Translate the following words and word-combinations into Russian and use them while discussing the article

To try reason; to be recommended in childcare manuals/ self-help books; to ban/ reintroduce corporal punishment; chastisement; to put the assailant in court; death/ to die at the hands of smb (parents); to leave psychological scars; beyond the interference of the state; the right should remain with the parents; the last resort; on a regular basis; day in, day out; to bring into line with UN demands; to tackle classroom disorder; a common occurrence

Discuss the following.

1. What makes banning corporal punishment of children such a debatable question in England?

2. What arguments are usually put forward in favour of corporal punishment? Why do you think smacking is normally regarded as the last resort to make a child behave properly?

3. Speak about arguments against corporal punishment as a means of disciplining children.

4. Express your own opinion on the problem tackled in the article.

5. Speak about the way you were disciplined in the family and way you are going to bring up your own children?

Read the following article and do the assignments below.

TAKING ITS TOLL

Far more British teenagers than previously thought of inflicting injuries on themselves because of the feelings of frustration and social inadequacy, according to research by mental health experts. A survey published by the Priory, which specializes in treating mental health problems and addictions, finds that as many as one in five girls between the ages of 15 and 17 has harmed herself. Over 900,000 adolescents (15%) have been so miserable that they have considered suicide. Over 800,000 have self-harmed.

The survey of 1,000 young people aged 12-19 entitled “Adolescent Angst” found “unacceptably high” levels of mental distress, associated with chastisement, bullying and domestic violence, as well as evidence that a lot of teenagers were pressed into sex at a young age and therefore contemplated suicide. Although it has been known for some time that Britain has the highest levels of self-harm in Europe and that young girls are more prone to the behaviour than boys, it was previously thought that, at most, one in 10 British teens indulged in the practice.

“Thirty years ago self-harm was a rarity, but it seems that today it’s a way for many young people who feel like failures to relieve their psychological distress,” says Dr. Dylan Griffiths, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Priory Ticehurst house Hospital, East Sussex. “The problem is that self-harming is addictive. Once you start it can be difficult to stop.” The practice releases natural opioids which can be incredibly addictive.

British teenagers are suffering unprecedented levels of distress. According to Childline, the number of youngsters calling its helpline about self-harm has risen by 20% in the last 10 years. The Samaritans group found self-harm was a key indicator of suicidal tendencies, with 50% of young people who commit suicide having committed a deliberate act of self-harm in the previous year.

Experts say that the reasons for self-harm vary. For some teenagers, the behaviour may be linked to a general sense of not fitting in. For others it is associated with family breakdown, sexual abuse, or violence at home. However, according to Dr. Grriffiths, the increased reports of self-harm are also a reflection of contemporary consumer society and the media, with their emphasis onpleasure, fame, celebrity and “instant gratification”.

“Part of the problem is that we have a must-have culture,” Dr. Griffiths says. “British society is much more relaxed than it was 50 or 60 years ago. The controls that the family, the Church and other institutions traditionally exerted have vanished, leaving the young as casualties. There is no one telling young people that rewards come to those who work and wait. Our culture doesn’t encourage, at least, waiting – as a consequence frustration is the norm, and teens handle this by engaging in high-risk behaviours, involving sex, drugs, crippling relationships and self-harm. Cutting yourself may be one way of relieving that tension and also punishing the people, like your parents, who are not giving you enough support.”

Assignments

1) Find in the text words and phrases that mean the same as:

- a severe punishment, especially by beating (noun);

- to have a harmful effect, tell on smb (set phrase);

- great suffering of the mind or body; grief or great discomfort (noun);

- people injured or killed in an accident or military action, someone that is damaged and suffers as a result of smth (noun);

- likely to be affected by smth, esp. smth bad (phrase);

- to cause smth unpleasant like pain, injury, damage, hardship to happen to smb (verb);

- the fact that smth is unusual or does not happen often (noun);

- a telephone service provided by an organization to give information and support (noun);

- a feeling of dissatisfaction; failure of one’s efforts or hopes (noun);

- rough treatment in the home, especially between husband and wife (phrase).

Bring out the meaning of the underlined parts of the text and comment on them in connection with the problem raised in the article.

Points for discussion

1. Why are British doctors and psychologists concerned about the present-day scale of teenage self-harm? Are their concerns grounded?

