The Impact of Parenting to Make a Success Child

Superstars is little more than common sense: that talent alone is not enough to ensure success, that opportunity, hard work, timing and luck play important roles as well.

(Malcolm Gladwell, 2008)

Every people, especially children, have a different family background and it makes them different in their opportunities which can lead them to get success. It happens because the parenting styles of individual parents combine to create a unique blend in each and every child. The atmosphere around them can also influence them to be success. If the atmospheres where they live are good, it can motivate and give the direction to them to be success. Besides, Malcolm Gladwell (2008), who is the author of Outliers’ book, said that there are many things which can affect people’s success, such as opportunity, hard work, family background and many more. One of the important things that affect people’s success is family background and it is directly told in Chris Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer on Malcolm Gladwell’s book. Both Chris Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer were geniuses, but they have a different fate which make them different in their life. Langan cannot undergo the success even though he is smarter than Oppenheimer. It happens because they come from a different family who can make them different on what they are today. Therefore, a good family is able to educate their children, so their children can become a successful person.

Parents are the major influence in their children’s live because they can give a good impact to create a success child. It is determined by a social class in parents. On the Outliers, Annette Lareau (2008), a sociologist who a few years ago conducted a fascinating study of a group of third graders, also said that the wealthier parents raised their children one way while the poorer parents raised their kids another way. Besides, the wealthier children will go to a better school because the sense of entitlement that they have taught is an attitude perfectly suited to succeed in the modern world and it makes them more critical. Based on the family background, Chris Langan came from the poor and working class family which was ignored in people. His parents never taught him how to speak in front of people to convince them, so he grew up without the capability to speak well. It was proved when he was failed to get the scholarship because he could not convince the administrator. On the other hand, Oppenheimer came from the rich and wealthy family, so he could have a chance to study in the well-known school. Besides, he grew up with the ability to speak freely in order to negotiate or argue. For that reason, social class in family can affect children success because people who have a high social class will able to provide their children with many facilities in order to make their children to become a successful person.

A good family is able to manage and support their children’s development, so they can have a better preparation for their future life. How the family treat their children, how they interact with each other and what they expect from their children impact how children growing up in a family development.  Besides, the functions and relationship of members in a family will become so meaningful if that situation happens in every family. According to Annette Lareau (2008), “concerted cultivation”, which foster and assess a child’s talents, opinion and skills, has enormous advantage. If every family always applied “concerted cultivation” on their decision making to develop their children’s ability, it will make their children able to become independent. It happens because their families have painstakingly teaching, nudging, prodding, encouraging and showing them to become comfortable in sharing information to other people. It is directly proved in Chris Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Chris Langan, whose parents did not ever taught him to become comfortable on giving opinion, was a genius in the traditional Chinese sense, and so while he excelled at IQ tests he had issues managing personal emotions and social relationships. J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose parents gave him many facilities in order to make him become success, may have been an accomplished theoretical physicist, but what made him such a brilliant leader on the Manhattan Project was his ability to excite and to inspire, to prod and to cajole, to bring together and to contain all those hundreds of egos, many of whom thought they were God. Those remarkable qualities were somewhat borne out of his Upper East Side breeding and Harvard education, but mostly borne out of all the disappointments and tragedies, loss and pain of a man who had the courage to believe in his future greatness and who had the confidence to pursue it. Therefore, a good family is a family that can create a successful child who can able to be a creative child on making decisions.

Parenting is so important because it can influence children to work hard to get what they want. Besides, hard work is also important to someone's success, because working hard helps the brain develop more than participating with ease. A person can only be born with so much talent, and in order to improve a talent's skill you must work hard. Some one with no talent can advance above someone born with talent . Talent is not gonna cultivate on it's own, it needs a boost to help accelerate the process of true mastery. Every people have always been a pretty fast worker. In order for them to increase their ability, they must increase the difficulty. Increasing the difficulty will cause the brain to multiply its neurons resulting in a stronger and smarter brain. Besides, Malcolm Gladwell (2008) said that family who is the determinant of children’s success has to be able to give support and encourage their children well. What they need to be success is a community around them, which is family that prepared them properly for the world. For that reason, parents should support and motivate with managing their children well, so their children can become a successful person in the future.

