3 . He passed away many years ago. Father of the year (年度最佳父亲), my dad was not. That said, in some ways, he was a better parent than many dads are today.

He loved to attend my hockey (曲棍球) games. He tied my skates for years when I was young. But he didn’t go to a single one of the hundreds of soccer games I played as a kid. I didn’t care. All I wanted from my parents was a ride to the game. I was there to see my friends, not perform for Mom and Dad.

That’s why I don’t understand helicopter parents, the ones who suffer from great guilt and shame if they can’t make every single piano practice or football game. Your kids probably don’t care. Let them go and have some fun. All that matters is that you drop them off and pick them up on time. Consistency is king.

Of course, when kids are really young, they want to spend time with you. And they want you, the parent, to be focused on spending time with them, not checking your phone. “Wherever you are, be there,” said the great Jim Rohn.

My dad never had a cell phone. He never used the Internet. I don’t even think he ever touched a computer. But even if he did have a phone, I can’t imagine him checking when we would play catch in the backyard.

He was present. Every day in the summer, right after lunch, we’d play catch. He’d teach me how to throw a curve ball (曲线球). Sometimes he’d pitch to me, and when he’d hit me with a fastball, he’d say, “That’ll toughen you up.” We’d play until we lost all of the balls in the garden, not until he was distracted by a cellphone. Jim Rohn would have approved of his presence, although perhaps not his attitude about fastballs.

4 . How to Teach Your Child to Be a Good Friend

Your child who struggles with making friends and maintaining friendships may exhibit some behavioral issues. Physical aggression and name-calling often arise. A quiet character and social anxiety can also lead to difficulty making friends    1    

Instill self-esteem(灌输自尊思想). The first step in teaching your child to be a good friend is to teach them to take pride in themselves.    2    Additionally, a child with a strong sense of self will build healthier friendships down the road.

Teach social skills.    3    Role-play with your child to teach them how to have polite conversations with others. Practise taking turns, sharing, respecting other people’s boundaries, and showing care for their feelings. Your child also needs to know how to apologize, argue with a friend respectfully and listen to others.

    4    From Frog and Toad to Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, children’s literature is filled with strong friendships. Use books as an opportunity to talk about what makes those friendships work, and what qualities the characters displayed to develop their friendships.

Find teachable moments. As a parent, you may run into situations where your child doesn’t act like the best friend they could be. Your child may have moments of conflict, drama and fights with their friends. Try to turn these moments into teachable moments.    5    Eventually, they’ll get the hang of it. With your guidance and a little practice, your child will turn into a caring, kind and trustworthy friend.

5 . When I was about seven years old, my mother often told me that pork needed to be cooked thoroughly-the harder, the better, because if there was even a little bit of pink in your pork，you could get Trichinosis (旋毛虫病).I didn’t know what Trichinosis was. However, it was described to me as a terrible disease that I didn’t want to get. Therefore, in my life, I hadn’t eaten any pork product before checking to see if it was fully cooked. On most days, I even refused to eat any pork.

Years later, I became a middle-aged father. I was eating dinner in a friend’s house and she was serving pork. I was terrified at some pink in it. I immediately explained to our host and the other guests the danger that was clearly present in this meal. I insisted that the pork should be cooked further, thinking that I had saved everyone with my quick-thinking and keen awareness.

It was only after I went home that evening that I decided to see how many people in our country actually got Trichinosis. I checked online and found out there were less than 15 cases in the entire country that year, and I wasn’t even sure those were from eating undercooked pork.

As adults, we may say things casually to children because we want them to be safe. We may make things seem more dangerous or worse than they actually are. After all, we want children to take what we say seriously. However, we can also overemphasize something and cause fear in children that they may carry with them for the rest of their lives. The bottom line is that our children are listening to us all of the time, and we are setting a good example to them about how adults communicate.

8 . When reading, my mother likes to slice a paragraph or a sentence out and attach it to the wall of her kitchen. She picks boring sentences that puzzle me. But I prefer copying favorite bright lines into a journal in soft, gray No. 2 pencil, word by word.

She doesn’t know any of this. There's nothing shocking: for our chatting. we seldom begin certain conversations though we talk on the phone weekly, sometimes making each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we don't say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything that really upsets us.

My mother has never told me “I love you, Lisa.”—as if the four-word absence explains who I am—so I carry it with me, like a label on me. The last time she almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me a friend had been in hospital. I said, “I love you, Mom.” She stopped for a while and then said, “Thank you.” I haven't said it since, but I've wondered why my mother doesn't until I've found a poem that supplies words for the blank spaces I try to understand in our conversations:

Don’t fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servings here are huge.

My son, middle-aged, says: Did you really just say that to me?

What he doesn’t know is that when we’re walking together, I desire to reach for his hand.

It's humble, yet heartbreaking. After copying it down in my journal, I emailed it to mom, adding “This poem makes me think of you.” My mother doesn’t read poetry—or at least, she doesn’t tell me, and I felt nervous clicking “Send”.

She never mentioned the poem. But the next time I went home for vacation, I noticed something new in the kitchen fixed to an antique board: the poem. The board hung above the heater, the warmest spot in the kitchen. The poem still hangs there. Neither my mother nor I have ever spoken about it.

10 . Yesterday, after arriving in Madrid, I knocked on a stranger’s door. “I searched on the website. Will you give me lessons?” I asked. This was the reason I’d come to Spain. Because I once believed I was meant to be a female flamenco (弗拉门戈) guitarist.

Forty-five years ago, when I was two, my father also came to Madrid and knocked on strangers’ doors. A well-known classical guitarist, he admired flamenco a lot, and in Spain he learnt from anyone willing to teach him. He approached performers in bars, made friends with street musicians and managed to study with Paco de Lucia, the greatest flamenco guitarist of our time.

I started playing classical guitar when I was five. My father’s hands exploded across the strings like fireworks. I practised while he instructed and criticized. I played till I had sharp pain in my fingertips. By age seven, I was called a child genius.

Then, at 11, I quit. Heartbroken, my father distanced himself. Guiltily, I followed suit. Soon we spoke only when necessary. Our relationship didn’t rebound until, in my early 20s, I found myself pulled back to guitar.

When I was in my early 30s, he got sick. Before he died a few years later, my father told me there were almost no female flamenco guitarists in the world. If I kept practising, I could be one of the first. I promised, and he left me his guitar. But after he died, I couldn’t bear to play it. He’d spent so much time with his arms around that instrument, and it seemed an extension of his own body. Holding it gave my grief an unbearable tangibility (可触知). So for 13 years it sat mostly untouched, coming out only when my son Ellis begged to see it. He was careful with his grandfather’s instrument in a way that made me want to pass it down to him — both the guitar and the music. Problem was, I couldn’t really play anymore.

Now, Antonia is sitting with me in her living room, teaching me patiently. I have been here for only two days, and already my fingers hurt. It’s a sharp pain, like when a fallen-asleep limb (肢体) returns to life. The feeling delights me. It means I’m doing something right.