Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Screaming Banshee strikes again... and again

Twice it happened this week.  Not once but twice.  

First time I was in the study or what we call the classroom going through with Tai Pi the mistakes she made in a math practice paper.  I lost my patience and screamed at her like a banshee.  The air-con servicing man was in my bedroom and came over to close the door of the study, muttering “很吵”.  He meant the noise from his servicing of the air-con but my immediate interpretation of it was that I was making too much noise and from the sheepish look on his face I believe I was right.

And then today, Pumpkin, instead of getting on with her Chinese homework, chose to spend her time whining and whining about it and that earned her an earful from me.  My yelling reached the kitchen (actually not just there but possibly the whole neighbourhood reverberated with my screams) where our guest, KK's uncle was chatting with my mother-in-law.  As he closed the kitchen door, he kindly explained that their chatting might be too loud but really it was obvious where the real racket was coming from.

So note to myself:  stop raising your voice and remember that children learn from the example their parents set.

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