ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with handicapped children, that attempts to discover the extent to which the lives of their families differ from the lives of families which include only normal children. Dr Howard R. Kelman reviews the origins of the consensus on parental attitude and concludes that unjustifiable generalizations have been made from evidence gathered in clinical situations from unrepresentative samples. Mentally handicapped children also go on behaving in ways which although acceptable in babies and very young children, are actively discouraged in older normal children. Temper tantrums are another aspect of children's behaviour which is bound to call forth some sort of response on the part of the parents both of the normal and the handicapped. Some parents meet the problem of giving children frequent attention during the night by having the child sleep in the same room as one or both of them.
