Post your essays here before 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 3. Check the first comment for a copy of Masaru's writing on disciplining children.
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Masaru's writing (from Writing 12 class):
In My Case
My father passed away when I was seven years old and my mother had hardships to bring up seven children. We had to look after ourselves, so I didn’t have any memory of their family training except my mother’s sad face. Whenever I had done something wrong, she stared at me without saying anything. Then I would see her wet eyes. I hated that but that was the rigorous discipline for me.
When Ema, my only child, was born, I didn’t know how to do a child breeding. I raised her affectionately, like any other parents, and she behaved well, like any other children. At the age of six, she made a friend named Lisa who was the same age as Ema and lived across the street. They visited each other’s house and played together for many hours except supper time and after dark. One time Ema brought a souvenir for Lisa and she wanted to play with Lisa. It was dinner time. I told her not to go but she didn’t listen to us and left our house. We yelled her to come back in vain. We locked doors and watched her though the window.
Ema gave the thing to Lisa but couldn’t enter her house because Lisa was eating dinner. She hurried back to our house to find all the doors were locked. She bunged the door many times but we ignored it, then she started crying loudly, trying to get attention from neighbours. My next door’s parent showed their faces by opening their front door but ignored Ema and closed the door. They knew what we were doing. After ten minutes or so, Ema went to see Lisa to get help from her best friend but Lisa’s parent send Ema home again. Completely lost herself in the situation, Ema sat down on the front yard and started snivel. After finishing our supper, I opened the door to tell Ema to eat her dinner.
It was the only time I strongly showed my emotion to discipline Ema and I couldn’t have done without neighbour’s cooperation. Everybody have each way to discipline their children. As long as you have strong affections toward children, they will realize the moral of society when they were told with an unforgettable memory. Since the day of the incident, Ema have never strongly stood against our advices. Over twenty years after that day, she still remembers the moment, just like I still remember my mother’s tears more than a half century ago.
My Daughter Is My Cherish
Whenever I read the history books, I was deeply moved by the many giants’ wisdom, braveness and righteousness. There are many wars and disasters on the long Chinese history, so I always marvel at my ancient ancestors who have gone through many epochs and generations unto the modern society. Therefore, I hope my later generations can live on the beautiful planet and enjoy the sunlight, air and water, and maybe some of them will have the same wonderment.
Although there are many hardships to nurture a child to grow up, I would like to bear all hard work, and at the same time I have gained much pleasure. I remember something impressive about my daughter- Katherine.
When Katherine was about one year old, we had a dinner at my department with some friends. I gave one cooked duck’s egg to each person except Katherine, because I thought she was too young to eat one egg. Katherine looked around, and then got off from her chair, walked to the refrigerator, opened it and took one biggest egg for herself. At first, we were surprise at her behavior, and then laughed. So even only one-year-old child had strong ideal, and her behavior told me that nobody could neglect her. From this, I warn myself that I should consider and respect others, because even a very humble life also has his/her dignity.
When my daughter was 2 years old, I was immersed in the sad mood because my father passed away and he was still young. Each night, when I and my daughter lay on the bed side by side, my daughter always fondly smiled and said: “Mom, laugh, laugh ……”
I was too sorrowful to laugh out. But she expectantly looked at me and just smiled. So I pretended to laugh, but she insistently required: “Mom, laugh loudly, laugh loudly, loudly ......”
Suddenly, I realized that I was very selfish and ignore her. I could not pass the sorrow to her, and she should be a happy girl. Then I laughed loudly and slept quickly. After about three months, the great grief gradually disappeared.
It is my daughter to teach me how to face distress. Everything will be well if you smile and laugh loudly each day. I have a relatively optimistic personality and often form laughing habit.
On each special day such as mother day, I can receive the gifts from my daughter, for example, the congratulatory card made by her, carnation flower made by colorized paper, and the sweet blessing words. I am very gratified by all those beautiful presents. I am happy and proud once I imagine Katherine will become a young wonderful lady.
During the nurturing process, not only the child grows up day by day, but also the parents can learn much from child and become mature and tolerant.
477 words
Father and Son
My husband has never felt so frustrated like nowadays. He doesn’t expect to train and correct my son’s behave as before. He just expects to say hello with the thirteen-year boy. Unfortunately, the boy doesn’t give any opportunity to the father.
