S04 - 7 Parenting

Native English speakers answer questions about parenting from previous B2, C1, C2 and IELTS  exam papers.

It can be pretty hard work raising kids and everyone has a theory on how best to do it. So we’re going to hear a few of those theories from different parts of the world. As usual we also have some lovely grammar and vocabulary to take a look at, including a few phrasal verbs, a couple of tricky adverbs and some curious usage of the word good.

For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/

Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Thanks to all of the contributors, including Matt, Leah Ann, Stephanie, Loli, Richard, Ofordi, Emma and Leanne from the Beach Travel Wine podcast.

Transcript

Real Exam English Season 4 – Parenting

Hello and welcome to the Real Exam English podcast, this episode is about parenting. Almost all of us have, or had, parents and I know some of you are parents.           

For details of the transcript for this episode check out the website, realexamenglish.com

Ok, here we go:

What do you think is the most important feature of a good parent?

Violence….no, I think patience and understanding. As long as you've got, you know, I think…there's a 6-year-old in in the house at the moment. Well, he's, I say, at the moment he's supposed to be here most of the time, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, like any six-year-olds they can be hard work. I think, you know, as long as, as long as you can understand why a child is doing what they're doing or not doing what they're you know. And patience, then the rest sort of fall into, the rest of it falls into place. 

Why do you think some people choose not to become parents?

Because they like sleeping in, they like money, they like going out. I don't know, I suppose, I suppose there's lots of reasons, but you know. I think some people just don't have that, that urge to parent, you know, they might not, they might just not like kids, they might like their house in…having their house in order. Not having their stuff broken, you know, sleeping. All sorts of things really, the list could be endless. 

It sure could. One thing to note at the start is the pronunciation, he said you need patience to be a good parent, make sure you are getting that pay sound in there, patience and parent, not patience and parent. He then says as long as you can understand why a child is going something. As long as is an important linker to know, it means provided that or on the condition that. Like a parent might say you can go out as long as you’re home by midnight. We are going to hear this same linker in a few more answers today so keep an ear out for it. 

We had this lovely C2 idiom the rest of it falls into place. When things fall into place they happen in a satisfactory way, without any issues. Another example would be, once I studied all the C2 vocabulary and grammar, everything else fell into place. Or everything is falling into place for the startup company, they got funding and are about to launch their second product.

The last thing to pick up on from the answers is this phrasal verb, to sleep in, which means to stay in bed late in the morning. To lie in, is the same. Like, when it´s cold and dark outside in winter I love lying in on a Saturday morning. Not something that many parents get to do, unfortunately!

What do you think is the most important feature of a good parent?

The most important feature of a good parent is empathy. We need to understand our kids, why they're doing what they're doing, and remember that our job is to help them become emotionally stable, kind, independent and a good human being throughout their lifetime. 

What role do grandparents now play in family life in your country? 

It's a big country. Grandparents play a lot of different roles. Even in my family, one set of grandparents is close and they, they are close to my child and two other sets because my parents are divorced, are far away geographically and emotionally. I don't think that's a question that can be answered with one answer. 

My parents are far away geographically and emotionally, I love that. Her parents are literally far away in terms or distance and figuratively far away in terms of emotions. She referred to the two sets of grandparents, a set being the two of them, grandmother and grandfather, and she said it’s the parents job to help the kids become good human beings throughout their lifetime, meaning in every part of their lifetime. A lot of people confuse throughout and during. If she had said they are good human beings during their lifetimes, this would mean they are good human beings on some occasions in their life, like maybe for a month or a year, and then they were bad people for the rest of their lives, but it would not mean in every part of their life. I´ll give you another example: 

John was bored throughout the meeting. (This means John was bored for the whole time the meeting was happening)

John was bored during the meeting. (he was bored at some point, or points in the meeting, like maybe for a minute of two, but not for the entire meeting). Got it? So it´s much better to be good human beings throughout your life, rather than during your life!

What role do grandparents now play in family life in your country?

I think that grandparents are now becoming more and more carers for the children because when your children have kids, I think it's so expensive to put them through paid childcare. It just takes too much money away from the pot, so to speak, so to speak. So I think the grandparents come in and help out with that and it's free, it's free childcare, so they can get on and work and, you know, have a good standard of living. I think so yea, I would say that would probably one of the be one of the main roles. 

Do you think punishment is a good way of making children behave themselves?

It's that old adage it never did me any harm, but I think, yeah, it's a difficult one because we were brought up in a different era now and I think kids get it. It's a different way of dealing with kids. I never had to, you know, punish my children. They knew that if I'd said something, it was that was it, it was the, it was the vocal tone rather than….but I think going back to your question, sorry, yeah, I think that there does need to be some form of…if they've done something wrong, they need to know about it and understand why and there needs to be some sort of punishment, whether that's go to your bedroom or you can't play on your Xbox, you know, nothing too severe. We're not talking about giving them a good beating or anything. So yes, there needs to be some, some sort of punishment. 

