How To Teach Children To Be More Discipline

It is not a secret if most of parents are trying to teach their children to be a good person for world. They teach their children how to behave, think rationally, and treat people as well. One trait that supports a good behavior is discipline. If we look more to great people, they do not only have a great mind beyond their head but also disciplinary. Great people mostly are discipline. For example, Thomas Alva Edison who still tried to invent something in discipline way while he got great amount of failure before. Therefore, that is the reason why parents try to teach their children more discipline. There are some steps how to teach children to be more discipline.

First, make the children take care of their belongings. Teach them that their belonging is their rights which they have to take care by themselves. Parents could facilitate their children by make toy box for their children, separate their wardrobe from their parents, or give a place for their children’s bath stuff.  Besides the facilitation, parents also have to be a good example for their children. For example, if parents want their children to place their children’s toothbrush in their children’s place, parents have to tell it while they also place their toothbrush in their own place. This step could make next steps easier if this first step is successfully done.

Second, give some jobs for the children at home. After they take care of their belongings, they should be taught to do some homework. The job can be the easy one like clean the dishes, water the plant, tidy up their own bedroom, close the gate if the gate is opened, or feed the pet. Maybe it is hard to make the children to do so because some of them would think it is not their job, but their parents’. Thus, parents have to encourage their children first to do it and remind them repeatedly so they would get used to it. Parents should not get bored to do this if they want to make their children more discipline.

The last step, make this whole disciplinary process in creative way. Parents could make it as a competition among their children. For example, parents could make a score board with their children’s name on it. If one of their children does their job by himself/herself, he/she would get a star point. Moreover, if one of them already collects targeted points like 25 stars, 50 stars, or 100 stars, faster than his/her siblings, then he/she would get a better prize than his/her siblings. Or parents can make this process by their own way. However, I suggest parents to make it in affectionate way, not a harsh one, so their children could enjoy this whole process.

For parents, though it is hard to teach children about disciplinary, do not get confused first and do not give up. Moreover, teach the children from the very beginning. The younger the children would make it easier to teach. By these steps, hopefully the children could be discipline and be a better person for the world and make their parents proud of them. 

The Friendship Bond

What makes someone a friend? There is no exact answer to that question. Based on "The Friendship Bond" by Mary Brown Parlee, the questionnaire on friendship, which appeared in the March issue of Psychology Today, was trying to figure the reason behind the power of friendship out. However, social critics did not partly agree with the questionnaire result because it contains some contradictions. How can people feel satisfied with their friendships and feel lonely at the same time? Those contradictions lead to the reevaluation of what are truly factors that determine friendship. Like Mary said, "friendship appears to be a unique form of human bonding." Uniqueness means a tolerable absurdity. Thus, friendship consists of some absurd factors but those factors are really applied by most of people. In my opinion, factors which determine friendship are trust, the degree of intimacy, and their activity.

Friends trust each other. Even though they are wrong, they will still trust their friends instead of strangers who are right actually. It seems illogical and makes us think, "is the friendship bond alive and well?" People choose to trust their friends because they think they know what personality do their friends have. How can I trust strangers if I do not know who they are, said most of people. However, friends are still friends as long as their trust level is high or at least, exist. Friends can turn into haters or strangers if they do not trust their friends anymore. It is also applies to the strangers. If the strangers gain the trust more and even more, the strangers can turn into friends. Moreover, friendship grows by trust. If the trust gone, then that is it: it is over. It is logical anyway to have the way of thinking like that.

To trust each other, actually the first step is get close to them. Friends are friends because they are close. For example, A, B, and I are in the same faculty. A is my classmate while B is not. Both A and B are my acquaintances. In this case, I will say A is my friend instead of B because I meet and interact with A more frequently than with B. It will be a twist if B is closer to me than A. Then I will say, "B is my friend actually." How people get close with each other to becoming a 'friend'? It depends to themselves. There is no exact factor of it. People can get close with other people because their race, point of view, interest, culture, sex are similar. However, people can get close too because of their differences. We can say it is the matter of comfort. Comfort leads to the closer distance, both physic and heart.

