When I was a teenager growing up in France, I wanted to leave school and have ________ own life. The only way I could do this was to work in the local paper factory in my town or get married. I was very nervous when I told my ________ I wanted to leave school. I thought he would say, “No! You are going to college.” I was very ________ when he said, “OK. Let’s go to the paper factory.”

Two days later, he took me to the factory. I imagined everyone to be friends, ________ together and having fun. I even imagined there would be music and singing. I ________, I had watched too many movies as a teenager.

When we arrived at the factory gate, my father spoke to the guard and one minute later we were inside. I walked around the factory looking at the building, the workers and listening to the noise. It was terrible. I ________ from the building and hurried towards to my father and said, “I want to go home.”

He asked me, “What do you think of the factory?”

“Too bad,” I answered.

“And marriage is even ________!” he said.

I went back to school the next day thinking about studying hard ________ I could get into a good college. I enjoyed studying English so I decided to major in(主修) languages at college. Thanks to my father taking me to the paper factory and helping me to deal with my trouble ________, I now work at the United Nations and my father ________ me. I married a very good man and my life is much better than it would have been working in the factory!

Something that I learnt from my parents was the importance of having respecting for other people. I remember one day when we were travelling on a bus and I sat down while other people were standing. My mother shouted at me, “Get up immediately! You have young legs and you don’t need to sit down.” At the time, I felt unhappy about being punished in ________, but now I understand. I think children nowadays have ________ that respect and it really makes me angry if I see children sitting down while ________ people are standing.

One area in which we had a lot of rules was table ________. For example, we weren’t allowed to start our meal ________ the oldest person had started. We had to say “thank you” when our food was ________, and eat everything on our plates before we could ________ the table. We couldn’t make any noise when eating. Worse than that, we were only allowed to have sweets at weekends, as a special treat if we had been good.

Although my upbringing (养育) was perhaps a bit ________ compared with modern children, I’m very thankful to my parents for giving me a clear ________ in life. Even though I was sometimes ________, I think it has made me a better person. In my view, children need clear rules, but more than that they need to learn how to get on with other people and realize they are not the center of the world.

Chinese are very generous (慷慨的) when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the good schools or even abroad. They believe that the more children’s education _______, the better it will be. So parents will spend a lot of money on their children’s education _______ they are not rich.

The problem is that parents are only educating their children on _______ to pass tests and how to study well, but they aren’t teaching them the most important skills _______ they need. Parents can achieve this _______ teaching their children skills like doing housework.

Teaching a child to cook will improve many skills that _______ will need later in life. Cooking needs patience and time. It is an interesting but difficult _______. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking skills, so he will work hard and _______ finish his job successfully.

Some _______ machines, such as broken radio or TV set that you give your child to play with will make him interested in things and want to know more. He will spend hours ________ them and trying to fix them. These activities can teach him to use his mind and make him more confident (自信的).