Book One: Your Eleven-Year-Old

Introduction

This book does not aim to tell you how your eleven-year-old ought to be and how he should behave. It will not give a comprehensive guide to this age; for children develop very differently and at different rates in their bodies, their intellect, and their feelings. Rather, it says some general things about children around eleven that stem from observing a number of children but that will not apply to all. Because generalities are dull, and because you will be thinking about your child and his brothers and sisters and friends, I have in one or two instances talked about a few children in slightly greater detail to illustrate the way one would set about trying to get a picture of their situation and of their development.

The idea is to encourage you—if indeed you need encouraging—to value your unique experience of observing and getting to know your own child as he continues to develop. If you are really thinking about him there are almost certain to be times when you will be puzzled and times when you worry. Knowing a little more about how children tend to be at his age will not take away the need to puzzle and to worry a little; that is a parent's work and pleasure. But other people's thinking about other children may be of some help in the way that you think about your own.

We can seldom afford to sit back and feel that our child is growing up smoothly and satisfactorily without any heart-searching on our part. A well-known novelist, in her autobiography some years ago, said that her daughter just happened to grow up beautifully, like a flower, without needing any attention. But those of us who are gardeners know that few flowers, alas, will survive this treatment. Human growth takes place partly by process of maturation over which we have no control, but also as a result of trying, struggling, worrying, and enjoying; through hating and loving, through recognizing differences and trying to reconcile them.

Talking to others, most especially to our own chil