The importance of holding that conversation with your young here! Translated…
Awhile ago, my friend inquire how to teach the child writing, honestly, I’d wanted to, teach, but, my son seemed, disinterested in the matter, and I can only, find methods to, get my points across to him, in a, round-and-about sort of way. Writing is split into writing the words, and expressions of one’s own thoughts, seeing how my son was lazy to write, I didn’t want to, push him to, but, I’d paid, close attention to his, thought processes, I deeply believed, that once the child gets used to thinking, and became, confident in expression of her/his own thoughts, then, there’s, just, that final mile to connect with writing: learning to find the words that fitted to the written expressions, to fully express one’s own thoughts, as well as, emotions.
From reading “The Satire Methods of Conversations”, these past few years, I’d worked hard, to learn about the “positive curiosities”. The words my child blurted aloud, I’d, tried not to pass judgments using my adult angle, instead, I’d, tried to, connect with him on a level he could understand, to continue the conversation flows. In others’ views, the conversations of us, father and son is, out there, but, I got everything controlled, under the subjects we were, discussing.
illustration from UDN.com
One morning as I waited for my daughter to get into the car, I saw my son with a soured face, entered into my car, I thought he was, just, being, a teenager, but as I’d asked him, I’d learned, that the super of our building was once again, smoking, next to the car. His sour face meant that he’d, cared about this, I’d, grabbed on, to this opportunity, to continue the discussions.
“Smoking is the freedom of the manager of the building, is there a law against him smoking right now?”, I’d asked my son.
“I wouldn’t know, probably not!”, my son shook his head.
“Yep, the laws here only limit the places where you CAN smoke, it’d not banned the adults from smoking.”, I’d added.
“Then, I shall, make a law against smokers”, my son decided to start tackling this problem at the roots.
“You can’t just, amend the laws, you first needed to get elected as a legislator, then, you can, state your case, then, get others to concur with you, then, write it into law.”
with the parent, listening to the words of the child here…photo from online
My son got energetic, suggested us to do a mock vote, only the three of us, on the matter, to select the legislators of our district. My daughter forfeited, my son and I each had one vote, hard to decide who wins. My son suggested we followed the rules of the voting of the country, we’d, immediately, gone for a second vote. Good, last week I’d just taught him on the way the various countries voted, and he was, listening, and knew to apply it to his own life here. Before we started voting the second round, I’d, hinted to my daughter, that she is to, vote for me, “This is called, ‘splitting the votes’, if before the first round of votes I’d handed your younger sister some benefits, had her drop out of the races, then, that’s called, ‘making the rice balls’.” My children had both made the rice balls on a holidays, saw my hands rubbing together, they’d felt it was, fun.
But, unfortunately, my daughter didn’t, play along, she’d still, forfeited her votes the second round. And I earned one vote, while my son received, two. “Older brother cheated, he’d, raised both hands to vote, that’s why he got the two votes”, my daughter reported this, “illegal act”. “Yep, this is called, falsifying counting. In fear of your opponent playing tricks, the candidates will call the volunteers, to watch the places to examine if the procedures in counting up the votes are, flawed or not. Remember how we watched the counting of the votes of the presidential elections at the elementary school on January 11th? That was, watching the proceedings.”
In the short twenty-minute drive, we’d gone from smoking, to writing a law, in the end, we’d ended the discussions on the systems of voting, we’d all, gained more than our, equal shares.
Allow us to get back to the beginning of all of this, if when my son complained of how the cigarettes smelled bad, and I’d, subconsciously brushed him off, “yeah it does! I hate smokers too!”, then, what we’d lost, may not be the accumulation of our abilities to think creatively, but also, the chances of parent-children interactions too.
And so, we should, take advantage, to strike up discussions, conversations with our young, as often as possible, because that, would be how we can, instill our values into our young, and, hear what they think, and believe on various matters, and through this exchange in conversation and dialogue, both sides, benefitted.
Life, the Obstacle Course 