A Child's Christmas in America

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Perhaps the most marked change is not in outer but inner discipline-from the children themselves. Having seen the confusion of their older brothers and sisters over a lack of parental authority, kids seem to be seeking their own guidelines. The main concern of 12-year-old Alyce Maddox of Atlanta is typical. She has vowed not to become involved with kids who take drugs. "I'm not living my life that way," she says firmly.

Given such societal and family pressures, the American child often resembles Dr. Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu, the creature whose heads tugged it in opposite directions. It is scarcely any wonder that children, like their older and larger counterparts, seek more and more solace in the fictive world of TV (27 hours a week).

But despite the horrific panorama of television, with its free helpings of violence and the "gimmes" of commercials, the American child is more than a passive victim. Distrust of TV advertisements rises with age-and not every age watches the worst programs. For the first time since the invention of the transistor, TV is offering some attractive alternatives to Astroboy and Popeye. A generation has learned to spell with the Muppets of Sesame Street. The Electric Company has attracted an audience of millions-many of them parents who came to turn on the set and stayed to learn.

Moreover, kids are not quite the new illiterati that is widely supposed. Professor Robert Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College recently supervised a study of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. The preschoolers of 1971-72 (both middle class and inner city) scored an average of ten points higher than their (solely middleclass) counterparts of the '30s. Says Thorndike: "Today's kids, in general, do better on tests, even with the '50s hoopla over Why Johnny Can't Read. The truth is, more Johnnies are reading better than 20,30,40 years ago." Unfortunately, however, many Johnnies do not continue to do so well when they go on to school.

Says Children's Book Critic Karla

Kuskin: "Each decade we hear that children are changing, pushed by new forces. Children's books come out on every conceivable adult subject: environment, racism, sexism, crime, homosexuality, drugs. Then we look at the lists of children's favorite books. And what's on it? Good old Nancy Drew. The Oz books. The Peanuts series. In many ways, it's the authors and publishers who have changed. The kids have kept their integrity."

Harvard's Kagan points out that "under ten nothing much has been changed. The child has the same concerns he always had: 'Do my parents accept me? Will I be accepted by my peers? Will I be beaten up? Am I afraid of the dark?' "

Poet Kenneth Koch teaches Manhattan children how to write poetry. (The poems accompanying the color spread are by his students.) Koch recalls: "When I began to teach I was reminded how intelligent kids are, that kids talk to animals-and that they are concerned with really important things which they usually won't tell an adult. They are concerned with the same things I'm concerned about-love and lost love, friendship, success, perceptions, and being liked-only perhaps more intensely." They are also nostalgic for the past, says Koch.