It’s seven o’clock on a busy morning. My husband is on his vocation at home; I am changing my cloth to prepare to go to my office; my son is saying goodbye to go to school. I found out my son’s collar is covered inside the shirt, and tell my husband, ‘please help Charlie to settle his collar before him leave home.”
My husband walks to my son, but returns to me soon, and says: ‘ I couldn’t finish this assignment. The first reason, he doesn’t want to have eyes contact with me. The second reason, he doesn’t want to listen to me at all. The third reason, he doesn’t allow me to approach him. If I try to approach him, he must run away to school without settling the collar. You have to do it by yourself.’ My husband tells the truth----he has lost the prestige in front of his son.
Just two years ago, my son was proud of his father. He told his every friend: ‘ My Dad is a senior engineer.’ ‘ My Dad knows everything. Even he doesn’t know something, he can find the answer from books.’ ‘My Dad can drive me to any place.’ He was very glad to climbing, swimming, and traveling with father together on every weekend. He delightfully followed his father’s instructions and suggestions, and listened to his critical words. My husband was proud that he could teach the son study hard and behave well. However, the situation is changed on someday I didn’t be aware. One day, my son said to me, ‘ Mom, would you like to tell Dad don’t pat my shoulder?’
I was surprised because I pat his shoulder often. I said, ‘why? I pat your shoulder also.’
He answered: ‘ I can stand that you pat me, but I can’t stand that Dad pat me.’
I said, ‘ do you know Dad loves you?’
He shrugged, ‘I know, but I don’t like that he touches me.’
To this only child, my husband has no other way but paying attention on him and supporting him behind me. He sighed: ‘ Ai----, I miss the time when Charlie was very young.’
----409 words
A Treasure of family
Children bring a lot of fun for a family, especially before five years old. They like to imitate every thing from their parents. They start to learn the things using their eyes and ears when they are a little baby. They use to express with their smiles or simple actions and sounds. They are a curious to know every thing for age two to five, and they are always asking questions. Children are also able to speak with their peers. I feel children’s mind and thinking are very pure, simple and lovely during that time.
One day, my niece, Irene, walked with a waddle toward her mother. She said some words intermittently trying to express her meaning, but it was not very clearly. Her mother restated her meaning, but it was wrong. Her mother said to Irene, “ say again, okay ?” Irene said again, “ I want ???????…”
Her mother restated again to guess, but it was still wrong. This time, Irene was a little bit angry, but she said to her mother again, “ I want ??????..” This time her mother still had a wrong guess, and Irene started to cry loudly.
Finally, her mother said to Jenny, Irene’s older sister, “ Jenny, ask your sister what does she say.”
Jenny asked Irene, “ Would you please say again ? “
Irene said, “ I want ????? .”
Jenny replied, “Okay ! Okay !” Then Jenny went back to her room, and Irene started to clam.
“ Jenny, what does your sister say ?” her mother asked.
“ I can not understand what she say, “ Jenny replied, “ I just say okay, okay to pretend that I understand what she say.”
Her mother and I were so surprised that is so simple to communicate with their peers.
Irene has a bright personality. she often gives a nice and sweet words to other people. She also like to share with other people. One day, she went to her grandfather’ room, and said, “ Grandpa, I am going to give you this candy,”
“ Oh ! that is great !” grandpa replied, but did not raise his head and continue to fix the computer.
“ Grandpa, I am going to unwrap the candy for you, okay ? “ Irene said again after few minutes later.
“ Okay, “ grandfather answered, but he did not change his position.
Irene waited for a while and said to her grandpa, “ Grandpa, I will eat the candy for you. “ Finally, Irene ate the candy, and she was very happy. She was very proud of her behavior to do this job. Her mother very surprised, but she still said to her, “ Good job! Good girl. “
During this time, children imitate to be an adult such as taking eat themselves, dressing clothes themselves. Sometimes their manners of speaking look like a adult.
They are growing up step by step. Children are focused by parents all the time. I think parents will find that they create many interesting or new things every day. Children are also a good bridge and lubrication among the family members, and build a sweet home.
532 words
My Growing Daughter
I was born in a village, and my parents had never gone to school. They were very busy with the field every day, so I did not have any memory of family teaching. Whenever I had done something wrong, my parents only told me to pay attention next time, but they never gave me some advice or told me how to do. I obeyed them, but I had many complains in my heart.
