Crossing the Gaokao with Your Child: Heartfelt Advice from a Gaokao Companion Mother

Author: Liu Qiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-02-01
Features:
1. Misunderstanding
On December 16, 2004, my daughter had already entered the final stage of her college entrance exam preparation. To ensure she could study with full focus and without any distractions, my husband and I agreed to let her rent a room outside. The house was behind her school, a small room in a teacher’s dormitory. It was not only close to the school but also next to other female students who had rented nearby.
For my daughter, everything here was so unfamiliar. The room was in disarray, so I tidied it up and checked the time on the clock. It was already 11:30. I quickly started cooking rice. It was a cluttered space of about 10 square meters, with no gas or ability to build a fire, so the electric rice cooker was our only option. In the cold winter, hot pot was our only and best choice. I prepared all the ingredients for the hot pot and waited foolishly for my daughter to come home for dinner.
"Tic-tac, tic-tac," the clock’s relentless ticking shattered my anticipation. It was already past 1 o’clock, yet I still hadn’t heard my daughter’s footsteps. My patience wore thin: "How could she do this? She knows I’m here. Why isn’t she back on time? Did she go out to eat with her classmates? Or was she asking a teacher questions? If she was asking a teacher questions, that would be reasonable, but not very sensible. Teachers also need to eat. It’s this late? The more I thought, the angrier I got, imagining how to scold her when she returned. As I lay on the bed, I suddenly remembered something and quickly picked up my phone: 12 o’clock! Oh my god, the clock on the table was more than an hour ahead. I was relieved I had checked my phone to confirm, otherwise, I would have scolded my daughter without knowing it, and she would have been deeply hurt.
Often, we make assumptions about our children based on what we see on the surface. For example, if they come home late, we assume they were online; if they talk animatedly on the phone with a boy, we suspect they’re dating early. Faced with such suspicions, we often overreact or say things that are too extreme. And when people are questioned, their instinct is to resist, especially children. Since children lack the ability to fight back with violence or loud shouting, they resort to silent resistance: staring with teary eyes, swallowing all their grievances, anger, and even curses, and ignoring you for days or even months. It leaves you fuming in vain: "I haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m not being obedient—so what? You can’t just hit or scold me for no reason. Douse me with cold water and freeze me to death! This is the psychology of a child who feels wronged.
Parents often say to each other: "These days, children are impossible to deal with. If you scold them too harshly, they can ignore you for months or even refuse to come home. There’s really nothing you can do." In reality, many times, it’s because we overestimate our authority as parents, believing that being a parent gives us the right to monitor every move and word of our children. The moment they show any deviation, we jump to conclusions and scold them without understanding the situation. This not only harms their self-esteem but also loses the opportunity to connect with their inner world. That’s why, I…