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  3. One school night this month I sidled up to Alexander, my 15-year-old son, an

One school night this month I sidled up to Alexander, my 15-year-old son, an

游客2023-12-07  21
问题     One school night this month I sidled up to Alexander, my 15-year-old son, and stroked his cheek in a manner I hoped would seem casual. Alex knew better, sensing by my touch, which lingered just a moment too long, that I was sneaking a touch of the stubble that had begun to sprout near his ears. A year ago he would have ignored this intrusion and returned my gesture with a squeeze. But now he recoiled, retreating stormily to his computer screen. That, and a peevish roll of his eyes, told me more forcefully than words, Mom, you are so busted!
    I had committed the ultimate folly: invading my teenager’s personal space. "The average teenager has pretty strong feelings about his privacy," Lara Fox, a recent young acquaintance, told me with an assurance that brooked no debate. Her friend Hilary Frankel chimed in: "What Alex is saying is: ’This is my body changing. It’s not yours.’" Intruding, however discreetly, risked making him feel babied "at a time when feeling like an adult is very important to him", she added.
    O.K., score one for the two of you. These young women, after all, are experts. Ms. Frankel and Ms. Fox, both 17, are the authors of Breaking the Code (New American Library), a new book that seeks to bridge the generational divide between parents and adolescents. It is being promoted by its publisher as the first self-help guide by teenagers for their parents, a kind of Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus that demystifies the language and actions of teenagers. The girls tackled issues including curfews, money, school pressures, smoking and sibling rivalry.
    Personally, I welcomed insights into teenagers from any qualified experts, and that included the authors. The most common missteps in interacting with teenagers, they instructed me, stem from the turf war between parents asserting their right to know what goes on under their roof and teenagers zealously guarding their privacy. When a child is younger, they write, every decision revolves around the parents. But now, as Ms. Fox told me, "often your teenager is in this bubble that doesn’t include you".
    Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel acknowledge that they and their peers can be quick to interpret their parents’ remarks as dismissive or condescending and respond with a hostility that masks their vulnerability. "What we want above all is your approval," they write. "Don’t forget, no matter how much we act as if we don’t care what you say, we believe the things you say about us."
    Nancy Samalin, a New York child-rearing expert and the author of Loving Without Spoiling (McGraw-Hill, 2003), said she didn’t agree with everything the authors suggested but found their arguments reasonable. "When your kids are saying, ’You don’t get it, and you never will’, there are lots of ways to respond so that they will listen," she said, "and that’s what the writers point out."
As for my teenager, Alex, Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel told me I would have done better to back off or to have asked "Is your skin feeling rougher these days?"
    A more successful approach, the authors suggest in their book, would have been for the mother to offer, as Ms. Fox’s own parents did, a later curfew once a month, along with an explanation of her concerns. "My parents helped me see," Ms. Fox told me, "that even though they used to stay out late and ride their bicycles to school, times have changed. These days there is a major fear factor in bringing up kids. Parents worry about their child crossing the street."
    The writers said they hoped simply to shed light on teenage thinking. For their parents it did. Reminded by Ms. Fox that teenagers can be quite territorial. Her father, Steven Fox, a dentist, said, "These days I’m better about knocking on the door when I want to come into Lara’s room." "I try to talk to her in a more respectful way, more as an adultish type of teenager rather than a childish type of teenager," he added. [br] Which of the following best describes teenagers according to Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel?
选项 A、Isolated.
B、Arrogant.
C、Independent.
D、Sensitive.
答案 D
解析 理解归纳题。文章多处提到孩子们不愿总被当成孩子、渴望得到父母的赞许和尊重，暗示父母应尊重他们的感受；且第五段首句中说他们总是用抗拒的态度来掩饰内心的脆弱，可见孩子们是很敏感的，答案为[D]。[A]、[B]文章没有提到，皆可排除。文章提到孩子们不愿意总被当作孩子看，虽然有独立的倾向，但不是文章阐述的重点，可排除。
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