When Stephanie, my only child was delivered, I knew I could not use my parents ways to raise her. She is simple, lively and lovely. Also her behaviour and habits are very good. In Canada, you can not hit and curse children, but you have to have patient to teach and tell them the principle. Last week, I asked her to do her homework and told her to finish it in twenty minutes. After one hour, she still sat there. I asked her, “ Did you finish it?”
She said, “no” .
I asked , “ What are you doing ?”
She said, “ I am doing my homework.”
I said, “ It was impossible, if you did it, you should finish it earlier.” She kept quiet. I said, “ You lied to me, it is not good. If you do not tell me the truth, I will not believe you. We should believe each other.” She insisted that she really did it. I said, “ Ok, if you really did it, I will believe you, but you waste much of YOUR time. Think about it.” I left to my bedroom. I was a little angry and sat there to think why she always could not concentrate.
After twenty minutes, I heard Stephanie was crying in her bedroom. But I did not go to see her. Five minutes later, She cried loudly and came to my bedroom and said, “ Mommy, I really did not do it because I was playing my toys. I was really sorry, and I should not lie to you. I will never do it again. I want to be a good girl, and I hope you love me still.” I hold her in my arms and said, “ You dare to admit your mistake, it is very good. I believe you are an honest girl, and you are mommy’s best baby.” Her hands held my neck and crying and crying.
She is only seven years old, and this was the first time that she regretted she made a mistake. Through this thing, I knew she needs my love and believes whenever and whatever she does. Every parent has each way to discipline children. I do not know how others to affect their children, but I hope Stephanie can remember this experience even it is a small thing. I hope she has a good attitude to face her life. I will try my best to help her, support her and encourage her to face the future as I love her.
500 words
Joys and Frustrations
Children are always sources of your joys and frustrations. Sometimes they are very tender and say some sweet words toward you. You feel that all of difficult moments are worthwhile.
“Mum, you look so tired and let me help you washing the dishes.”
Sometimes they are very naughty and say some words or do something to break your heart. Suddenly, you feel as if the sky had crashed into the ground and nothing is hopeful.
“Mum, you are nuts. You don’t understand me. I hate you.”
My little girl Ivy is such a girl that let me laugh out loudly and meanwhile my tempers may flare.
When I was pregnant at second time, one day, Ivy touched my belly softly and said, “ Mum, I hope you can give me a little sister. I do love a little sister. I can take care of her and read stories for her. If this baby is not a girl, could you exchange this baby with aunt May’s baby girl?“ I hugged her and don’t know how to answer this naïve question.
“Mum, your new shoes are so cool, especially put on your feet. You are my pretty mum. I really want to a pair of new shoes as well, please. I promise I will be well-behaved forever.” Ivy is very good at this kind of strategy. She has succeeded a lot of times. That is why she has possessed so many clothes, shoes and toys.
“Mum, dad said he was the boss of our family, but he is totally wrong. I have told him the boss of our family is mum and next is I. He must follow our instructions. Am I right, mum?” What a flattering girl is!
One of the most unbearable things that Ivy always does is to scream loudly. Whenever she is depressed or joyful, she is used to screaming for cry or laugh.
My heart can hardly bear that any more and my ears, I think, would be deaf eventually. Although I have told her many times not to behave like that, it seems she wouldn’t like to correct it.
So many other specific frustrations I can’t remember now. Maybe it is my habits that I only want me to remember all the cheerful moments. Whatever my kids do to me, I am their mother, which is the fact that can’t change forever. The kids are our precious treasure. We as parents would like to grow up with them together.
(413 words)
That is he
Both my husband and I love children. Since we decided to get married, we had hoped to have three children at least and love to see the children running around in the house.
“Three children plus Tommy and I, the total is five. So, I would have to prepare a five seats dining table; and if we would have to take an airplane, who would sit along?” I ever thought about these questions.
But my mind went to the opposite direction, since my son, Edward, was born.
“What happened?” everybody asked.
First, my son was full of energy at night, and he didn’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 o’clock. Secondly, once he fell into sleep in my arms, as I put him into his bed, he suddenly waked up again and cried to ask for leaving his bed.
I even tried to hang his cloth with inside-out on his bedroom door which I heard from the elder generation for treating the baby who bothers parent at night. So, you can image what a bad situation is for a reasonable mother gone to use such unreasonable way.
“But, does this method work?” “Of course not.”
I kept struggling with my son while my husband dragged his blanket, escaped to the other bedroom, covered his head, and had a good night.