2. Name the most frequent reasons for teenage self-harm? Which of them do you think is crucial?

3. Why does “must-have” culture bring feelings of frustration and inadequacy?

4. Why is self-harm addictive?

5. What do you think children should be protected from in the first place?

11. Read the articleWHEN PARENTS BECOME VICTIMS (Reader) and bring out its message. Make up a list of words and expressions relevant to the discussion of the problem raised in the article. Use them while discussing the following questions.

1) Explain the meaning of the idiom witch hunt in connection with the current practices of fighting child abuse in the US. Illustrate your argumentation by examples from the article.

2) How does it happen that families fall victim to the system which was designed to protect them?

3) How can you account for such a state of things when “an accusation is almost tantamount to conviction”? Why are innocent parents helpless against baseless charges of child abuse brought by “overzealous child-protective agencies”? Think of possible reasons why a social worker’s evidence (even hearsay) always outweighs the parents’ word.

4) Speak about the impact false accusations as described in the article have on the children. What injuries can such experience inflict on a child?

5) Comment on the statement: “When you place a child in foster care you have sentenced him to a dysfunctional life”.

6) Do you share the author’s opinion that social workers should be held accountable, especially in case they abuse their power or make mistakes that lead to violation of basic civil rights and “tear apart innocent families”?

7) Nowadays European courts are flooded with suits brought on behalf of teenagers who allegedly suffer from domestic violence. In fact, in many cases the children are trying to take their revenge on their parents who refuse to indulge the children’s misbehaviour. Do you think such conflicts can be settled by means of legal action? Does the practice of prosecuting parents help to improve their relationship with their children?

8) Do you think the problem raised in the article is topical in today’s Russia?

Text 5

ABSOLUTE TRUTHS

(an extract)

Of course I thought of Charley as my son. Of course I did. I had married Lyle in full knowledge of the fact that he already existed as a foetus, and I had accepted full responsibility for him. I had brought him up. I had made him what he was. He was mine.

Yet he was not mine. He was unlike me both physically and temperamentally. I understood early on in his life why many adopting parents go to immense trouble to find a child who bears some chance resemblance to them. They need to forget there are no shared genes. A benign forgetfulness makes life easier, particularly when the child has been fathered by one’s wife’s former lover. Even after I believed Samson to be forgiven, living harmlessly in the nostalgia drawer of my memory, I could have done without the daily reminders of that past trauma, but I taught myself to overlook Charley’s resemblance to Samson and see instead only his resemblance to Lyle.

The bright side of Charley’s inheritance lay in the fact that he possessed Samson’s first-class brain. This was a great delight to me, particularly when Charley became old enough to study theology, and it made us far more compatible than we had been during his childhood when his volatile temperament had persistently grated on my nerves.

It had grated on Lyle’s nerves too. Lyle was not naturally gifted at motherhood, and although she loved the boys she found it difficult to manage them when they were young. This lack of management meant the boys became hard work for anyone determined to become a conscientious parent – but I have no wish to blame Lyle for this state of affairs; after all, life was hard for her during the war, particularly during those years when I was a prisoner. No doubt she was not alone in finding it difficult to be the sole parent of a family. But if I appear to criticize her it is only because I need to explain why, when I returned home after the war, I soon discovered that parenting was no picnic. Probably one of the reasons why we both became so keen to celebrate the new beginning of our marriage by producing a daughter was the belief – almost certainly misguided – that a little girl would be all sweetness and light, a compensation for the barbarity of our sons.

Another fact which exacerbated our complex family situation was that Lyle was ill-at-ease with Charley. No doubt all kinds of guilty feelings were at work below the surface of her mind, but the result was that she tended to escape from this unsatisfactory relationship by idolizing Michael. Charley resented this and to prevent him from feeling abandoned I found myself paying him special attention. This in turn upset Michael, who became abnormally demanding. I have no wish to blame Lyle for triggering these emotion disorders; she could not help feeling guilty about Samson and muddled about Charley, but nonetheless the situation was one which even the most gifted of fathers would have found challenging.

The final fact which aggravated our troubles was no one’s fault at all and can only be attributed to the lottery of genetics. Michael resembled me physically but his intellect was dissimilar to mine, and the older he grew the more incomprehensible he became to me. It was not that he was stupid. He was just as clever as Lyle, but as he grew older we found we had nothing in common but a fondness for cricket and rugger. I minded this more than I should have done, and when he embarked on a phase, common among the sons of clergymen, of rejecting religion, I minded fiercely. Meanwhile nimble-witted, intellectually stimulating, devoutly religious Charley was ever ready to compensate me for Michael’s shortcomings.

