How To Talk To Kids About Difficult Topics?

My daughter, Tina, locked herself in her room, crying so hard her body shook. I pried the door open and saw that she was clutching a test paper that was torn to shreds and pieced back together. It was a math Olympiad selection test. She should have gotten a perfect score, but was given a score of zero instead. "Mom," she sobbed, "the teacher said 3x5 is not equal to 5x3; that it's taking shortcuts. She tore my paper up in front of everyone, revoked my eligibility for the competition, and told the whole class not to talk to me…" I looked at the deep red scratch marks on my daughter's wrist and immediately picked up the phone to call the principal. "What good does it do for your school's reputation to drive a kid who loves math to their breaking point?"

Ever since I find out that my CEO husband, Rowan Goodwin, is incapable of letting his first love, Megan Dolton—who's divorced and has a child of her own—go, I begin teaching our son, Ryan Goodwin, to address Rowan as "Mr. Goodwin" all the time. When Ryan is burning up with a fever, Megan chooses to summon Rowan away from us in the middle of the night. As I caress Ryan's scalding forehead, I instruct him to tell Rowan, "Goodbye, Mr. Goodwin." When Rowan has agreed to attend the teacher-parent conference with Ryan, Megan calls him with tears streaking down her cheeks, claiming that her own son, Nelson Herrera, doesn't have a father to accompany him. So, Rowan doesn't hesitate to ditch us once again. Without bothering to raise my head, I pass my phone to Ryan so that he can take leave for "Mr. Goodwin" in the parents' group chat. Every time, Ryan always hesitates for a long time before carrying out my orders. Later on, Rowan finally realizes that he has owed us far too much. So, he takes the initiative to suggest that we take a family portrait together. When we reach the photography studio, Megan calls Rowan once again. Her sobs can be heard drifting from the loudspeaker. "Rowan, can you please come over and pick Nelson up from school? The children at the kindergarten keep making fun of him for not having a father…" Pity crosses Rowan's expression immediately. He's about to crouch down and explain to Ryan when the latter just waves airily at him without me having to nudge him. "It's fine, Mr. Goodwin. You should accompany the other child. Mommy and I are the only ones needed for the family portrait."

My daughter Lyra believed the Moon Goddess had given our kind one virtue above all others: honesty. So she never told a single lie. I put on a newly bought lipstick and turned in front of the mirror. "Sweetheart, does Mommy look pretty today?" She glanced up at me. "Honestly, Mommy, you were ugly to start with, and that color only makes it worse." One evening I was scrambling around the kitchen while my mother-in-law scolded me for not being able to cook a decent meal. I asked Lyra, "Grandma says Mommy's useless. Does that upset you?" She kept stacking her blocks. "Honestly, I'm actually glad you're getting scolded." That night, while my husband read her a bedtime story, he asked whether she would take care of me when I was old and could no longer walk. She thought it over seriously, then rolled onto her other side. "No way. A useless wolf should just go off and die on its own." Something in me went cold. She only grinned. "But I'm just telling the truth." Later, when a caseworker from the Pup Welfare Council came to register us for the census and asked Lyra a few routine questions, she insisted on telling nothing but the truth. This time, though, it was a truth she would regret for the rest of her life.

The people have elected a new president. The first thing he did was conscript children into a school for future soldiers, and not a single human rights organization found out. Selena was one of those children. She was twelve when soldiers at school picked her up from school, rode a chopper, and disappeared They brought her to a garrison along with hundreds of children like her. There, she met friends she'd do anything to protect.

My mom is terrified of being laughed at by others the most. Whenever the holidays are here, she will keep repeating one sentence to me—"Don't go around embarrassing me." When my relatives gather around and chat with each other, I accidentally knock a fruit platter over. Mom drags me over and slaps me on the spot. At the holiday feast, I grab extra pieces of steak for myself. Mom responds by kicking my chair over. When it's time for the holiday gifts to be distributed, my aunt, Gabriella Hall, has miscalculated the number of children present among the family. So, she has prepared one less gift for the occasion. Mom doesn't hesitate to kick me out of the apartment, leaving me shivering in the cold corridor in just my indoor clothes. The icy winds chill me to the bone. I keep slamming my palms on the front door while screaming and crying my apologies at Mom, and yet she remains unmoved and silent. Instead, she turns to face Aunt Gabriella with an apologetic smile on her face. "I'm really sorry. I didn't raise my daughter well. It's only fair that you ridicule me." What Mom doesn't know is that I get triggered whenever I hear the word "ridicule" thanks to her so-called parenting lessons. Whenever I hear that word, I want nothing more than to hurt myself uncontrollably. So when I hear the word "ridicule" coming out of Mom's mouth through the front door, I turn on my heel quietly and begin making my way toward the bridge next to the neighborhood that's plunged into darkness. The moment I jump from the bridge, the only thought I have is, "Mom, no one will ridicule you because of me this time."

"Mommy, you have to be the first person to come pick me up, okay?" These are my daughter Dorothy Grant's final words to me when she walked me out of the house this morning. But when I stand at the kindergarten's entrance with a box of Dorothy's favorite strawberry shortcake in my hands, the security guard just stares at me as though I lost my mind. "Ma'am, this place might be where Sunflower Kindergarten is located, but it has already closed its doors for three years. This place is now a retirement home." I rush into the "kindergarten" instantly. The spot where the slide used to be is now replaced by a row of flowerbeds. The room that used to be the classroom now hosts a bunch of elderly people, who bask in the sunlight. With trembling hands, I call my husband, Chester Grant, on the phone. He sounds very exasperated and exhausted over the phone. "Honey, we've been married for five years, and we choose to be childless. You've never given birth before."