谢振礼 托福范文: 功课游戏
TOEFL Independent Writing
Topic:
Should parents spend more time to play with children or to help them with their study?
Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Essay:
However busy today’s parents may be, they should spend quality time with their children. Quality time must include not only playing with children but also helping them with their school work. Since positive parent-child relationships are built on quality time, it is prudent to balance children’s playing time and learning time.
On the one hand, while children do need time to play alone and with other children without adult intervention, playtime with parents is necessary, too. Parents are encouraged to find time to play with their children on a regular basis, if only for fun activities. Among other examples, parents and children can play outdoors—throwing balls, going on a hike around the neighborhood, or taking a nature walk in the backyard. As well, they can play games indoors—card games, board games, even silly games to enjoy fun time together. Those moments are indeed quality time because playing with children strengthens a bond that will last a lifetime. In a positive sense, it can be said that a family that plays together stays strongly together, and that is why some people think parents should spend more quality time to play with children than to help them with their study.
On the other hand, when parents spend quality time on helping children with their homework, the children usually do better academically. To begin with, parents need to monitor the child’s daily assignments, so that the child can get homework done. And for that end, parents can help by setting aside a special place at home to study and removing distractions such as television, video games, and social phone calls during homework time. This kind of parental involvement in homework can play an active role in putting children in the best position to succeed in getting better grades (on average), especially in their early years. Besides, such involvement can also let children feel that their parents care for them and are interested in their academic performance. Accordingly, it is believed by others that parents should spend more quality time to help their children seriously with their study than to play with them just for fun.
As a balance, parents should spend time on playing with their children while alternatively monitoring their children’s learning time. It is not so much about the lengths of time that parents should spend with their children as about how to create quality time on which parent-child relationships are built. No matter how busy parents are, there is no excuse whatever to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to their children.
