• They are with adults who are at ease with them and who seem to enjoy them most of the time.
• They are permitted to make mistakes whch will not harm them unduly, and are permitted to live with adults who do not themselves pretend to be perfect.
• Those about them believe in them and express confidence through words and through giving them freedom.
• Those about them understand what they are trying to achieve and support them in their endeavours.
• Those about them permit them to express doubts, to raise questions, to try their own ideas.
• They understand the limits of the freedom within which they can make decisions and when this freedom is limited to the responsibility they feel able to carry out at their stage of development.
• Those about them deal with them with firmness, consistency and reason.
• Adults around them behave as adults and show what the adult way is like.
• Those about them help them to succeed when they need help, but let them struggle when they are winning by themselves.
• Those about them gear their expectancy of a child's behaviour to his capacity for that behaviour.
• Those about them understand how they grow and develop and provide motivation and opportunity for encouraging sound growth.
• They feel strong within themselves, when they feel they are just the kind of person wanted by their family, their friends, their community and nation.
• There is an atmosphere of friendliness and warmth whether with adults or children.
• They meet actual life situations, emotionally charged, and deal with them successfully whether with or without adult help.
• Their performance expectancy is related to themselves and not to others.
• They are interested in what they are doing for its own sake. They will be interested when it has meaning for them. Boys who are forced to perform tasks in which they have no interest and do not understand, are not helped, but actually blocked. Those who attempt it are battling against human nature and will lose in the end.

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• If A Child Lives With Criticism, He Learns To Condemn.
• If A Child Lives With Hostility, He Learns To Fight.
• If A Child Lives With Ridicule, He Learns To Be Shy.
• If A Child Lives With Shame, He Learns To Feel Guilty.
• If A Child Lives With Tolerance, He Learns To Be Patient.
• If A Child Lives With Encouragement, He Learns Confidence.
• If A Child Lives With Praise, He Learns To Appreciate.
• If A Child Lives With Fairness, He Learns Justice.
• If A Child Lives With Security, He Learns To Have Faith.
• If A Child Lives With Approval, He Learns To Like Himself.
• If A Child Lives With Acceptance And Friendship, He Learns To Find Love In The World.

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• After a male baby has grown out of long clothes and triangles, and has acquired pants, freckles and so much dirt that relatives do not dare kiss it between meals, it becomes a boy.
  
• A boy is nature's answer to the false belief that there is no such thing as perpetual motion. A boy can swim like a fish, run like a deer, climb like a squirrel, balk like a mule, bellow like a bull, eat like a pig or act like a jackass, according to the conditions of the moment.
  
• A boy is a piece of skin stretched over an appetite. He is a noise covered with smudges. He is called a tornado because he comes in at the most unexpected times, hits at the most unexpected places, and leaves everything a wreck behind him.
  
• He is a growing animal of superlative promise, to be fed, watered and kept warm. A joy forever, a periodic nuisance, the problem of our times, and the hope of a nation. Every boy is evidence that God is not yet discouraged with man.
  
• Were it not for boys, newspapers would be undelivered and unread, and a thousand movie theatres would go bankrupt.
  
• Boys are useful in running errands. A boy can easily do the family errands with the aid of five or six adults. The zest with which a boy does each errand is equalled only by the speed of a turtle on a July day.
  
• The boy is a natural spectator. He watches parades, fires, fights, ball games, automobiles, boats and airplanes with equal fervour, but - he will not watch a clock. The man who invents a clock that will stand on its head and sing a song when it strikes will win the undying gratitude of millions of families whose boys are forever coming to lunch along about dinner time, because they didn't notice the clock.
  
• In spite of all efforts to teach boys good manners, they faithfully imitate their fathers. But a boy, if not washed too often, and if kept in a cool quiet place after each accident, will survive broken bones, hornets, swimming holes, fights, and nine helpings of pie.
  

Boys are found everywhere.
On top of:
Underneath:
Inside of:
Climbing on:
Swinging from:
Running around:
or Jumping to.

A Boy is:

Truth with dirt on his face,
Beauty with a cut on his finger,
Wisdom with bubble gum in his hair,
and the hope of the future with a frog in his pocket.

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