You’re Pigheaded, Because That is What They’d, Called You

A what-not-to-do in teaching your young, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

One day as school lets out, I was at the bus stop, when I heard a mom grilling her son, “you PIG, you can’t do anything, you can only, fool around!”

The son rebutted, “it’s because there’s NOTHING I CAN do, that is why, I fool around!”

Hearing their conversations, it’d, made me sad, because for children who are, fooling around, their faces are in all smiles, but, tears are, falling inside, everybody wanted to gain acceptance and friendships from others, and, making fun of oneself, is the last resort.  We should, empathize with children like this, and NOT grill him.

The researches found, that most people in growing up, had been neglected: perhaps it’s the grades, the family backgrounds, or not having the good looks……they’re, no good, and, everybody is, focusing on someone else, not her/him.  And so, in order to get the attentions of the classmates or the teachers, the children started, fooling around.

And so, this mother should, find out what her son excels at, and help him bring that out, and once, he’d built up his self-confidence, he would have, no need, to fool around anymore.  But if she couldn’t, that’s okay, there’s, NO roads less traveled in life.  There were, several famous columnists in their memoir, they’d told, that because they were, joking around, that was how they’d, become, humor writers.

The column on UDN written by Art Buchwald, was a case.  He grew up in an orphanage, and, couldn’t, compare to the rest of his classmates, with parents, even the clothes he’d worn were, hand-me-downs, he’d refused the pities from others, and so, he’d, taken the preemptive strike, before someone starts to make fun at him, he’d started, making fun at himself.

Another man was David Barry.  Back in his middle school tears, he’d not done well in his academics, nor was he good in a sports, wanted to play basketball, he wasn’t, tall enough, football, he wasn’t, built up strong enough, he couldn’t do anything, and can only, be the class clown, to get the girls’ attention.  Every time someone laughed at his jokes, he’d bled inside his heart, hated that he couldn’t, do anything, that he was, a good for nothing.  As he’d become famous, once at a T.V. interview, he’d, blurted out what he was really feeling inside, “Now, I no longer have to, make fun of myself, to get the world’s attention.”

The true confidence came from the long-term affirmations from your peers, not how we were trained, by the earliest versions of the counseling booklets, “waking up in the morn, go to the mirrors, say to yourself: I’m the best, three times!”, that would be, self-deceiving, a sort of a bluffing, after it gets burst, the damages will surely become, greater.  The adolescents define themselves based off of the reflections in their parents, their teachers, and their peers’ eyes, and so, this is the time, when the adults’ attitudes are, the most important.

A mother told that her son told her, that the teacher always complained to the class, on how the principal wasn’t fair, that he’d, given the worst class in the school to her to teach.  As her son took it in, time after time after time, he’d started, believing that he wasn’t, as good as the other students in the other classes.  She’d asked the professionals what to do?

I really don’t know, it seemed, that the only way was, to transfer the son out of the class, or, get him into another school, because the experiment of self-fulfillment in the sixties showed, that if you call the children pigheaded every single day, they will become, pigheaded.  So, there’s, a British idiom of, “the parents’ attitudes define the children’s destinies”.  As children are young, they can become whoever they want to be, and, it’s our hands, that, shaped them into, who they ended up as.

If every single negative word, required four positive words to delete its, effects, how can we keep on, calling our children pigheaded, and not expect them to turn into, pigheaded people?

And so, this, should serve as a WARNING, for all of you, parents out there, who’d, ever called your children a bad name, even if it was playful, something carelessly spoken, children will, take it to heart, because that, is how sensitive they are when they were, younger, and they needed you, and, you’re the ones deciding, to HAVE them, so, ACT right, parents!!!