Last but not least, people will define other people as a friend by their activity that they do together. We are friends if we are gossiping and judging other people together. We are friends if we do sarcasm together. We are friends if we talk heart-to-heart too often. We are friends if we do acting weird and crazy together. And etcetera. No matter how abstract we and our friends do, as long as there is a bond which gets stronger by trust, it seems every craziness is alright.

Maybe people will partly or even disagree with all points that I pointed out. However, I just write what I see and what I feel after observing people around me behave with their friends. Although there are still many factors can determine friendship, three factors that I mentioned above are the most essential factors. 

"Manners, please!"

Everyone has his/her own belief. One of trait to which people consider to hold on is courtesy or we call it a good manners. Nationalists would say courtesy is good deeds which not violate constitution. Conservatives would define courtesy as manners that enables one to get along with public's rule. People who have strong faith in their own religion would state that courtesy is kind of deed based on their religion remarked. If we ask more people from diverse backgrounds, there will be more answers which will tangle its own true definition. I think those different people actually answer this 'courtesy' question like a piece of puzzle that, if we arrange those pieces, they will form a big picture of conclusion. Moreover, I think there are only two essential criteria of good manners; conditionally suitable and have a good purpose in it.

From time to time, trends do not change: old people always complain what young people do. Old people hate how young people play with fashion style: they think youth style is rather uncivilized. As a youth myself, I know that feeling to prove that they are not right at all about youth. However, it is impossible to do because respecting elderly is law of nature. Then we have to act politely in front of them and make them feel comfortable and respected. It will be different if people who we treat is important people such as public figure, minister, or even the president. It is still the same that we treat both of them politely. But the way how we treat elderly is as same as how we treat our parents: full of caring but still in respect. While, we treat public figure like we treat elderly but without affection which sometimes possibly misunderstood by them as annoying act. We will act to them politely, even with protocol procedural. And it will be more different if we treat our own friends. We will not act too polite to them and even too harsh as long as we do not hurt them. But when they need help, we will happily help them and this is kind of manners too. The situation also effects to different manners. More serious the condition, more polite we will act. Based on how good manners works, I state that good manners is kind of good deed at the right time, at the right place, for the right person, or we can call it as conditionally suitable.

We know good manners is the key to happier world because everyone respect the other. Moreover, we can conclude that good manners' purpose is to make other people and ourselves both feel comfortable and happy. It is a good purpose, indeed. Then, if we do good deeds just for our joy but hurt the other, it cannot be called as good manners. One of the example is bribery. People who accept money from bribery think that they do a right one because they make people who bribe them happy and it applies reciprocal. But, we do know that bribery violates law and make this country lost a lot of money. Because the number of people who get hurt would be more than that of people who feel satisfied, we cannot call that act as a good manners. That is just a real crime that covered by the fake or misunderstood good manners.

In the end, it all comes down to how we act to other people. However, if both essential criteria of good manners do not fulfilled, we cannot call it as good manners. As the intellectuals, we should understand the difference between the real good manners and the act that just look like good manners. Hopefully we do this right because, we know, everyone deserves to be happy.  

Personal Written Response 2

Love, love, love. Everybody knows that word. Some said love is what make world beautified. Some said love is a whole matter which arranged by various pieces of puzzle called ‘feeling’. The other said love cannot be defined unless you feel it by yourselves.

Based on Esther’s case, I do think that Esther’s feeling to Laurence is something that people called it as ‘love’. As we know if somebody love someone, they will stay and hope the one who they love will stay too. Esther felt hurt when Laurence decided to forget her because she truly loved him as the way it is. However, some people will think that if  Esther really loved him, she should not give up and should still care about Laurence no matter it would take. Although the statement is not totally wrong, we have to realize that what we are discussing about is matter of the heart. We cannot explain why father still saves his child in the middle of fire though based on a logical thinking it is way too dangerous for him. We cannot explain why some people will do anything for someone they love though it means they have to sacrifice themselves. We cannot also explain why some people still longing for someone even though they got hurt. These irrational acts cannot be explained because feeling moves them to do thing that their heart feels “it is the right thing to do so”. Then we can conclude that Esther killed Laurence because she might think that is the right thing from what she felt. Like my favorite musician, Stevie Wonder, said, “All is fair in love.”