The war had lasted for five years until my son was old enough to go to the kindergarten. However, it has been a fetal nightmare for me, for a career mother.
If anybody asks us “Don’t you want to have another child?”
“Definitely not.” My husband says it firmly.
In fact, for those years, I occasionally forget the suffering and think about that maybe the second one would be easy-going. But, anyway, we dare not to take the risk.
Now, Edward is ten years old. One day, I drove him to see his dentist in downtown Vancouver. On the way home, I missed a left turn and drove to Richmond. The speed of the cars on the road is about 70km/hr and I got lost. I was very nervous. Nevertheless, Edward read the map and guarded me the way home. Then he says” Mom, you are lucky to have me accompany you.” “Oh, yes, I appreciate it.”
Isn’t he lovely?
Now, I think that is he gives me an unforgettable nightmare to share with; that is he gives me a bunch of questions to force me to learn; that is he gives me lots of things to do to enforce my ability; that is he gives me so much sweet memories to fill my life; that is he…
(442words)
A Bitter Sweet Passage
“Wow, I’d better get back to my job than settling down to a marriage and raising kids.” This was how one of my single girl friends reacted after her visit to my family. Though, my husband and I were both on site while they were in our house, neither one of us could stay to chat for more than five minutes without any interrupting.
“That is my Lego, he took it without asking, WAAAAAAA!”
“I can’t find the book I was reading, did you see it?”
“Can I watch TV?”
All these were just the small pieces of the iceberg, and what usually ends up happening was screaming, chasing then the guests had to leave in order not to step on the broken glasses or scattered toys.
It would pass, it is a stage, I was always told. Yes! It did, it did pass but change to another stage which is the bigger lesson; and we are lost to what was the right consolation to go to. There are thousands of books or conferences to guide parents how to deal with their infants, toddlers, teenagers or even the mature adult children. But my cases are, whenever the time comes to a three-year-old snuggling on the floor, or 16 years old boy shut the door in my face, none of the advices comes handy.
“Why would you have the third child, anyway?”
This is a question my husband and I often encountered. The one and only answer to this, is:
“A baby is a gift, we could not resist it!”
Watching our four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter slept head to head peacefully, we really could not say no to another angel like these two. We put all the worries away; can we afford it financially, can it be more sleepless nights staying up for a sick child, and how many more years do we have to wait to have a world for just two of us? We welcomed our third child heartily.
Usually being parents is not the first task we think of, when planning a wedding. It comes when it comes. Parenting is nothing easy; no one can even give us a clear view, everything turns out different to what we were told. After 16 years of experiencing, I knew a little now; step back when kids are upsetting, try to walk in their shoes when the opinion is ignored, leaves the spaces to them since they are the ones to live their own lives after all. Trying to be patient, and mocking the deep breath of Yoga, these do ease my nerve, therefore, cutting the chances of the door closing in my face. Then the parenting will be a blessing, and my family are blessed three times.
Word counts: 462
Angle or Demon
I met Lily in a school in Burnaby. She looked young but her hair was never combed properly. Once I found she wore her jacket inside out. “I had no time to look at the mirror in the morning, I have to send my daughter to her school.” she told me.
After we became familiar, I got a chance to met her daughter—a very quite and lovely three-year-old-girl. Her husband went back to Hong Kong to relax. “Raising my daughter is a torture; my husband needs a break, so I let him go and relax.”
“A torture?”
“You will understand when you have your own children. They are the mixture of angle and demon.”
One day, I took her and her daughter to Stanly Park. I bought her daughter an ice-cream-cone. “Do you want to share with Mom?” Lily asked her daughter. Her daughter handed it over to her, reluctantly. Lily took it with a large bite, then the second.
Her daughter was astonished and screamed “No, a small bite mom.” Then she started crying loudly.
“Stop crying or I will not return it to you.” Lily kept on biting and ordered her daughter.
“No!” Her daughter did not stop at all. Instead of that, she burst into a desperately screaming, the noise of wailing rose to heaven.
“We’d better buy her another one.” Noticed that everyone in the restaurant was staring at us, I suggested Lily.
“No. Don’t spoil her. Let us see how long she can cry”…
A few days later, Lily and I went swimming in her apartment. She carried her daughter in the cart, since her daughter didn’t want to swim that day. That was a beautiful, sunny day in last winter and no one was in the pool except us. After we started swimming, her daughter said “I want to swim also.”
