<Brats>

A few years ago a French toy company had an unusual contest-- a "biggest brat" contest. The company had a prize for the child whose behavior was the worst in the world. Over 2,000 parents entered their children in the contest. "Our child is the world's biggest brat!" they wrote. The parents made lists of all the bad things their children had done. Judges read the lists and chose the winner. She was a little girl from the United States. Her name was Lizzie, and she was four years old. Here are a few of the things Lizzie did to win the title "The World's Biggest Brat":
     
     She put a garden hose into the gas tank of her father's car. Then she
     turned on the water.
     She painted a leather sofa with spray paint.
     She threw her mother's wedding ring into the toilet. Then she flushed the
     toilet.
     She put an ice-cream sandwich into the VCR.
     She set the table for dinner. Then she glued the silverware to the table.
     Imagine her parents' surprise when they sat down to eat and tried to pick
     up their forks!

     Lizzie may be the world's biggest brat, but she is certainly not the world's
only brat. Alo is a five-year-old boy from Bangladesh. One afternoon, while his father was asleep on the sofa, Alo cut off his father's mustache. A few days later, he cut off his brother's eyebrows when his brother was sleeping in the bedroom. A few weeks after that, he cut off most of his mother's hair when she was asleep at night. Alo's family now keeps every pair of scissors under lock and key and always sleeps behind locked doors.
     The behavior of a Mexican boy named Manuel is perhaps even worse than
Lizzie's and Alo's because it is more dangerous. Manuel likes to play with matches. One day he found some matches near the kitchen stove. He took the matches, sneaked into his parents' bedroom, and set fire to the curtains.
Fortunately, Manuel's mother walked into the bedroom just in time. She pulled down the curtains and put out the fire before it spread.
     
     Hiroshi, a young Japanese man, says that he rarely misbehaved when he was a young child but turned into a real brat when he was about thirteen.
"My friends and I used to sneak around at night and let the air out of tires. We were terrible," he says. " Our parents tried to control us, but they didn't have much success. We drove them crazy."

     No mother or father wants to be the parent of a brat. Parents everywhere
try to control their children's behavior. Some parents spank their children when they misbehave. Other parents won't let their children watch TV or eat
dessert. In Japan, parents often send their children outside when they misbehave and tell them they can't come into the house. In the United States
parents do just the opposite: They send their children to their bedrooms and tell them they can't go outside.

     Lizzie's parents don't know what to do about Lizzie. Her mother says, "I keep telling myself that Lizzie is going through a stage, but sometimes I don't know.... It seems like she's always getting into trouble." Lizzie's father says,
"One day we'll look back on all this and laugh."
     What does Lizzie think about her behavior? Lizzie doesn't like to talk about it. When a reporter asked Lizzie if she was "a bad girl," Lizzie kicked his leg. Then she yelled, "I'm not a brat! I'm an angel! Get out of my house!"

Think about these questions:

1. What do you think about spanking children who misbehave?

2. Do you know a child who often misbehaves? What bad things does the child
    do?

3. Do you think children in different countries behave differently? Or do you
    think children everywhere behave the same way?

4. When you were a child, were you a "brat" sometimes or were you always
    an "angel"? Can you remember anything bad you did?

i think it makes sense to show children's misbehaviors. the parents will benefit from learning that similar misbehaviors are found in children in other neighborhoods, cities, countries, and continents, and that their ones are actually better. seeing is believing. disperate parents world around will learn more and find hopes from this simple fact-revealing event.

i confess: i was a good boy normally all the time up to my middle school age. but i did one bad thing, a very bad one, when i was ten. i drilled holes into the wooden boxes where my father put books and magazines and poured a cup of water into every hole i drilled. i felt guilty when i saw my father and mother taking out the books and magazines with wet pages and laying them flat to dry under the sun. they didn't blame me. but i knew they were sad and i did a very bad thing.

Think about these questions:

1. What do you think about spanking children who misbehave?

That's not what we wish to see and it is performance of parents' having no choice, if they have better choice, how could they use the cruel method to the children? I believe there is not a bad child at the beginning, the only difference depends on the way of the parents how to educate their children.

2. Do you know a child who often misbehaves? What bad things does the child
do?  
   Any child could misbehave. If they know they are misbehaviours, they wouldn't do them at that period, would they? All of these misbehaviours are adult's thoughts.
                                                                                                               

3. Do you think children in different countries behave differently? Or do you
think children everywhere behave the same way?

All the children are the same from the nature!!! simple  and lovely.

4. When you were a child, were you a "brat" sometimes or were you always
an "angel"? Can you remember anything bad you did?


I do remember I was a "brat" in somebody's eyes. However, it was not  a "brat" to me at that moment. Now I blame myself  how I could do that.

I remember I was 7 yrs old. My mommy was very stict with me. Because I was the oldest child  in my family, I had to do lots of things such as cut the grass for pigs,  cook for my mommy and daddy and so on.  One day my mommy asked me out to cut the grass for pigs. That day I don't know why, I was playing with my friends for a long time, until it was dark. I didn't cut any grass.  after my mommy knew that, she chased to beat me and scold very badly. I had so much grievance, " why other freinds' parents don't scold and beat them, however you beat me?"  I feel so upset, and scloded back to my mommy using the same words, afte my mommy head I resist her, she became so angry.....

Even now, I don't know how I had so much courage to say that to my mommy at that moment. Maybe I think we should respect each other or  "tit for tat".