（此旧文乃某学期某课程的课堂作业，因清理电脑空间，不忍删，留于此。）
Abstract: By participating in WAT(Work and Travel) USA Program, recently I have worked in an American amusement park named Kings Island for 3 months and experienced being hosted in a local ordinary family for 2 weeks. As a outsider and foreigner in the US, it was very observable how parents interact with their children when I dealt with my customers and accompanied with my host family. I found American parental conduct of family education can be mirrored in my encounters of American parents’ interaction with their children, which might provide a source of preference to Chinese parents and Education researchers.
Key words: parental conduct, family education, interaction
Work and Travel USA is an international cultural exchange program. It is partnered with the United States Department of State's Summer Work Travel Program, which provides foreign students with an opportunity to live and work in the United States during their summer vacation from college or university to experience and to be exposed to the people and way of life in the United States. Through the program I obtained a chance to work in a well-known theme park called Kings Island in America. Kings Island is a subsidiary park of Cedar Fair Entertainment company.
Kings Island opened its gates on April 29, 1972, serving as a replacement for Coney Island, an immensely popular amusement park located on the Ohio River 10 miles east of downtown Cincinnati. Kings Island today is home to more than 100 world-class rides, shows and attractions, including the world's longest wooden (The Beast) and steel inverted (Banshee) roller coasters and a 35-acre water park. One of the top drawing seasonal amusement/theme parks in the world, attracting more than 3 million guests each season. Recipient of the Golden Ticket Award for "Best Kids' Area in the World" by Amusement Today for an unprecedented 16 consecutive years. And it employs local seasonal associates and international associates every year.
Recently coming back to school my memories working as an food and beverage associate in Kings Island still bears in my mind. During 3 months as a staff in kings Island I look back and find customs and etiquette throughout the world are unique in their own fashion.I met and greeted people mostly from USA, but also Europe, Canada, India and even China, which make me conscious and knowledgeable of all of these various differences that enhanced my communication and precluded misunderstandings that may occur.
Absolutely, there are lots of impressed moments. The most impressive one among them is about the parents’ method of cultivating, educating and communicating with their kids—Their differences in managing family education compared with China. Generally parents in the park I saw treated kids not as just kids but also an equal individual. Parents sometimes pay close attention to cultivating their kids’ ability of thinking and acting by their own initiative.
Ordering Food
In the park, I usually worked in a Subway and took food orders from our customers in front of window. Customers generally queue up outside the window then greet us and start their orders one by one. Sometimes people come up with their children. Unlike many Chinese parents ordering food and making decision for their children, American parents encourage their children to order food according children’s own preference. As a recipient inside window of making table, it’s my obligation to follow customers’ preference to put toppings in sequence on bread to build a subway sandwich for them. Along the table,we’re divided into three sections, respectively meat, veggies and condiment. When we serve a customer, we greet our customer by saying “Welcome to Subway. What can I make for you today?”or so something similar. And then we inquire the customer what kind of bread he or she would like. And then add meat,veggies and condiment(for condiments, we serve several sauces and shaken salt and pepper) on bread as required by our customer. Sometimes customers have specific requirements like asking us to split sandwich into two parts or squeeze out extra mayonnaise from sauce container on their sandwich, as long as it doesn’t go beyond our capacity and rules we always suffice them. Sometimes people don’t know what to choose since we Subway have too many options for toppings to choose from. And sometimes we can’t hear each other with our customer clearly through the window due to thickness of window pane. Maybe the customer just want to be polite so that their voice cannot be loud enough to pass through window glass. Or it is because our customer in another side of window glass could be shy, especially when our customers are children. There was once we served a timid child who was hesitant and not brave enough to come up to talk to us. And her parents behind her encouraged her and said, “go ahead and tell them what you want.” We can see from that American parents have the awareness of cultivating their children’s confidence and social skills which prepare them for better adapting into future life. There were occasions when us associates can’t communicate with our little young customer for they are too young to have ideas of what they want or what they should go on saying. Only then their parents came to help their children to continue the trade.And sometimes their parents warn their children do not yell to us, which is a kind of manner teaching and belongs to the range of family education. No mention to that these parents remind their son and daughter of expressing thanks to us at the end of deal, which is also a part of family education for building them a grateful person to life and people who helps them.
Debarking bus
As a participant of WAT USA program and an international associate of Kings Island, we were offered to live in a nearby Super 8 hotel with a affordable and relative cheaper housing payment than common guests’. Our working time were scheduled by scheduling apartment and displayed on an app called when to work for us to check. And there were a shuttle bus to pick up kings islands associates and hotel guests back and forth during daytime.Before we associates catch the shuttle bus to go to work, we have to put on all of our uniforms tidily for let others easily notice our identity especially when they need to know who they can ask for help in the park. Once after we international students and hotel guests got on the shuttle bus, some children and their parents seating in the front of bus and some international associates scattered themselves in the middle and at the back of the shuttle bus. Some minutes pasted and the bus arrived to destination, passengers on seat started getting of the bus. For arriving at their stands advance of time, international associates used to walking fast to get off the bus. When a little boy in the front wanted to step on aisle his father grab him back to avoid associates walking from the back to the front. His father spoke to his son like this, “Let them go first. They need to go to work.” That was a considerate behavior of a father. Their children may learn from that to be kind with people and it could make convenience for others.
Caring Baby
After I ended my work in Kinds Island and left Cincinnati states in which the park situated, I found a host family through an exchange program website, my stay in the family lasted nearly 2 weeks. It’s a family of originally 3 members, father ,mother and a toddler baby girl except for their pets, one exchange high school student from Japan and a Mexican who’s another exchange member from same program like me. Being with the family provide me a close attention to the way of how a conventional family take care of and cultivate their child on a daily basis. In the morning, after the parents feeding their baby, they may carried their daughter outside to take a walk for refresh themselves. Sometimes they took the baby to go hike on mountain behind their yard for having a view and a fresh air intake.And sometimes they went to the river with the girl to play with sands and water. We as guests were of course welcome to join them. It seems in mind of the couple that these kind of activity is good for baby and also a family time of gathering together. Once the father and the mother discussed what kind of kindergarten their daughter would attend when she grow older. The mother said in the one they knew class are classified by ages.She prefer their daughter to go to another school and class which might have different aged children so that their child can learn more from big kids. And by accepting international volunteers like us, the hostess told us she think it would help their baby to learn from different country’s culture and broaden her daughter’s view from a very young age. And it can also bring more joy to their family and make their baby laugh more and be less lonely. That’s their parental way to care for their child’s mental health and psychological development. And what’s more, the baby girl’s parents made exclusive book-self for her. Some books are made of cloth or soft cotton in case hurt little readers. Inside those books, there are plenty of colorful illustrations and not too many words which is very thoughtful for kid readers. Even some toys have speakers which might enhance children’s learning of speaking. During daily parental caring for the baby, I realized the parents infused common sense and manners into small talking and interact with the child. It’s believed that love and caring atmosphere is important to a family raising children. American parents respect and and care for their children and prepare their children for future life.That’s what I observed in their family.
Conclusion
Generally most American don’t agree that it’s necessary to discipline a child with a good , hard spanking. It’s widely for parents in America that personal development is highly valued in the process of being cultivated and educated to have the knowledge, skills, and wisdom to live a purposeful , productive and successful life. The attitude American parents employed inclined to be positive, such as encouragement,supportive and praise.
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