Sunday morning was the most comfortable time to reflect. At 6 a.m. I had started to write this story with the cup of warm milk, I thought this is the perfect time to write.
This is my first piece of writing about personal issues. I hope you can take a lot of lessons from this story.
Last week I visited my brother, who went to boarding school in depok city, it was a visiting day. My feelings at the time were very chaotic, uneasy and angry. how not, the day before the visit when my father and I went to buy books, my father received a warning letter about my brother. It was already the second time my father had gotten my brother’s violation warning letter, shattered already my father’s expression while reading it. The same problem is that my brother was caught smoking silently in the dormitory environment, which was already a big violation considering that the regulation had been written with the degree of violation. In the afternoon, we and our family gathered to negotiate what to talk about during tomorrow’s negotiations. We have to be careful because if we all blame him it will have a bad effect on his mentality. Although the discussion went slowly, until it came to a decision, I as the eldest sister will see him tomorrow Alone, our parents will not visit to hint at their disappointment.
Then I went to visit my brother, I talked about what I had prepared yesterday afternoon, it was very difficult to control my emotional overflow, I tended to be very temperamental usually, but I could bear it otherwise instead of realizing his mistakes instead of his being braver to rebel. It can be seen that his expression at that time was sitting downcast while shedding tears, whether it was regretful tears or fake tears. Whose business of the heart knows?. After that he forced me to call my parents to express his regret. Of course I don’t let it go, it’s already in the agreement. Then I handed over the letter my mother made in tears. I even held back tears as I handed it over, how I saw my mother keep crying when wrote the letter herself. Then before I turn back home I asked the teacher for permission to allow my parents to visit he the next week to have a personal conversation with my brother, I also conveyed the agreement we made to advise my brother. The teacher also allowed.
What came to my mind at the time was why we all judged my brother to feel guilty and deterrent considering that he was in high school and not a child anymore, he should be able to think.
But my parents especially my father said your brother is still in puberty phase, He need to actualize his self, that is, the need for individuals to decide their desires, Abraham Maslow said the need to actualize ourself is not an easy thing, to meet this need he must get a lot of sufficient support from various parties, in this stage your brother is said to be unstable in fulfilling them, he tends to be interested in what supports him, maybe your brother has a lot of friends but if there is a group of bad friends, they can accept him, support him, your brother can prefer to hang out with them than to hang out with good people who can’t accept him, that’s why many teenagers are wrong in choosing their associations. No matter how bad the environment is if you feel accepted there you will be interested. So that way I didn’t want that the family that was supposed to be the number one place to support him instead blamed him all, so that he didn’t feel comfortable and moved to find a bad place. This is just a small mistake, sometimes we have to be wise in dealing with small problems to keep them small.
After that I realized it was also true what my father said. That’s an important value. How most people now only blame and destroy the child’s self-esteem for a small problem without being able to build hope and praise so that the child can feel valued and accepted, that way he can become a responsible person for himself with the encouragement of those around him.
Sure enough the next week both my parents met him, no longer blaming and dropping his self-esteem instead encouraging, giving compliments and forgiving my brother. That was really a really good advice, how before that I saw my parents go through a lot of articles on parenting, how to deal with the problem. They are indeed stupid but they will not let their child be stupid. With all their limitations they try to resolve in a good way and not emotions or threats.
Ah it’s been past 2 hours I wrote this, it’s time I had to move to morning exercise.
Goodbye
Penulis : Aliifah Qurrota’ayun (STEI SEBI)
