I would never forget about today all my life.

    - A staff trainer shares about her experience at a parent’s workshop

When the trainer read aloud some notes written by students to their parents, a mother cried. I handed over a piece of tissue paper and sat next to the mother. That was how I first started to notice that mother-son pair. I thought then that the mother cried because she was touched, but I also noticed that the son sitting next to her showed no reaction, either on his face or in action.

During the “Heart-to-Heart Dialogue” activity, the son ran out, as if because the communication was poor. It felt as if this mother and son pair had difficulties in communicating with each other.

The “Heart-to-Heart Dialogue” activity continued. It was time for the participants to write down what they had to say to their parent/child, and I discovered that the mother is illiterate, so I started to help her with the exercise. She started to keep telling me about her disappointments in her son, and her perception that her son is immature and disobedient, that he doesn’t work hard in his studies, and made her feel especially tired. She told me that she has no other hopes, except that he would be obedient and study hard. She taught him every day to do so, but why couldn’t he listen to this simple request? I realized that there was more to her tears than just being moved by children’s words – there were a lot of hurt feelings. Obviously this mother loves her son very much, but does not know how to empathize and communicate with her son.

The son still reacted very cool when we moved on to the part when the mother spoke face to face with him. He did not say a single word, and the mother had no idea what the son had written. But when I saw what the son had written, my heart melted. His greatest worry, the son wrote, was “not doing well at school”. I shared the son’s words with his mother. She always thought that her son was disobedient and had no heart in learning, but it turned out that her son’s greatest worry was that he might not do well at school, that he also would like to study well… At this moment, the mother’s eyes became moist. She loves her son, but does not understand him, and never knew how she could listen to what he has to say. I also shared with the son the love for him that I saw in his mother. He held his head very low, but I saw that his eyes turned red…

In the section of “response and future plan”, the mother asked me to write down for her: “To communicate with my son more in the future, and to listen to what he has to say”. The son wrote, “To listen to my parents more and be more obedient”.

Even though the son did not speak a word, but I could feel his heart changing. Later on, I heard from another trainer that this student has been waiting at the school gate for a long time for his mother to arrive that morning, and was not willing to enter the classroom without his mother. It turned out that the son also really loves his mother!

At the end of the parents’ workshop, the mom pushed all the candies and snacks (which was prepared for the workshop participants) into my pocket, and dragged me to take a picture with her. My heart was filled with joy, but I regret that we only took digital pictures, as the mother made me promise to give her a copy of the picture the two of us took together!

The mother and son also took a picture together. When the mother received that Polaroid picture, she held my hand tightly, and told me, “I will never forget about today in my life!” I was quite shocked inside, as I never expected such short a time for communication could bring such an impact in someone’s life. I guess the mother, similarly, would never know how her words, the warmth of her holding my hands, and the sincerity in her eyes have brought me such great strength and supported me to keep going forward! I could not tell if it was she who changed me, or I who changed her.

How beautiful it is when lives impact each other!