How Well Does Your Child Know You?

We often read articles about How Well Do You Know Your Child? But what about the other way around. How well does your child know you? Recently my daughter told me that she had to ask me a few questions.

My Girl:  Mom, my teacher says that I have to know you. I have to know your age, what you like etc. I don't even know your name mom. What is your nickname?"


I gave her a nickname that the man of the house calls me and she said it sounded silly. We can't put that in the form. Eventually we decided to just put my name in Mandarin.

Well, I was not sure how to write one of the characters in my name (that's how poor my Chinese is), so I told her to wait while I dig for my old wedding card and gave that to her to copy from.

After going through my likes and dislikes, she came to the part on Character. Aha! That sounds like fun. So I told her to fill in whatever she thinks my character was and she said...

My Girl: Angry.

lol.  "How about kind and gentle" I suggested (Ahem!)

My Girl: Mum, you're not kind and gentle. 


lol. "Well then, how about fierce." I said.


My Girl: Can I just put anything...


I said yes and eventually found out that she had written a Chinese term. I looked up the Chinese to English dictionary and it said "affable". I looked up the English Dictionary and it said "pleasant, friendly and easy to talk to." She made it clear to me, that it was not what she thought I was but she had to write something. (The only term she could find to describe my character was "Angry". Haha.

My Girl: What is your motto mom. What IS motto?


I told her motto means what someone believes in. I told her that I believe that if you try really hard at something you will succeed. (Mom always tries to sneak in a lesson or two whenever she talks to her children). She eventually found a Chinese idiom and wrote that down. She told me that the Chinese idiom translates to "Failure is the Mother of Success." Well, that is close enough. I then had to spend another 5 minutes explaining to her how failure can suddenly become the "mother" of success.

We decided that my hobby was reading and I had interest in music.

As for daddy, daddy told her that his motto is "Make hay while the sun shines" Yup! That is him alright. He always believes in planning ahead for everything.

Though it was all very amusing, I had a wake up moment when I realised that the only word my child could use to describe me was "Angry". Hmm..... I guess I should do something about that!

Why not try this with your children at home. You can turn this into an English lesson on "Adjectives". Ask them to describe you and share what they said in the comments. Are there any more "Angry" moms out there or perhaps you are "loving" and "kind" and "gentle"? See what your child thinks about you.