Why You're You

[Music] [Applause] [Music] some children are very much like their father others more like their mother you may seem to be made of equal parts of both parents or like nobody else but yourself characteristics that are handed down from parents to children are called hereditary characteristics the color of a person's skin the shape of his nose these are hereditary characteristics and a down from generation to generation why are some of us born with dark skin while others are light-skinned why do some people have curly hair while others have straight hair these things are determined by chemicals contained in a mother's egg and the father's sperm each has a center section called the nucleus at fertilization the nucleus of the sperm travels to the nucleus of the egg each contains 23 chromosomes chromosomes contain chemicals called genes and it is the genes that will determine what the new living thing will be like as the two nuclei merge and become one nucleus in the fertilized egg the many things that form a new individual fit together like the pieces of a puzzle some of our looks and personality may be very much like our parents we come from both our mother and father and we inherit characteristics from both from the very beginning our lives are influenced by people and places and things all of these together make up what is known as our environment at first environment meant home and our mother taking care of us but as we grew up we discovered that we were not alone in our environment and we had to learn to share it with others most of us first learned this at home amongst the people in our own family then we start at school and soon we're spending the greater part of the day in a new environment and a new influence came into our lives our teachers as we continued to grow more people and more things became a part of our environment we learned that we and that we enjoyed some more than others by now you may wonder how a friend can get so involved with shop work when to use stories about history and getting the facts about things are so much more interesting home and school are the two areas still most familiar to you but now friends are an important influence and you are starting to explore new interests and ideas with people in a social environment outside of home and school many people places and things have made up the environment in which you have been living and learning until recently your environment has been pretty much in control of you now you are starting to take over some of that control by choosing the things you want to do and the friends you want to have yourself assurance and independence will grow as you increase your knowledge and understanding of the broadening environment in which you live the most important part of you which makes you different from everyone else is your personality what is your personality your personality is you the way you react to experiences and feel about people reveals your personality to those around you people differ emotionally just as they do in interests and capabilities the emotional part of you involves your feelings about yourself and others if you are friendly and fun to be with chances are those who know you will say you've got lots of personality but some people find it difficult to be friendly although they want to be because they are shy and more reserved your actions tell others a lot about you but others can't know the emotions that are responsible for your actions you may be shy because you are much taller than others your age and you are embarrassed because of this at the same time other people see only that you are shy without knowing your reasons for feeling self-conscious some of you probably have little difficulty at school others have all sorts of school problems you may be able to keep your grades high without any trouble but if you are having trouble making the most of your abilities tell your teacher or guidance counselor talk things over everybody has problems for many different reasons find the reasons behind your problems then you can start to solve them nobody likes to admit to faults and shortcomings most of us resent criticism from others but you can find out for yourself why you act the way you do and you can understand your feelings about people and things take a good look at yourself it's important find out about your personality and improve it your personality affects all of your relationships with other people your physical growth may have an effect on the development of your personality most boys and girls go through a period of rapid growth which lasts for a year or two in girls this growth spurt usually occurs one or two years earlier than in boys girls of 12 are very often taller than boys of the same age your physical growth will probably differ from everyone else's and if you grow more slowly or more quickly than your friends you may imagine yourself to be less attractive you'll be a lot happier if you understand that people differ in many ways and the way people grow is just one of them you can enjoy just being yourself if you make the best of your own appearance you can control your weight by eating well-balanced meals exercise is important to school sports provide lots of opportunity for exercise you may be the kind of person who prefers to do things on his own or you may have more fun taking part in group activities you're free to choose your own way and so is everyone else you respect their way and they'll respect yours you naturally want to have a good appearance partly because you want to be attractive to your friends you can't change the color of your eyes or the shape of your nose but you can take care of your complexion and personal cleanliness you can keep your hands and nails clean and attractive being fresh and clean is a big part of being attractive and getting enough sleep is important too you can't enjoy yourself at school or play if you are overtired do everything you can to take care of yourself as your body grows you can look into the mirror and see that your face is clean and your hair is combed but you have to look a lot deeper to see your feelings and attitudes everybody has feelings of love and affection and most of us have some feelings of resentment and hostility to we try to hide from ourselves and others many of our feelings sometimes we might look like we are enjoying a friend's popularity but inside we feel resentment and this feeling comes out in a catty remark about somebody we really like perhaps we don't even realize that we have a little bit of jealousy in ourselves and sometimes when we do realize it we don't want to admit it because we want to be accepted as part of the group we don't show the others how we feel we try to act the way we think they would expect us to act and we bury our feelings inside ourselves feelings that are bottled up come out in indirect ways they build up inside us and then we explode often at the very time when we want to be at our best if we can find out why we feel the way we do we can start to solve the problems our feelings bring if your feelings are controlling you find out why talking them over with an adult friend can help you to see things from another point of view and help you to understand some of the feelings that may be bothering you [Music] [Applause] [Music]