Although the entire irrational thing is the right one from what people feel, some irrational things are not accepted by the surrounding because all people generally lives based on moral. From the feeling’s point of view, what Esther did to Laurence is acceptable. But it is the unacceptable thing from the moral’s point of view because people learned how to live a good life from moral. In moral’s point of view, the good deed is something that will not hurt other people and the bad deed is something in contrast. Moreover, this is ambiguous decision to evaluate Esther’s case between feeling and moral. However, we do not live on this earth alone. Because of the fact that we are not alone, doing the entire thing based on our feeling is not the right one as it sounds egoistic. Therefore, I totally disagree what Esther did to Laurence morally.

Then, how love should be? It depends to people as long it does not disgrace moral. Love has many forms. A kind of love that I use as the right form likes the story of Ali bin Abu Thalib and Fathimah binti Muhammad. They loved each other, but they kept it secretly until the right time came. I do not think love should be shown directly to a person because love is already enough with the strong feeling of affection. Although there are more sweeter or bitter love that people came up with, like I said, love has many forms.

Personal Written Response 1

Based on "How Your Birth Order Influences Your Life Adjustment" by Lucille K. Forer.

Forer's discussion is somehow interesting because in fact we barely define people's characteristics by their birth order in their families. However, there are some points which need to be reevaluated. In line 75, Forer says, "The oldest tends to expect other people to be relatively less capable." I am the oldest child and I am totally disagree with the statement. As the first child, I tend to help my siblings. However, I really hope my siblings can do their stuffs by themselves. Moreover, the expectation to my siblings also applies to the other people. In my opinion, people should not be a will-o' the-wisp. Rather, they have to be reliable. To be the person who can be depended on, they have to think that they are capable. Although this is just a personal opinion, to think again, wouldn't it better if all the children can be the independent one?

Forer's discussion is implausible for some cases. It looks like Forer just evaluates things from the ideal family which is harmonious and peaceful. If we use Forer's discussion to evaluate children from disfunctional families, it will not be an accurate measure to analyze their children characteristics. Maybe the only child and the older child still suit in discussion, but the younger child will be more independent than Forer's idea that the youngest child tends to think, "I am less able to do many things than other people," because the situation pushes them to be more than they think. Otherwise families who live under circumstances. We usually hear or read news how poor families survive by depending on their working children. At this rate, all the children, both the younger and the older, are independent based on their self recognition from the situation. Both cases imply that Forer's discussion is accurate conditionally.

Another Forer's missing point is gender. Sons are naturally more reliable than daughters. Although the boy is the middle or the youngest child, if he is the only boy among his siblings, the parents rely more on their son. It also applies to the only daughter who tends to get more affection though she is the oldest or the middle child. In conclusion, life adjustment is not only determined by child's birth order, but also the internal factors such as gender and several external factors like environment and surroundings.

Greetings!

Hey-ho, readers!

Well, I don't know who will read this post even visit this blog actually, but let me shout it out, "WELCOME TO THE ROOM OF MY IDEAS!" Sounds cool, huh?  Yeah, because it is mine! B) *slapped*

By the way, this is the first time I have a blog with English as the main language. I think it is a curse for me to write something in English since I am bad at structure and already convinced myself: it is better to write and speak in Indonesian. Then when I am placed at Academic Writing for one semester, I am a bit frustrated. But, to think again, it is the best way for me to advancing my writing skill after all.

Yes, readers, this blog is made for academic purpose. Upcoming posts in this blog are some essays which are written by me at English class. So, don't get bored with this blog because (maybe) my posts will inspire you. Tee-hee!

Stay tuned, readers!