Scouting, Volume 48, Number 7, October 1960 Page: 6
40 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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IF YOUR
ONE NIGHT LAST SPRING, a phone call from the police
informed the parents of one of our school's teen-
agers that their boy had been picked up, charged
with car theft. Next morning, the heartbroken mother sat
in mv office and asked through her tears, "Whv did he
do it?"
She knew the answer without my saying. "Bad com-
panions.I had known it was only a matter of time be-
fore something like this would happen. I had seen it
coming for several months, had even warned the mother.
But she insisted that she "could not choose her children's
friends."
When 1 read in my paper of the surge in juvenile
crimes, with more 18-year-olds being arrested than adults
in any age group, I can't but wonder, "How much of this
could we avoid if parents exercised more control over
their children's choice of friends?" Certainly my experi-
ence with thousands of students indicates bad company
to be a major factor in juvenile delinquency—the princi-
pal reason why teen-agers reared in respectable middle-
class families go bad.
What can we do about it? Well, first we need to in-
vestigate.
"How do you know they are the wrong friends?" I
often ask parents coming to me for help. "Are you sure
WRONG
By L. EDMOND LEIPOLD
Principal, Nakomis Junior High School,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
you're not unconsciously judging them by their economic
status? Or is it their lack of social position—or perhaps
their religion—that you object to?"
We must be honest with ourselves. We can't know
everything about our youngsters' friends. But we can at
least learn whether they use foul language, where they
go for their recreation, and what sort of friends they
have. School principals, local police officers, and minis-
ters can give good advice.
Once we are really convinced that the influence is bad,
it s time for tactful, twofold action. 1 urning to our own
homes, we can ask. "What is my youngster looking for
in this association? Attention? Recognition? Compan-
ionship? Or is it freedom from parental restriction?"
Once we have figured out the reason I and it doesn't take
a psychologist), we then ask ourselves a second question:
"What steps can we take to provide acceptable alterna-
tives for the friendships that have been formed?"
This may sound vague and "textbookish," but it can
work.
Take the case of 16-year-old Jim, who had begun to
hang out with an undesirable gang. "Why has he picked
such friends?" his worried father wondered. Then he be-
gan to think back. For some time the boy had seemed
resentful toward the world in general and toward him in
particular. Why? The father thought about it further and
talked to his son.
It came out that the resentment stemmed from the
father s refusal to let him have a car. The boy had there-
upon sought out the undesirable gang because one mem-
ber had a souped-up jalopy, ' which naturally became
the pride of the neighborhood teen-agers.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 48, Number 7, October 1960, periodical, October 1960; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth329289/m1/8/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.