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what rou can do
•••
TIMELY
Tips and
Helpful
Suggestions for YOU and YOUR
FAMILY
•
Recognizing a Potential School
Dropout
The proverbial school "dropout" can be easily identified
and treated as early as the kindergarten leve!, and definitely
by the third grade in most cases.
This iinding, by Dr. Early
C.
Kelly, Professor of Educa–
tion at Wayne $tate Uníversity (Michigan), was accompaoied
by a description of the .five most common signs of a potential
dropout. In the "classic case," the child is:
l.
Behind the class in academic achievement.
2.
Slow to recognize abstract concepts.
3. Over-age for bis grade, that is, past age 8 by the third
grade.
4.
From a "culturally deprived" home.
5. Out of scbool ao excessive amount of time. This
is
not just due to truancy, but also due to excessive illness,
embarrassment, lack of suitable dothing, or parents who
openly berate school, or don't care.
If
your child falls into any o.r all of these .five categories,
there are positive steps you can take which will prevent such
a tragedy from occurring. The major key is sincere parental
concern, encouragement and support of school teachings.
A parent should begin by making every possible effort to
increase his own educational leve! if it is deficient. This posi–
tive example should then be supplemented by the reading of
more books, magazines, and newspapers and discussing them
with your children.
Encourage your child to ask questions - and answer
them
1
This helps your child to grasp abstract concepts, learn
relevant facts, and build a better vocabulary. Answers such as
"Go away, l'm busy,'' or ''Be quiet,'' will keep a child on the
road toward dropping out.
If
a parent has done everything possible and the child is
still falling behind, curricular adjustment at school may help.
Talk to the child's teacher for advice. But remember,
currículum changes do not fully "compensate for environmen–
tal restrictions in infancy and eady d1ildhood." Much of the
cause and prevention of dropouts lies solely with the parents.
•
Teen-agers and Smoking
In the last five years, millions of adults have quit smok–
ing. In 1966, 52 percent of the adult population smoked
cigarettes, according to the National Clearinghouse for Smok–
ing and Health, but by the end of 1970, the percentage of
adult smokers bad dipped significantly to 42 percent.
Yet teen-age smoking rose dramatically during the same
period.
Nine out of ten teen-agers will readily admit that smok–
ing is hazardous to health, but surveys show that they thiok
smoking is only hazardous sometime in the vague future, but
not today. They feel they can smoke during the fun years of
youth, then quit later before health dangers set in.
This kind of reasoning is faulty and dangerous. The
greatest health risk among smokers today is among those who
started young, but couldn't quit. Habits of youth are strong
and are ofteo more deeply entrenched than habits begun later
in life.
"Kicking" a firmly-entrenched habit fo rmed in youth
can become a major ordeal. Ex-drug addicts at Synanon, a
rehabil itation center based in Santa Monica, California, have
openly admitted that giving up
smoking
was even harder
than giving up heroin,
bar~iturates,
methadone or alcohol.
"I've never seen such human torture or experienced such
anguish as I saw this year watching people give up smoking,"
said Synaoon founder aod president, Charles Dederich. "In
my opinion it causes a deeper dependency on a gut leve! for
more people than any other drug." Many youths take up
smoking, along with liquor, because it is one of the "legal
drugs,'' unlike marijuana ·or the harder drugs. Obviously this
is dangerous thinking.
If
you smoke, should you switch to cigars and pipes?
The Surgeon General of the United States warned that
pipe and cigar smokers are 3 to 7 times more likely to
develop cancer of the throat than those who avoid smoking
of any kind. Pipe smokers are particularly susceptible to lip
cancer, he reported.
The conclusions are obvious.
If
you are a young person
who is toying with
the
idea of smoking, don't!
If
you have
already started, write for our free booklet,
Yo11
Can
Q11it
Smoking!
It gives positive advice on how you can quit
smoking.
•
Plant a Vegetable Garden Now?
Perhaps a vegetable garden in your back yard is the fur–
thest thing from your mind right now. But now is the time to
be reading about successful gardens, planning your garden
and placing seed orders. Now is the time to lay clown a step–
by-step guide for the next six months of planting, tending,
cultivating, and harvesting of delicious vegetables for your
family and friends.
The reasons why you will find a vegetable garden of
value are many:
l.
Taste and
Nrttrition.
Freshly picked, ripe and ready–
to-eat, home-grown vegetables can be much more tasty and
nutritious than market produce, which is usually picked un-