PRACTICAL HOMECRAFT Guess what I've got for you,
PARENTSI
PAGE
many awful warn-
ings, hints and suggestions are offered on every phase of the normal child's develop- ment nowadays that "I think it's time someone cheered parents up a bit.
"A child's first day at seln" is the latest subject I get the full Treatment from the experts, and wad- ing through their advice I certainly gut the impression that it was going to be the moal tranmatic day in my life as well.
This sort of attitude is drarly ratching. I was told by a well
Friend Inetdog
that s my tagater Frad never been to nursery schunt, 1 could expect. amenities and renelions from ber dast day at school. Yet all worked out better than I could have hapert, I saw no hysteri- cal children or sobbing mothers. The staff rodioted that mixture of warmth and authority which Breins to evade most parents, And to fret the past week of desputehim und collecting has been rewarded with great mo- ments of happiness and amuse- men]. No one mentioned that.
It seems obvious to me that
have 35 You
an emotional mother in a state of flap, that feeling is going to be trans- mited to the child.
Edited by Maureen Owen
HOWEVER DEVOTED you are to children, designing clothes for them must have (tu-iimitatione. Who, for instance, can get worked up about the vital statistics of a five-year-old--24", 24", 24" more often than not, This year, however, they've hit on something which he actually selling out in the hope. A Chanat-type auit. The one in our picture costs just over £6 in a size 28" but they are around at 580, for size 18" and prices go from 394. 6d. at one of the chain stores.
It wasn't so bad-that
first day at school
this story about a mather, dress firm who had started a conscientious almost to breaking clubs and invited Princess Mar- point, who had Instructed her annel to be president. daughter in the elementary nets of life at an early grond was waiting for
the psychological moment to letiver a follow-up. "Munany, where did we conte from?" asked the 11-year-old chilld.
Al Inst the big moment had come. Almost dizzy with relief the well primed mother gave a 20-minute explanation complete with books und diagrams.
"Yes Mummy," said the child, What "I know all about that.
I meant was where did not or
re before we moved
Was it Estex or Sussex,"
All the same I had worried Anticipating
a little. I'd been got at, and at the last mirate 1 fell for it. How steep-ikke can you get? Had 1 worried Dittle more, the progheries of doom MBy have
come true.
Like these unfortunate elder children who are told not to be jealous when a new baby comes along.
1 have rend thousands of words devoted to this perfectly natural situation in the past, all of them aimed, 1 should have thought, at givint today's con- scientious parent the jitters. Yet if there's one thing that worries a child-E's worry.
BY PARENTS
two This week,
teachers, bored with parental worry, told me a couple of snap-out-of-
It stories.
he
The Readmaster of a London' primary school told me that not ince since the beginning of the 11-plus examination hus known a child to worry about it on his own necount, in ALL cases where anxiety began to show (the first sign Je 11 deterioration in the quality of the child's work) t was caused by worrying parenia,
business...
COME strange announce-
► ments arrive on my desk from time to time, but none Ro strange us those from the Maternity Wear people who seem to be en- joying the best of the baby boom.
. One firm announces ... “Big news for the shorter mother." Another shop is licensed with "a father's room where your man con wall in comfort and have a glass of sherry.
"We were thrilled," they salā, her very lengthy "with
aud charming reply-saying that it was not, of course, possible."
I m all for the expectant mother having the widest possible range of clothes to ehoose from, but it seems to me that one section of the pregnant population has been forgotten.
How about the short-of-cash mother? For after studying the tiny print, I still think an aver- age of 8 to £10 is too much to pay for dress that you only wear for four months and will wish lo burn directly after- wards,
No matter who desumed it.
(London Express Service).
PICTURE BY JOHN COLE.
Learning to swim: you
can start too early
ONLY four out of 10 can help realising that
people in England zea must be a strictly sobering Each from bas its gimmick. can swim rather low night. Terwis player Angela Buxton is really for an island maternity skirts to bens, and all race. And quite a lot do
Hardy Amies designs for one,
busy endorsing everything from
the women designers made a get drowned.
point of telling you that they were once pregnant themselves.
the ring is removed and the toddler's-eye-view of the open child swims in the deep end.
Breathing exercises are prac- tised, carly on, but-and thle may stock the purists-the children are allowed to develop the style of swimming which comos most naturally. A Iow start off with the breast stroke, some prefer to swim on their backs, but the majority go in for the dog paddle.
On reflection many mothers grateful for may feel secretly These unmanty instincts and it isn't until later-seven upwards when most of the drowning More die from drowning, accidents occur-that your need "Mrs X is Ryouthful Brand for instance,
by permanently with than from to stand mother"... "Mrs Y. pregnant herself nine
years polio though people do not the life boll. DO"
go round telling themselves they must learn to awim in the same way as they make the effort to get polio juba.
The headiness of BUT
emprehensive school
The don't
IN BRITAIN
told me
INVITATION
was
the strongest news of all come from a
seem to care...
of
of
nebody much is surprised to learn that
"subsidised" marriage has become part of the way Hfe, Hundreds of thousands young Americau couples marry without the means of self- support and either go on to earn no money at all, or not ruough to live on, Research on young marriages in lowa by Dr Lee Burchinal revealed that only a third of the couples could maintain continuously a separate home of their own and that some regular financial assistance from parents, apart from the provision of a residence, was acknowledged by more than half the young wives.
IN AMERICA
nobody atcms unduly perturbed about the state of our chlidren's teeth. A report in 1948 showed that the average Eve-year-old tin
4.3 decayed, missing or Ølled teeth. No one took much notice
and when the next report appeared in 1958 the figure had
rison to 5.7. Your guess for 1968 in na good as mine.
