4.05
Part I
Dear Dad,
I am extremely thankful for your love, care, and support throughout my life. I appreciate your willingness to reason with me as well as your occasional inspirational speeches that always make me want to work harder. Because of you, my life today is exactly where I like it. I enjoy the diverse talents that I know have because of your persistence for me to join. I study and work hard because of your motivation. I learned how to play golf because of your curiosity. You let me take piano classes because of your love of music. Everything you have pursued for me has made me enjoy my life and I would not want it any other way. The traits I love most about you are your leadership skills, friendliness, and logical reasoning. Whenever there is confusion, you are always ready to step up and sort it out. Your friendliness and kindness makes it enjoyable not only for me to be around you but other people as well. Without your logical reasoning, I am not sure where I would be today. You are almost always right when making decisions because you think each step through before deciding on anything. These are the traits I would never want you to change.
There are so many great qualities about you, it is difficult to come up with a trait that I would like you to change. If I had to choose, it would be to have you be more involved in my studies. Most of the time, you do know most of what I am learning and doing but sometimes I feel it would be more beneficial if you had a more specific idea of what exactly I do in school.
Throughout my life, you have been my main influence about everything. What I have always loved about our family is that you voice your opinion and then let us come up with our own. Most of the time, I tend to agree with you because your opinion just seems logical. Almost everything I have learned and based decisions on is because of your influence. Throughout my life, that has been my main influence. The two main fields of influence are cognitive and moral development. As a child, I was always taught how to reason and think logically. But most importantly, I was taught proper manners and etiquette. It was very important for me to learn how to be polite and patient with others and myself. Moral development also taught me right from wrong, which was sometimes hard for me to grasp.
Part II
Today, my parents are more authoritative. They let me reason with rules and are always consistent with behavior. For example, if there is a rule set into place and I do not agree with it, they are open to my suggestions and agreeable to compromise. Also, my parents praise often and are very effective encouragers. Yet at the same time, they let me know when I have let them down. When I was younger, their parenting style was slightly more authoritarian, but still mainly authoritative. Recently, the style has slightly shifted to a more permissive authoritative parenting style. I have seen more independence develop from me and rules are less strict.
My parents’ style of parenting has brought me to a point of not total independence and not total reliability on them as well. They have taught me to become strong mentally and emotionally, as well as imposing strong leadership skills within me. Their somewhat strict sets of rules when I was younger taught me proper morals and ethics, which I still follow today (I am very persistent on rules). The have also taught me to be socially active with people and always give people a second chance. Finally, they have taught me to look for the best in people, but also let people know when I do not agree with something they do. My parents have influenced me in many positive ways, which I am grateful for.