Children of the middle years do not do their learning unaffected by attendant feelings of interest, boredom, success, failure, chagrin, joy, humiliation, pleasure, distress and delight. They are whole children responding in a total way, and what they feel is a constant factor that can be constructive or destructive in any learning situation.

The middle years are ones in which children increasingly face conflicts on their own,... One of the truths to be faced by parentsduring this period is that they cannot do the work of living and relating for their children. They can be sounding boards and they can probe with the children the consequences of alternative actions.

No school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children's best interests

Parents must begin to discover their children as individuals of developing tastes and views and so help them be, and see, themselves as thinking, feeling people. It is far too easy for a middle-years child to absorb an over-simplified picture of himself as a sloppy, unreliable, careless, irresponsible, lazy creature and not much more--an attitude toward himself he will carry far beyond these years.

Nevertheless, no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children's best interests. Parents have every right to understand what is happening to their children at school, and teachers have the responsibility to share that information without prejudicial judgment.... Such communication, which can only be in a child's interest, is not possible without mutual trust between parent and teacher.

The frantic search of five-year-olds for friends can thus be seen to forecast the beginnings of a basic shift in the parent-childrelationship, a shift which will occur gradually over many long years, and in which a child needs not only the support of child allies engaged in the same struggle but also the understanding of his parents.

They [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved inwhat to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child's pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children.