The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1933-06-08

the youngest can help label fruit
jars during the canning season, and
see that the flower vases are filled
each day, the calendar turned, the
newspaper taken in.
It is natural that children will
grow FESTIVE if they are too fire.
quently included in family parties.
Let them have some time by them
selves, some excursions planned
just for them. If the summer is
spent at the lake, the problem of
nothing to do is pretty well taken
care of by inviting a friend for the
child who is most "alone." Let the
teen-age daughter have the fun of
managing the house all by herself
for week, or come to town to cook
for her Dad on the weekend that
he must stay in town.
If child enthusiastically enters
into new projects only to tire of
them before they are finished, must
we teach him to keep on ito the
bitter end?"
The ideal parent, suggests Mrs.
Faere in Later Childhood and ADO
lescence," would be clever enough
to stimulate the child afresh each
time he tired of a project so that
he himself would want to go
through with, it, but when this is
not practical, we can at least be
sure that the child faces the issue
squarely. Don't excuse him that
you regard good many of his I'M
dertakings as experiments. You
yourself, perhaps, have a piece of
fancy work on hand which you
fondly tell yourself you will some
day finish, instead of facing the
fact that it never will be finished,
and let it serve as reminder to
consider well before undertaking
anything like it again.
We want to avoid having a child
come to hate music because he has
practiced so much, to hate sewing
because mother insists that every
thing attempted be finished, to
hate making gardens because he is
not allowed to plant things where
he wants them, to hate Art CALLER
les because stern maiden aunt
drags him through on an "educa-
tionaP' tour. He must have room
to express himself, a bit of stimula-
ton and lot of letting alone.
Music lessons that drag and be-
come monotonous may be given a
new impetus if a friend is found
who plays a different instrument,
and the practice hours become a
game of accompanies" and Gar
tist." Sometimes allowing a child
just to sit and drum on the piano,
just playing and composing" for
awhile adds zest to the practice
hour.
The summer time is a good time,
too, to learn to do things that are
going to help socially; a boy who
likes to hunt and fish, who enjoys
several different sports, and who
reads intelligently, can meet many
different kinds of people on their
own ground. A girl can, without
much expense, learn to swim, to
dance, to play bridge, to make
candy, to row a boat, all In the long
leisure hours of summertime. Both
boys and girls must guard against
being too zone sided;;" that is all
"out door girl, or all the Indoor
type.
Youngsters who become terribly
bored with reading are usually on
a one-sided diet of frothy novels
which afford no particular stimulus
for the imagination; adventures
with the classics will sharpen their
dulled literary appetites.
There is one more factor that
mustn't be ignored in the nothing
to do" blues. An adolescent boy,
who had never before lacked for
things to do, suddenly roamed rest
lessly about, bored with everything
in particular and nothing in gener-
al.