IN EUROPE
and almost everywhere else in the world, the only children who
KU
to boarding schools Bre those in need of speelalised attention.
No
one thinks much of eight-year-olds leaving home over here. I do not mean to raw a parallet between our educational system and others; but I did sympathise with the Italian nother I saw on a slation last week, Married to an English- man and persuaded to give their chila "the world's,best educa- ilan," she broke down as the train went off, cobbing. "It seeme so unnatural.”
Picnic ideas
cooked breon; 1 cooking applu; SALMON PATTIES 20z. fresh breadcrumbs; a tea
Enco
or gravy; chopped parsley; Box, tin xaimon
Nowadays parents are rightly kren for their children to learn everything, do everything while
young,
I talked to Cyril Laxton, Olymple swimming conch and father of four, about the hows and whens of getting children Into the water.
Mr Laxton is the man who, with the backing of Ilford's go ahead education department, has devised a new scheme of nwimming instruction
where
"It doesn't matter," soya Mr Laxion, **by the lime we've finished with them our children can swim enough to save their lives and that's what we're after, Acquiring the right style is noth- in compared with getting a nervous child into the water.
NO HURRY
later 66TYLE comes
when the breathing is
But at what age should a child thousands of nine-to-10-year- start to swim? Fathers are olds have learned to swim with right, so don't worry about fumy about this, it seems a in three weeks.
matter of pride with them to
The secondary school swim-
Fathers, please pay attention, our youngsters. Most of the get their sons into the water for according to Mr Laxton,
older ones can beat the almost before they can walk. young children loathe the sea, public schools on any count Oh. the tight-lipped fathera I for the simple meson, he says you like to mention. Saw On holiday this year that it's too cold, attempting to Instruct their THEY LOATHE being badger- mars have a Urst class crawl
their frs ed around by their parents and
style and one or two are poten- | marc
take their feet off the flot Olympic swimmers." Did I say strokes? Most of bottom even with a rubber ring. What is the best age for a the two-to-five age group I saw The whole thing makes them child to learn to swim? refused to get their bathing self-conscious and frightened, trunks wet at all, to the apparent THEY LIKE swimming baths shame and despair .of their and learn quicker in indoor monly fathers.
heated ones..
infant sons strokes!
MY
CODDLED!
OWN two-year-old who preferred to play in sheltered rock pools, was written off as hopeless by his father with a few hints at maternal mollycoddling
thrown in.
This little scene, I noticed, was repeated all over the beach and, although I am a keen as any- body for my children to swim, I
1 hard-boiled egg; 1b, short summe can condensed tomato
Mr Laxton started his own children, off at four, but says a class of not more than 20 nvc- year-olds do quite well.
THEY LIKE learning with
As for and starting his three- other children, Mr Laxton takes year-old off at the seaside, Mr 40 at a time and says they lose Laxton says: "it will take him their self-consciousness in the 20 years to teach a child to swim crowd, are encouraged by the that way, and by that time he'll others and take instruction tret hate the sight of the water ony-:
way." from an impersonal coach.
THEY MUST learn to trust the water before anything can be achieved at all and the side of the ball or a cork float children store by holding on the
plus a rubber ring, jozlari with.
The basts of Mr Laxion's succesa Hes in the fact that the scheme provides for 20 minutes Intensive swimming Instruction ench school day for a period of three consecutive weeks. As a which result of this scheme,
the
they
the salmon. Top with rest of: menna some disruption in pastry sealing edges well. Cut school timetable, children are small allta BACON AND APPLE ROLL Mark 7) for 30 minutes. Serves patty, brush with beaten call: eseller thon
at the top of each learning to swim a whole year. do when INGREDIENTS: 12oz. cold four.
And bake at 400 F (Cins Mark receiving once-weekly natrue- for 25 minutes. Serves four, tien. Cooked chicken can
be used: spaena chopped parsley; 1 tea- 107 plain flour; pint milk; HOT TOMATO CONSOMME : a width and my INGREDIENTS: 1oz. butter, Instead of salmon.
By the end of the thres werks spoon seg, salt and pepper; 1
all but few pupils can swim egg: tomato
can do a salt and pepper: 1 tablespouti flour; b. puff or flaky pastry.
INGREDIENTS: 1 can con- length.
There is no messing about METHOD: Mince the bacon pastry, bouten egg-
BOUD, 1 soup can full of water, start by getting their feet off under this system. The chikiten and the apple, which has been perled and.
METHOD: Melt butter, add thin lemon slices. cored. Add flair and cook for one minute,
METHODI Combine consommo, the ground in the first lessON, the crumbs,
parsley, Fall, and
FIT, Add mille slowly, stirring well tomato soup and water bring to and they are kept werking for pepper,
and the bring to boil and cook for three for Ave
bolling point and cook gently the whole of the 20 minutes
conßdenice The ingredients minutes, atlezing, all the time. Find
First minutes. Pour into together using a little tomato Benson well with salt and pepper tie foat thin lemon alfees in down in the
VROULI flask and at serving booters are jumpink up and souce or gravy if necessary. Form ned parsley and the drained
water; pushing into a long roll, using a little flaked salmon, Ling four large cach cup. Serves slk,
sirulders under the wafor.
Quite KOOT they are on" : couraged to jump into Hie deep as soon as a child is waterbome
CER.
flour to nvold sticking to the individunt palty tins with pastry bunda. Wamp in thinly rolled put in a little sulmon mixture pastry, and bake at 420° F (Clos itibt alleed egg, then Use rest of
da (Formidon Mapress Forelos).
109son
-Mary Norwaki end wearing subber ringe and
~~(London Ezprass Service).
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special
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