Parent-Teacher Conference and Children's Sadness

(Baonghean) - At this time of year, if you see a few children with their faces as wrinkled as if their clothes had not been ironed, there is no doubt that the source of their sadness can be summed up in three words: Parent-Teacher Conference. I accidentally (just accidentally) found out that, after that life-or-death moment, their butts are a thousand times more wrinkled than the funeral faces they show. Who says children don't know sadness?

Perhaps there is no event that receives as much attention from children as parent-teacher conferences. From young to old, boys to girls, the bad students to the good students, the naughty ones to the gentle ones, everyone has the same feeling of fear and anxiety every time there is a parent-teacher conference. Needless to say, when I was in school, I was a complete mess of manners but still got beaten up as usual. Reasons: talking privately, eating snacks,... in general, all nonsense that no one would believe if told. Why nonsense? Because, first, every student eats snacks and talks privately. Second, my friends were all beaten by their parents for a "crime" that seemed much bigger: being bad at studying.

To be fair, is being a bad student a "crime"? Neither is it nor is it. A class of 30 students must be ranked from 1 to 30. If there is no one at the bottom, how can there be one at the top? Ranking in class, in grade, in school is not an absolute measure, because the word ranking itself implies relative comparison. Surely everyone has been compared by their parents to a legendary character named "other people's child". The problem is that when that child who fell from the sky gets this medal or that award, you suddenly feel small and incompetent. The truth is that the problem is not with you, but with your parents when they borrow a reference system that is too lofty and far-fetched. For example, if you come in 11th place in a competition to select the 10 best people, that does not mean you are bad, but that you have not chosen the right competition for yourself.

Saying that is not to justify the poor academic performance of some people. If 29 out of 30 students in the class scored above 7.0 and you scored 4.0, then the problem must be with you. Are you lazy to study? Do you do your homework carelessly? Come on, those are completely fixable, so getting a few lashes for the "crime" of being lazy to study is also well deserved. It was only later that my mother confessed that every time she came home from a parent-teacher meeting, she would add salt and pepper to make the "crime" more spectacular, and give me a few lashes to scare me. It was really effective, because every time it was time for a parent-teacher meeting, I would obediently greet my mother from the alley, look at her face, then automatically take the lashes, climb onto the bed, pull down my pants and lie face down. Thinking back on it still hurts!

Children also know sadness, but it is usually only temporary sadness. The effect of "parent meetings" lasts for a week at most, then everything goes back to normal. And it is best that way, because children are like blank sheets of paper, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, active and adorable. Don't let parent meetings become an obsession, a mark, a tear on that sheet of paper, so that they grow up with self-consciousness and pressure in their souls...

Hai Trieu

(Email from Paris)