Children and Family

A book for parents by Stephen Gislason MD.

2010 Edition, available in print form and as a PDF file for download.

From the Preface: "A family is any combination of adults and children that creates a stable home. The essence of family is caring and nurturing. To include more humans in the family of man as constructive peaceful contributors, each child must receive loving care, the right food, sophisticated education, opportunities for employment and the freedom to express his or her version of humanity. Thoughtful, well-educated parents have the opportunity to understand their responsibilities, to plan and allocate resources for an unborn child."

From the Introduction:  An infant is richly endowed with all of life’s tendencies and resembles humans that have gone before. Humans all tend to do similar things and have similar thoughts, but there is a range of mental abilities. The range of mental ability is sufficiently great that humans of limited mental ability live different lives with different understanding than humans with greater mental abilities. Since humans are social animals and live in groups that function best when there is a diversity of mental abilities and skills, the range of abilities in any given population may be stable over time and tolerance for differences has survival value.

"Every child enters a competitive world in which he or she will be relentlessly compared with other children.  Social acceptance will depend on the child’s ability to form and maintain alliances with other children and key adults such as teachers, coaches, and counselors. One of the tasks for parents is to help their children navigate through a maze of obstacles and threats.  A good parent teaches survival skills and provides reassurance that the taunts and threats of teasers and bullies are not as serious as they sometimes seem.  At the same time, the good parent is alert to the possibility of real danger and intervenes strategically whenever threats do become serious.

Parents with more than one child are treated to a daily drama of interaction that involves some pleasant and some unpleasant experiences. Beginning parents will often believe that their children should be similar to themselves and should display all their most positive qualities. This hopeful assumption will lead inevitably to disappointment. Each child is different, sometimes dramatically different from other siblings and the parents. The variance in IQ score among 3 siblings in a family will, for example, be as great as the variance in the community at large. The differences in the performance of school work and social adaptation will alarm and confuse parents who expect to adhere to a high family standard. The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment when a child fails to achieve or rebels.

Order 2010 Edition as PDF file for download.