—I don't care what ________ about me. （ ）
Exams affect the whole family. As teenagers bury themselves in textbooks, parents have to behave like saints(圣人), ignoring doubts—is he actually studying up there, or just playing online games? Forget any practical help around the house. “He's sitting at the kitchen table reading the TV guide，” says the mother of a 15-year-old boy. “But when I ask if he can take the rubbish out, he looks very angry and says, ‘But I’m revising’．” Chloe, 16, comes from a large family and finds it is hard to revise. “I become angry easily，” Chloe says.“I camplain to my mum that there's too much noise and too much mess.”
Beyond these practical considerations, parents are confused about how much they should get involved. Some call for expert help. Others buy lots of practice exam papers. But you may use your skills to spur your children. Anne, 18, admits that the greatest driving force for revision is being in competition with her twin sister. My mother always says my sister is better than me.
Bribery(行贿)is not unknown.“Some parents offer their children material or cash rewards，” says Mike Evans, the author of How To Pass Your Exams. “This may achieve the required result in some cases, but I think it does nothing for the longer-term aim, which I believe is to encourage them to take responsibility for their own personal development.”
“I deal with exam stress all the time，” says an experienced teacher. “Basically, the pupils and I have an agreement to convince the parents that all is going well. Then the parents back off and everything gets better.” Her fantasy solution would keep parents away for six weeks so that they don’t pass on pre exam stress to their children.
When I was a child, I had to go to church and obey many other rules, though these rules at times caused resentment (怨恨). Perhaps the most extreme parenting decision my parents made for my four brothers and sisters and me was to create a home environment without a television.
We hated this decision at that time, because there was seemingly no way to keep this embarrassing fact a secret at school. Naturally, simple pleasures like cartoons, football games, and movies became huge novelties (新奇事物). I would go over to friends' or relatives' houses for that access alone.
When I reached high school, my parents bought a television, though it had no cable. However, I did spend most of my childhood in a home without a television. In fact not having a television did contribute a great deal to my skills, and it also forced me to develop other valuable interests. We grew up in a small town, so my brothers and sisters and I spent time exploring streets, fields and woods. And of course I read and wrote and studied, which pushed me toward a career path.
So would I give a similar situation to my own children if I had them? I doubt it, at least not in the most extreme sense. I'm too much of a football fan, not to mention the TV serials (连续剧) like The Wire. But television or almost anything for that matter is unhealthy for kids. It can prevent them from living a full life. So maybe a reasonable answer is no cable or no video-game systems or simply setting the time limit, but I haven't exactly worked out how to confine it yet. Although some people are against my idea, we do need limits after all.
ring up, reach for, test out, let sb. alone, or rather, tum around |
his historic flight he became an international hero and legend.
I didn't find my son until he was eight.