Was it surprising that I welcomed this development? No. But Michael became jealous. He began to misbehave, partly to grab my attention and partly to pay me back for favouring the cuckoo in the nest. Michael thought he should come first. I greatly regretted that he knew Charley was only his half-brother, but once Charley had been told about Samson it had proved impossible to keep Michael in ignorance.

I knew that adoption agencies recommended that an adopted child should be told the truth at an early age, but I could never bring myself to tell Charley. I had convinced myself that the truth was too unedifying to be divulged to a child, but I knew that eventually I would have to speak out and I knew exactly when that moment would come. Samson had left Charley his library, the gift to take effect on Chaley’s eighteenth birthday. Samson’s widow was still alive, so Charley did not inherit the money until later, but the books were in storage, waiting to be claimed. Possibly I could have explained away this legacy as the generous gesture of a childless old man, but there was a letter. I knew there was a letter because Samson’s solicitor had spoken of it; he was keeping it in his firm’s safe for presentation along with the storage papers. Lyle said I had to get hold of the letter and give it to Charley myself. The solicitor hesitated, but after all, we were a clerical couple who could be trusted to behave properly. The letter arrived.

“Steam it open,” said Lyle, confounding his expectations.

We were at Cambridge at the time. It was 1956, the year before I was offered the Starbridge bishopric, and I was still the Lyttelton Professor of Divinity. Charley was away at school but was due home at the weekend in order to celebrate his birthday. We were breakfasting in the kitchen when the letter arrived. I remember feeling sick at the sight of Samson’s writing on the envelope, and this reaction startled me.

Meanwhile Lyle had refilled the kettle and was boiling some more water for the steaming operation. I did manage to say strongly: “It’s quite unthinkable that I should steam open this letter,” but Lyle just said: “If you won’t I will,” and removed the letter from my hands. I was then told that after all I had done for Charley I had a right to know the contents, and somehow I found myself unable to argue convincingly to the contrary. Nausea is not conductive to skilled debate. Neither is fear, and at that point I was very afraid that my relationship with Charley – that just reward for my past suffering – would be damaged beyond repair by this potentially devastating assault from the past.

Lyle read the letter and wept. I said: “It’s quite unthinkable that I should read a single word of it.” But I did. I read one word. And another. And after that I gave up trying to put the letter down. As I read I automatically moved closer to the sink in case I was overcome with the need to vomit. “It’s all about how wonderful you are,” said Lyle, unable to find a handkerchief and snuffing into a tea-towel.

“How embarrassing.” This traditional public-school response to any situation which flouted the British tradition of emotional understatement was utterly inadequate but no other phrase sprang to my mind at such an agonizing moment. The grave, simple, dignified sentences skimmed past my eyes and streamed through my defenses so that in the end I was incapable of uttering a word. I could only think: this is a very great letter from a very Christian man. But I had no idea what to make of this thought. I could not cope with it. Vilely upset I reached the signature at the bottom of the last page and dropped the letter.

“Well, you don’t have to worry, do you?” I heard Lyle say at last. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

I suddenly realized that this was true. Weak with relief I picked up the letter and read it again. Samson had made no paternal claims. My role in Charley’s life was affirmed, not undermined. The writer assumed all responsibility for the past tragedy and said he had deserted his son, for he had been unfit to play any part in Charley’s upbringing, but he still hoped that Charley would accept the books and later the money as a gift. Both came with no obligation to respect the donor. The writer realized he had no right to demand any benign response. He wanted above all to stress how immensely grateful and happy he was that Charley should have been brought up by…

I stopped reading, folding the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope. I did not want his praise. I did not want him to offer Charley the kind of selfless love which expected nothing in return. And above all else I did not want him to make my wife cry and remind us both unbearably of the past.

“Very nice,” I said. “Very sporting of him not to upset the apple-cart.” The dreadful middle-class banalities sounded hideously false but at least they were safe. The next moment I said: “He’s got no business to come back like this. He should stay locked up in the 1930s where he belongs.” That was not safe at all. That was a most dangerous thing to say indicative of some convoluted state which could never be allowed to see the light of day, but Lyle was coming to my rescue. Lyle was saying: “We’ll lock him up again. Once all this is over we’ll put him back in the 1930s where he belongs.”

And that was that. Or was it?

(by Susan Howatch)

Exercises