Unhappy Child Research Articles

Remodeling without remorse: How to survive center renovation

Thoughts of changing the physical environment of a child care center strike fear into the hearts of all center personnel, which arises from images of disrupted schedules, unhappy children, and harried staff. Frequently directors and other staff admit the necessity of making the environmental changes but can generate little enthusiasm for the remodeling process.

The Casework Process in Work with the Child and the Family in the Child's Own Home

a person in his own right and in the light of his own needs. Likewise fundamental to this discussion is the conviction of the primary importance of family life and its interrelationships in the development of a child. This conviction carries with it the belief that the most effective way to help the disturbed and the unhappy child is through effective change in those aspects of family life and of parental attitudes and behavior responsible for his difficulties. Placement of the child away from his own family is a radical remedy, to be undertaken only as a last resort. The validity of this position is in no way challenged, however, by recognition of the thesis that efforts to influence family life in the interest of the child must be based upon an understanding of the needs and strivings of each of the family members, especially of the parents, as well as upon an understanding of their value for the child and his development. Such understanding is essential for several reasons. Without it one cannot intelligently formulate what modifications of feelings, attitudes, and behavior are desired and desirable for the sake of the child. Only with it can realistic treatment goals be established. One may be rightly convinced that it is essential to a child's chance for psychological survival to bring about such changes as the resolution of a marital conflict in which

The Making of a Document: "The Quiet One"

THE REACTION provoked by documentary The Quiet One constitutes one more proof that Negro problem is major test of American democracy. Actually, for makers of film problem did not exist at all. The fact that they chose a Negro boy as hero of their film, however sly as strategy, is incidental to spirit of finished work. The little boy might equally well have been white, yellow, red, or even blue. We must not forget that we are dealing with an intelligent and progressive producing group, miles away from any racial preconception, which always implies stupidity. The problem in this case was special: to expose one of saddest and most degrading aspects of human misery, that which afflicts children in midst of a society blinded by instinct for gain. In stating matter in this way, I speak only for myself, for I have never seen any such declaration from film's creators, members of Film Documents, Inc. It seems to me real message in picture, although its discreet publicity spoke of it merely as the story of a human being in search of love. Yet if we consider that this search takes place within an urban cancer, slum district of Harlem, and that one who searches is a little Negro boy, a member of most humiliated and offended of North American minorities-economically an outcast, emotionally frustrated, mentally backward, socially maladjusted,-we shall see that it is not merely love that unhappy child needs, but justice, equality of treatment, respect, and dignity, in order to live in community of men without distinction of color or creed.

Gateshead Hall

AbstractAbstractGateshead Hall, the residence of Mrs. Reed, and the home of the unhappy child, Jane Eyre, at the opening of the story (chapters i. to v., xxi. and xxii.) has been identified with Stonegappe, near Skipton, Yorkshire. Charlotte Brontë makes her little heroine careless to record topographical details of the building and its surroundings. Almost the only distinctive facts one gathers from the narrative are that Gateshead Hall was separated from the coach-road by a long path, that it possessed a lodge, and that a small breakfast room on the ground floor had a bowed window with a seat, features not uncommon in Yorkshire, and all possessed by Stollegappe.