the year, which is not enough to support yourself living in a room, much less a family.” Dr. Alvin consultant to the “Cosby Show.” The result has been a vast exodus of woman from the home that has also parents because single parent families don’t fit the model of the traditional stress. Women American family. “To do something necessity, and people are trying to do for the are working, many brought about a pressing need for quality day care. “The United States is behind on this one. Look at Sweden, look at China. China has nurseries right in the work place. We're very far from that,” Dr. Poussaint said. The “Cosby Show” may only be a Hollywood family, but the show's popularity comes because the characters make the transition between the traditional family of the past and the common family of today. Not all out of single more things with less time. The result is parent is somehow to support that insitution, which is against our values. The government gets into that all the that children get less interaction with their parents. “There’s no time for peace and quiet because people are trying to do too much, and then they try to cover themselves by saying what they’re realorientation,” Dr. Poussaint said. If leaders thought of children instead . ly about is quality time. time. That’s punishing the children because we don’t like the parent's “Quality time is important, but the of parents programs could be developed to help bring stability to a_ fact is that it’s much harder than people family life style that, for good or bad, want to acknowlege. Two people come |home tired at 6 o’clock to a screaming is here to stay, Dr. Poussaint said. Dr. Poussaint noted that families of | two-year-old and say they are going to the 1980's have an almost entirely new | have a nice, quality time. That’s not set of circumstances to handle, which the way it works. Quality in child rearinclude, among others, changed expec- ing also has to do with quantity of tations and increased amounts of time. There are certain kinds of things in Families moral and ethical involvement, critical | Quick changes in American society thinking, judgmental maturity, | have caused enormous stress on closeness, trust, bonding, intellectual | children, producing an increase of negative behaviors and a decrease in development, and so on,” Glenn said. | Studies have shown that parents | scholastic ability, a national family exwho spend 10 to 15 minutes a day with | pert said. their children in significant conversa-| Dr. Stephen Glenn, who has served tion and interaction can raise a child’s | in a number of U.S. family-related IQ and self concept. organizations, and who was honored But overcrowded classrooms, and | last year byPres.Reagan as the nation’s large families reduce the amount of in- | most influential’ youth educator, said dividual time the child receives, and| that the greatest stress on families is the makes them less likely to achieve in-| “incredible changes we've gone tellectually and socially, he said. through in the twinkling of an eye.” “Research for the last 50 years shows | Glenn spoke at the ‘Families Alive” that with each child that enters the| conference held during September at family after the second one, the | _ the college. average IQ and achievement of all | ‘We have seven year-olds arriving at schoo! today who have observed (on | children in that family drops by a | significant factor,” he said. television) more bizarre acts of human Parents in most families now work | sexuality in their first seven years of outside the home, giving the best hours life than: their grandparents fantasized of their day at the work place and of in an entire lifetime, but who also returning home too tired for anything lack their parent’s wisdom, judgement, beyond the necessary feeding, bathing insight, support systems and clarity to and putting in bed. sort that out in a productive way,” he But the home is not the only place said, The major trend that has had a where interaction with children is not | happening. negative effect on children’s developAt one time schools were structured ment is the decreased amount of meanso that children had plenty of the involvement: ingful dialogue and teacher’s time and attention. When the parents and teachers have with baby boom children of the 1960's children. The loss of those two entered school “we solved the problem elements has a _ correspondingly simply by putting more chairs in the; negative effect on some significant characteristics in children. struc- ty comes from two parent homes. tant issue today. We should be asking what do the children need. What in- perts call the nuclear--family while ignoring the rest. The assumption by government is that traditional families are best and with government encouragement that particular family style will reappear. But the facts prove otherwise. More women, from both one and two parent homes, are working outside the home, and a high rate of divorce is creating more single parent families all the time. “The nuclear family has become like to have but wage parent families are below the poverty level, and one in five children in pover- Children are too often the ones left holding the bag of society's pro- con- only support the traditional--what ex- at home, not tures are preventing that from happening. Currently, 50 percent of single sidering families. “There is no more critical and impor- situtions will strengthen them?” Many think that government should parents would one spouse you're Causing counterproductive since it was born in an emergency, and then when the emergency was over we didn’t have the wisdom to not go on imposing those same limits,” he said. Evidence of a decline in student achievement resulted in the 1980 “Nation At Risk” report that recommended raising scholastic requirements. Unfortunately, neither class size nor teaching methods were changed to help students reach the higher goals. “In every system where you ar- bitrarily increase the standards without altering the process to achieve them, your strong people move up by a tiny increment, but more of your marginal people fade, and people who are clearly frustrated and out-of-reach become more violent, aggressive, destructive or depressed. “We predicted in 1980 that if we responded to “A Nation At Risk” with an arbitrary increase in standards and didn’t alter class size, didn’t alter teaching methods, the net effect would be increased dropouts and acting out, and that’s what we got. This year 50 percent more Americans discontinued high school than did five years ago,” Glenn said. The national average for scholastic achievement is up, but not because there is an increased ability, he said. “What happened is the marginal kids classroom,” he said. When that hap-' dropped out in increased numbers. pened student acheivement and What you're really looking at in -achievement is probably just a group motivation dropped. “The tragedy is we accepted a pro- of survivors. We gleaned out all the cess of education that has been marginal people who could have families need to be “Cosby Families,” but if children are to grow into healthy and contributing adults society needs to take a new look make the necessary said. ee doing,” if at families, and adjustments, he Py OD ¢ 8) ~Poussaint are Many get “Someone has to pick up the ball in | the name of the litte ones,” Dr. Poussaint said. <©nonnmon antiquated, and social programs based on that type of family are hurting a whole generation of children. “There is a tendency to punish the children if we don’t like what the parents ‘that you don’t around,” he said. is |) Stress brought the averages down,” he said. Combine that school setting with families where discussions have been replaced by television viewing, and the -result is tremendous pressures in youth, pressures that lead to increased alcohol and drug dependency, teenage pregnancies, suicides and hostility, he said. “If you don’t deal with the core pressure inside, you're not going to solve the problem,” Glenn said. But despite these problems there seems to be a healthy refocusing on improving family strengths. || “We live in tremendously changing | times. After years of pessimism, I've | watched in the last five years a great | groundswell of optimism,” he said. | Parents are four times as likely to | volunteer to help in the classroom as they have been in the past, six times as likely to serve in the PTA, and half as likely to define raising children as exclusively women’s work. Parents are fighting to improve their families, and the factors producing the problems are beginning to yield, but the-battle will be long, Glenn said. “If parents want a successful (child) the children have to learn from those who raise and educate them: I'm a capable person who can take the initiative when I need to. My life has significance, and I have fundamental worth in the eyes cr children - | ro,.nd the pines with | | — home of at a traditional family father, and a mother Sins aa he a Parent’s a Weber State College Comment, of the people| value,” he said. ‘Make tiny, tiny adjustments that | have enormous downstream effects on je all of us,” he advised. |