In the mad rush of day—to—day living, we can often forget to find opportunities for our families to relax and have fun together. But having fun is an essential part of growing up. It’s also important toward building a strong family. 【小题1】

It builds family bonds. The family that plays together stays together. Family bonds are built when you do something together that is simply fun. These bonds can last a lifetime. 【小题2】 Family board game night or a trip to the ice cream shop for Friday night dessert are excellent examples. These are the good times and memories that your children will carry with them forever and can even help them deal with more challenging times in their lives.

【小题3】 The more time a family takes to have fun and enjoy life, the more the kids can discover. Even something as simple as going for a walk can reveal something new. Family fun provides opportunities to mix in a little learning. Consider what you can discover from a family visit to a pond or by building a Lego metropolis together in the basement.

It sharpens social skills. The ability to have fun and be fun is an attractive personality trait that children can benefit from in social interactions. 【小题4】 They will pick up more quickly on necessary social cues(线索)and will aid them throughout their lives. Examples of these social cues include knowing when they’ve gone too far or when someone else is no longer having fun. 【小题5】

Long long ago, there was an old man who lived with his son, his daughter-in-law, and a four-year-old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled(颤抖), his eyesight was very poor, and he couldn’t walk steadily (平稳地). The family ate together nightly at the dinner table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating rather difficult. Rice often dropped on the floor.

The son and the daughter-in-law became angry with the old man, so they put a small table in the corner. There, the grandfather ate alone, while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner at the table. Since the grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.

The four-year-old son watched it all in silence. One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with a piece of wood on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, “What are you making?” The boy answered, “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and mama to eat your food from when I grow up.” The four-year-old son smiled and went back to work. The words struck the parents so hard that they were in silence. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks (脸颊). Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took grandfather’s hand and gently led him back to the family table.

At the end of 2019,I learned that Here After AI, whose goal is to let the living communicate with the dead, was looking for applicants of its new AI project. Interested in what it was promising, I applied to experiment the software on my very-much-alive parents.

At first, I thought it would be just a fun project to see what was technologically possible. Then their health condition added some urgency to the experiment. I was frightened that my parents might die since my father had been diagnosed with cancer and my mother was recently developing symptoms of early Alzheimer’s disease, and that with the distance between us, I might never have the chance to say goodbye.

The first step was an interview. My parents were asked questions by a techician for hours-about everything from their earliest memories to what they believe will happen after they die. Whether through illness-generated concerns or a willingness to humor their daughter, my parents put up zero resistance. The company then took their responses and started to create the voice assistants. A few months later, my virtual parents arrived via email attachment.

When I communicated with them through the app on my phone, my hands were shaking. I hadn’t seen my actual, real parents for six months. They told me personal stories I’d never heard. They gave me life advice and told me things about their childhoods, as well as my own. It was mesmerizing.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about my experiment. I’m glad to have my virtual parents. They’ve enabled me to learn new things about my parents, and it’s comforting to think that those softwares will be there even when my parents aren’t. On the other hand, I can’t help but find it sad that it took a stranger interviewing my parents for me to properly appreciate the complex people they are. But I feel lucky to have had the chance to grasp that-and to still have the precious opportunity to spend more time with them and learn more about them, face to face, no technology involved.