I am now looking at childhood from my sister's perspective (since I grow up anti-social and my sister grow up loving parties and stuffs). Yeah a huge contrast, I know. Until now I still had no idea why my Primary 4sister finds it difficult to read my old books (such as Heidi and Robin Hood) when I read it all in Primary one. And why my sister and brother cannot read words that goes beyond those used in daily conversations, or how they already knew a huge range of vulgarities. And that is pretty ridiculous, they knew even more than me. I am secondary two and they are primary four and one respectively.
Then yesterday I found out that it might be due to the fact that they play outdoor every single day and mix with all those bad companies. (now which parent said playing outdoor is better for kids? I grow up playing with lego bricks at home and they grow up playing at playgrounds mixing with weird friends). Firstly, the amount of colourful languages they use, words such as 'shit' and 'stupid' and 'dumb' and 'damn' and more explicit ones are used on daily basis by those kids who are around my sister's age. And I only use them from time to time (not even at home! I don't speak english at home so there is no way my sister learns them from me).
Secondly, they have no manners. Like this annoying Indian girl who loves to bring her two other younger siblings to my house steps everyday and stand outside the door looking inside the house and keep asking me where my sister is... at 8pm or later at night. Don't they know people need privacy? And when I told them my sister is not free and that they shouldn't come so late, they ask me why. So I told them nicely that it's not something they should care about. And they ask me why again. So this time I got angry and I shouted at them to screw off (okay I use this exact phrase but you can't blame me) or else I will find their mother, and they still lag at my doorsteps asking for my sister. I nearly punch them, but I shouted even louder at them, and after a while they finally walk off.
Thirdly, their grammar is ._. The girl says this: "[sister's name] at home? She now eat dinner?" I could make out the question, so I told them yes, please go home. She replied: "I come out house just now, don't want go back, wait for [sister's name] first come." And that was totally intelligible. If I hadn't lived with my uncle who is learning English, I wouldn't have understand it.
The last shocking revelation: Those kids plays hand-on-hand combat. Well, the nice way of putting it. But it's just actually lousy one-on-one fighting where they have one group versus another and just anyhow push one member out (usually the weakest) to fight and get beaten up. And when I was their age, during those rare occasions (before the swings were taken apart) when I went down to play the swings I only remember those people playing Catch and Freeze. Or other lame games. Just a few years and a great change in games -.-
Plus my brother is getting really violent. He hits and shouts all the time. I don't remember him talking nicely to anyone (but me? I guess I am a good sister). So I devised this plan (using B. F. Skinner's theory of behavior and reinforcement of consequenses) to change my brother's violent behaviour. I shall punish him (by making him reflect on his behaviour for a period of time and increase the time if this punishment is not effective, or by prohibiting him from playing downstairs) if he misbehave and reward him if he behaves.
When his behaviour shows an improvement, I will slack on the rewards so that he don't grow dependent on it, and keep the punishment same. This experiment shall take about 1 to 2 years or even more, so its a long term one. (was thinking is I should keep a report on it, sadly school don't allow this sort of cool psychological experiments for SIP)
Naming it Taming of Violent Brother (after shakespeare's taming of the shrew, even though I find that play sexist).
No comments:
Post a Comment