“You can’t swim since you have no swimming dress. I asked you before we came here and you said no.”
“I want to swim!” She started pulling off her clothes and crying, again.
Lily told me, “Don’t look at her. She will be fine soon.”
Half an hour later, her daughter was still crying, naked beside the pool. A man came in and left within five minutes. I looked at Lily; she kept swimming without looking at her daughter.
I got an unbelievable headache that night like I could still hear the girl crying..
Lily decided to send her daughter back to Shanghai with her parents for a while. Before they left, I invited them to my home. She was checking her mails in my computer while her daughter was chasing her for something. “Get lost! Don’t bother me.” She shouted her daughter impatiently
“Come on here.” I took her daughter away and asked her “One day your mom becomes old, would you ask her to get lost?”
“No. I won’t. I will hug her tightly and kiss her." I looked at her little face and believed that she is an angle.
500 words
About my boy.
When I had the third baby, my elder son was twelve and younger son was nine. They expected their brother not sister and it came true. When the third boy was born, two elders were really delighted to their lovely, tiny brother. They took care everything for him very well like little mom and pop. The baby made them never bored because it looked like an alive pet for his brothers. Soon, my youngest boy became a very important person in my family. He grew strong and healthy and he was as an open flower in my home. Every member of my family was too generous and mild to him, so some disciplines were failed. Until he was seven years old, he couldn’t use the chopstick very well. Even though it didn’t matter to eat some food, we decided to amend his incorrect habit. One evening, while we were eating at dinner table, I talked him, “Daniel, you have to reform the using chopstick.” He said, “Why? What is the matter? I can eat everything with my chopstick! I don’t want.” Then, I explained how important the table manner to relate to others in the special party or the public meeting. But it didn’t easy to built a new habit, so I had to do powerful action with strong mind. I warned him, “If you don’t use the correct way, I’ll take away your chopstick; moreover, remove your meal.” And I showed how to hold the fingers and how to move the chopsticks and how to pick the foods. After then, we promised to scold him whenever he misused his chopstick. Sometimes, he was cry with anger and against for us. One month later, he can have a good attitude and he prided himself to use a right way. He said, “I can see many kids who misuse the chopstick. It is really ugly.” We were talking about the good model of education that important in childhood for their future life. As a result, he learned many things that in order to change from the not good habit, it needed continuous discipline included some suffers. Be a mother of three boys, I think the mother is one of the most difficult roles because the raising my children is never done again. It is given only one time in our life, so effective educational discipline is necessary for a human life for the better life. (407 words)
We are parents of the modern age. Things change fast and knowledge and invention are created everyday. The generation gap is going deeper and deeper. The difficulty of communicated with your boy or girl will be much complicated than ever before. They are a lot of bad things around them and affect them in the new modern world.
It is the media like TV, Video game, Internet, the parents mostly are working hard or social too much and give too less time on their kids, the kids are also been spoiled too much.
We have too many video game which related to violence and bloody. I saw TMNT
(Teenage mutant ninja turtle). It is a combination of fighting and violence. War games are the favour of young kids which involving a lot of weapon. You shoot people and drop bomb to create more bloody consequence. The TV always related to crime (CSI) and gambling (poker) and fighting (hockey). There is a fighting in the junior hockey game between two teams. I saw them fight with each other on TV. They learn from the media.
We are lived in the modern world with our kids. We both face the challenge of the new technology. We learn to use computer, playing all the new video game and working hard to make our living. I used to teach my son to use computer since he was five but I found he play better computer game than I am. If I have some problems of new technology on upgrade some software, The best thing for me is to ask my son and he is only 14. He is playing computer game whole day. Computer became a baby sister. Did I spend as much time as a father should be? “ Are we going out to eat?” “No, bring me some Mcdonald.”
How much toys or video game my children have? They have Game Cube, Gameboy, PS2, computers with a lot of games. They can play game on my 50” TV. His Mom take him to school every morning. We did not ask him to do anything except cleaning his own room. Even he did not do much to help the family but he is so busy. He is occupied by his chatting online friends and internet game online. Did I spoil my kid?
I said “ No game in the weekday”. “Ok, I got it”. I did not stay at home to watch my rules been followed.
I would recommend the modern parents to get more knowledge of computer and spend more time with your kids and don’t let you kids do what ever they want. Love and understand them are most important things. You can give good help and advice to them not to spoil them.
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