Alright, we had some key vocabulary here. To be brought up in a different era, to bring a child up is to care for them as they grow up. So, you grow up yourself and someone brings you up. Like I grew up in Ireland, my parents brought me up there. He also said it’s expensive to put kids through paid childcare. Paid childcare is obviously where you pay someone to look after your kids, like in a kindergarten, or creche, or playschool, there’s a few different ways to say the same thing, depending on where you are from. And the phrasal verb here, to put through, means to pay for their education, like he’s putting himself through university.

In the second answer we heard a really handy expression to help organize your answer. He was talking for a while and then said “but I think going to back to your question”. If you find yourself moving away from the original topic of the question it´s useful to have an expression like this to bring you back on track. You’ll hear this a lot in radio or tv interviews, like maybe with a politician, but going back to your original question. 

The last thing to comment on here is this when he was talking about punishing kids, and he said we’re not talking about giving them a good beating. So a beating is where you beat or hit the kids, and is clearly something bad, so it seems unusual to use the word good here, right, a good beating. Good, in this context, means thorough, or complete. Another example, would be the police gave the prisoner a good beating, or Real Madrid gave Barcelona a good beating in El Clasico. 

Remember if you would like to take individual classes or group classes in order to improve your English or prepare for an exam then check out the real exam English website for details, realexamenglish.com

What do you think of parents rewarding children when they get good results?

Well, I think it depends on your, it depends on what you think good results are. So I think if they if they get a fantastic score, you should, you should give them something 

I have friends, though, who used to buy things for their children and you know they they had to repeat the year which you don't do in the UK and I think that's outrageous. How can you reward a child for repeating the year? So everybody, every….you can't tell anybody how to educate their children. It's a it's a very difficult one to to call. There's no correct way, but I think if you can give them a little bit of an incentive to make them want to do better than there's nothing wrong with that. As long as you come up with the goods. 

Why do you think some people choose not to become parents?

Oh, many reasons. Some of them can be biological. they they can't actually can't actually have children. Some people don't actually like children either, and and many, many reasons why, you know, people don't want to have children. It's a very big decision to make and it's not for, you know, it's not like buying a new car and you've got the car for four or five years, if you have a child that's for the rest of your life, you are responsible in some way for that human being. So if you think about it, you know, in depth, then it can put you off because there's a big commitment. It's a big commitment-

It is a big commitment and if it puts you off then it discourages you from doing it, it makes you not want to do it. Like, the bad reviews put me off going to the restaurant, or I was put off going to Turkey by the high temperatures in summer. 

We had this great adjective, outrageous, kids get rewards when they have to repeat a year, I think that’s outrageous. This means shocking, or really unacceptable, and the intonation is super important here. You can´t say, I think it´s outrageous, you have to really emphasise it, what the government is doing right now is outrageous, the price of olive oil now is outrageous. 

Then she said it’s ok to offer incentives to kids as long as you come up with the goods. If you come up with the goods then you deliver on what your promised. Another example would be, the company promised to have the products here by Friday, let’s see if they can come up with the goods. Or, the essay task is challenging, but I’m sure I can come up with the goods and write a decent one. Nice.

What role do grandparents now play in family life in our country? 

Well, Australia is a little bit different to a lot of the European countries where, you know, everybody goes out together, but I would, you know, grandparents here do a lot of helping out with babysitting and that sort of thing. But quite often our families don't live as close to each other as they do in European countries. I'd have to say they're important though, cause I am a grandparent and I have 8 grandchildren, so I'd like to think that I was pretty important in their lives so. 

What do you think of parents rewarding children when they get good results? 

Yeah, that's a tough one. I don't like to criticise younger generations for the way they do things. You know, we all think we're doing the right thing when we're doing it. You know, I think as long as there's a balance and they have boundaries for when they don't do things right as well I, you know, I think that's probably more important as well.

Some wise words from an Australian granny, and an interesting observation about how Australia is different to Europe. In Europe, well at least in certain parts of Europe, it´s common for the whole family to go out for dinner together. In most English-speaking countries, however, kids tend to go to bed quite early, like at 7 o´clock and then the parents might go out for dinner together on their own after that. For any parents of Spanish or Italian kids, try putting them to bed at 7pm and see how you get on, no chance!!!!

Ok guys, that´s a wrap for today. Hopefully I came up with the goods and that was an enjoyable episode throughout. As mentioned earlier please check out the website if you would like any more details about classes or transcripts and thanks very much for listening today, I really appreciate it!

All the best,

Trevor