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阅读理解热点话题综合练习05
(2023·河南·校联考二模)There was a time when parents raised their children without relying on expert advice. In those days aunts and grandmothers were available to help. But during most of this century families have been increasingly separated from their extended families. Because child rearing seems to be a risky experiment, many parents have turned to experts. Unfortunately, that expert advice has been interpreted in the context of social trends and changed into child rearing fashions that later have been cast aside along with the reputations of some unreal experts whose names have been associated with those child rearing eras.
Early in this century, John Broadus Watson warned parents against spoiling their children with unnecessary displays of affection and recommended placing regular habits on them in order to instill self-discipline. The ideas of Sigmund Freud led the next era toward reasoning with children to help them become insightful individuals, capable of enjoying leisure as well as work. After World War Ⅱ, permissiveness (宽容) with children was inferred from the writings of Dr. Benjamin Spock, who enjoined parents to trust their intuitions (直觉) as they tried to meet their children’s needs.
Now we can choose from a variety of experts. On the “conservative” side are those who encourage firmness and “tough love” with children. On the “liberal” side are those who minimize confrontation (冲突) and stress negotiating with children.
Now parenthood has almost become professionalized so that many parents seek “the best way” to raise their children. Child rearing no longer is something that can be done by tradition, or common sense. There is a “right way” to put a child to bed, to leave a child with a sitter, to get a child started in school, and to have a friend over. Because being a parent is a career, like any career the harder we work at it the more we gain. The result is the general feeling that we cannot do enough for our children. Certainly we should