I’m sure, that this, is a question you ALL want the answers to, right??? Translated…
I especially loved the children’s book, “Following Uncle Gan Across the Rivers”, the very first time I’d read this book, it’d, made me cry.
The summary of the book was, Uncle Gan wanted to row a boat to cross the river to see the sights, and, a lot of animals wanted to go with him, he’d agreed, but, made the rules with them: no running, no hopping, no kicking, no…………and, all the rules, were based off of these small critters’ instinctive behaviors, and, although the animals had agreed to these rules, in the end, they’d, not kept their promises, and in the end, the boat tipped over. There are, so many points to discuss in the story, we can talk from sunrise to sunset, on why the animals didn’t follow the words of Uncle Gan.
“Why is it that as my child entered into the fourth grade, he’d started acting up all of a sudden, is it, an early-onset of the teenage rebellion?”, I’d come across these sorts of inquiries every single day. We always expect our own children to follow our demands, but, can a child who’s always complying, develop her/his own thinking abilities too? And, the adults aren’t always right, there were times, we were, at fault too. And, if the kids do as they were told by us, it’s either due to that the child wanted to please her/his adult counterparts, or, that the child gave in to the adults’ threats, fearing, that s/he will lose the parents’ and adults’ love if s/he doesn’t follow orders. Since our children were younger, we’d trained them to be “well-behaved”, and sometimes, there’s just, that thin line between being “well-behaved” and lacking decision making abilities.
When the kids didn’t follow our orders, normally, we’d feel, that what we tell them to do is very important and they’d not thought so. As the adults demanded it, other than because the adults said so, the children had found a reason not to follow the rules on their own. for instance, no ankle socks in school, so why do the kids always wear those to school? Because the kids can’t find a reason, to persuade her/himself, and that reason must be, stronger than what’s in. Wearing those ankle socks is what’s in right now, why can’t we wear them? And, can the adults give the children a valid enough reason? Because the socks might slip down into their shoes, that might affect the child from running or walking? I can resolve that, by buying a pair of better ankle socks!
What the adults cared about, is quite distant from what the children cared about. The adults would claim, “wearing those ankle-level socks makes you look sloppy”; but the children had an alternative explanation, “everybody wears different styled socks, that, is what makes school more interesting!”
When the child refused to follow your commands, maybe, it’s a reminder, that the adults need to learn, new methods of conveying the rules in an alternative manner.
So, this, is on how the parents and children can interpret things differently, especially in the teenage years, these small issues will become, full-blown, into world-war scale, because as they turned into teenagers, they will be testing the limits of the adults around them, and, we must, reason with the children, on their own levels, otherwise, we can’t persuade them, that they should do things our ways, after all, we are, more experienced, and, we are, ALL adults in the relationships, aren’t we???
Life, the Obstacle Course 