My daughter turned five. Since she first began to babble, the time I’ve spent with her has grown ever richer. I want her childhood to be carefree and joyful — to leave the most beautiful memories in life’s most innocent chapter. At the same time, I hope she can build a solid foundation for the road ahead: an optimistic outlook, a resilient character, and an unquenchable curiosity about the world.
She looks like me, and her temperament is much like mine too. Quiet on the surface yet longing to connect; seemingly easygoing yet remarkably sensitive inside. Though more than twenty years have passed, the stumbles along my own path of growing up remain vivid. I’m grateful that, at my third zodiac year, I can still proudly say I remain curious about the world, willing to keep changing, pursuing new understanding and growth every day. Yet I know all too well that some blind spots, had I seen through them sooner, and some habits, had I built them earlier, could have spared me the pointless pain and frustration — time that might have been spent exploring far more meaningful things. When I see her hesitate before strangers, I’m transported back to my childhood self — that odd inability to speak up even when I desperately wanted to, an awkwardness that took me over thirty years to mostly overcome.
Experience tells me this kind of awkwardness must be addressed early. Whatever the root cause, there is only one remedy: desensitize as soon as possible. Only by repeatedly discovering that strangers won’t reject us for speaking up — and even finding joy in expression and communication — can we align our inner feelings with our outward behavior. Freed from that awkwardness, our vitality can truly flourish.
Guiding a child’s behavior is itself an art. Pressure through criticism and coercion is entirely counterproductive — it only makes the child more conscious that this is a “problem.” What I want is for her to see talking to strangers as natural as breathing, something she does without a second thought. After trying many approaches, I realized she is indeed just like the younger me: inwardly eager to express herself, yet held back by some innate disposition. Since the inner drive to change already exists, the question becomes a practical one. On one hand, when she learned that a close friend had joined a public-speaking class, I seized on that influence and encouraged her to go once a week to experience speaking in front of others. On the other hand, I discovered she is fascinated by magic — just as I was at her age. Recently I taught her a simple trick and told her that performing magic well means learning to tell a good story, weaving the trick naturally into the narrative.
To my delight, she threw herself into it with tremendous enthusiasm and rehearsed it with me over twenty times — the first time I’d ever heard her deliver a story so vividly, so completely, so loudly, and so clearly.
Twenty-odd rehearsals certainly test a parent’s patience. Accompanying a child is hard work, yet I seem to have an inexhaustible patience for her. Perhaps it’s because I love her so deeply; perhaps it’s because I want her to have the happy childhood I never had but always longed for. But every now and then I wonder: maybe it isn’t me who is accompanying her as she grows up, but she who is accompanying me — letting me relive my childhood.
Raising a child is surely one of life’s most beautiful endeavors. Through this journey, I’ve come to understand more and more clearly: we are growing together.