MAHIRAP MAGPALAKI NG ANAK (MAGULANG) A friend who is a mother to a 3 year old boy gave me a call. Friend: How cum there are schools for almost all professions but there is not a single school for being a parent. CAT: Why ? Friend: I enrolled my son in a special school, you know that. CAT: So how is he ? Friend: He can talk now... CAT: Dat's great. I used to hear old folks say that to make a child with speaking impediment talk, let him eat the bleep bLeep bleep of a pig. Friend: I am serious…. CAT: Who sez, you’re not. SO am I. Friend: My boy can already say I will call the police. CAT: Whoo, bakit, you make bugbog of your boy ba ? Friend: NO naman ano. Anong ‘kala mo sa akin, Child abuser. CAT: Do you punish him as in you make bitin him sa bubong ? Friend: Ikaw ha, sobra ang imagination mo. CAT: SO how do you punish him ? Like when sinikmuraan niya yong little girl doon sa birthday party. Friend: Well, I tell him, it is wrong and I make palo sa kamay ano. CAT : If he is my son, I am going to launch his movie career. Action star. Parang si Robin Padilla, parang si Joseph Estrada. Baka maging presidente pa. Diva. Friend: Pano ko kaya siya mapapatino. The counselor in his school advise us not to spank him. He is going to hate us for it. CAT: Sabi nga Bette Davis, you are not a parent if one time or another, your child did not hate you. Friend: Sino yon? CAT: Malay ko. Artista yon di ba ? Dear CAT, There is no school to become a successful parent but the home is a learning environment where the parents and the children are teachers and pupils at the same time. It should be a two-way learning process., not from top to bottom only because the parents are as confused as the children in dealing with situations that are thought to be handled with “if I am late start the crisis without me". Human Pet Dear HP, I believe you not because you impress me but I chanced to read the book you were reading last night when it fell to my head, a few minutes after you started reading it. Experience has taught me that the crisis model of young people is one which is a maze of anxiety, riotous swings of moods and rebelliousness. They also hold to inflexibly high ideals. My brother once saved a portion of his allowance for a leather jacket. He got to have one just like my older brother, you know the older-brother-hero-worship-kind of-thing stage.. After a few months, he found that his savings were not enough even for one sleeve of the jacket. . He asked my mom to give him money so he can buy his dream jacket. My mom thought that it was foolish to buy a leather jacket that he would outgrow in a few months. She said no. My brother rebelled. Normal for a child undergoing a turbulent passage from one stage to another so a psychiatrist/psychologist would say. He used all his money to buy grapes. My mom suspected that it was a deliberate reaction to spite her.Like Judge Judy, she handed the verdict. He was to be grounded for a week and he should eat all the grapes.(Methinks that I was doing him a favor when I offered to share his punishment by eating half). I considered the first punishment was over as in uber. The second was not a punishment until I saw my brother becoming tipsy as he finished the last few pieces.. Lessons learned by my brother: Eating grapes is intoxicating. He did not need to be forcibly grounded, He stayed in bed because of hangover. Next time he rebels he would buy a different kind of fruit. Lesson learned by mom: Deny your son something that he wanted would make him buy fruits. Next time he rebels, she prayed he would buy vegetable so she can make him eat some. Lesson learned by me. If ever I am going to be in the shoes of my brother, I would buy variety of food stuffs, so that when my mom punishes me to eat them all, I have a complete meal. The CAT