Agata Nina Puspita



References:

Gladwell, Malcolm. (2008). Outliers (The Story of Success). New York: Little Brown and Company.

Reflections about American Values

As a big country, America has their own culture which shows who they really are. Therefore, in America, people can or should control their nature because they cannot determine their fate in the future. Many people in America has their own goal in their life, so it is not surprised that most of people in America people assume that time is money because they have to make their own goals come true in their future life. Then, for American, Time is valuable because time controls their goals, so many American do not want to waste their time and they always want to make a precious thing in their own life. For that reason, it is not surprised that people are seen as separate individuals (not group members) with individual needs because they need time to be alone and to be themselves.

In contrary, as an Indonesia and Javanese people, I have a different belief. In my own culture, I have a belief that I have to do all of my works slowly but sure because in Javanese, there is a statement “alon-alon waton kelakon.” From generation to generation, I always do all of my works not in a hurry. In fact, it is so different with American belief that time is money, but in my opinion, every culture has a different beliefs and all of the belief of its culture is good. As a good people, we have to respect each other belief. In the future time, if we always respect each other, misunderstanding will not be happened again.

Besides, For America people, change is seen as positive and good because it means progress, improvement and growth. It is also proved when Einstein made a statement that nothing is forever except change. For that reason, many people in America have a belief that the future will be better and happier because they look to the future and not to the past. In my opinion, it is good to not look the past but the future because as a human, we have to continue our life and we have to make our life better than before.

In America, people have equal opportunities because people are important as individuals, for who they are, not from which family they come. It is true because many people in America assume that they are all human being and all of them are same. Then, most of American has a belief that competition brings out the best in people because they are all same. For that reason, it is not surprised that for America people, honesty is the best policy. There is also a statement in America that one can only trust people who "look you in the eye" and "tell it like it is". It is also proved in their daily activities. In my opinion, it is good because America does not belong to oral community, so if they become honest to each other, it is not surprised. Then, as an Indonesia people, I belong to oral community, so it is awkward for me to say directly to people who are talking to me because I am afraid that I will make them feel upset if tell the truth to them. As a conclusion, it depends on their culture, whether they are America or Indonesia, they are all good because every culture has their own uniqueness. In short, as a good people, we have to respect each other, so the world will be better with much happiness.

Agata Nina Puspita

References:

Herujiyanto, Antonius. American Values (the Handout).

Social Media Bring Unhappiness

Social media is important for communication because it is the media for social interaction and we can get much new information from social media. We can also keep in touch and share our happy life event with many people from many different places. Then, the popularity of the social media increased rapidly in the last decade. This is probably due to the reason that college and university students as well as teens used it extensively to get global access. On the contrary, social media has many negative effects because it can cause people to experience negative feelings and forget their real world. According to a study by the University of Michigan, 2013, college-age adults say they felt bad when using the social media platform. For that reason, usage of social media caused people to feel less happy in the moment and more dissatisfied with their lives.

In addition, according to the study by Berlin's Humboldt University, 2013, social media is the second most common cause of envy because users can compare how many birthday greetings they receive from their social media friends and how many "likes" or comments are made on photos and postings. Then, social media users feel worse about themselves after accessing social media and they will feel jealous when others have something better than them. For Cahya, 2012, a student from Yogyakarta, said that she feels jealous after accessing social media because she thinks that there will be always someone better than her. It does not mater in which aspect, but it is always true. Therefore, social media is not good for people because they will feel inferior to others without a real reason.

Hanna Krasnova, 2013, a researcher from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin's Humboldt University, told that witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and work successes on social media can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness. People will look other people lives and envy them because it is easy for them to become a stalker in social media’s life. Usually, when they become a stalker, people will open and comment on others people “profiles” based on others status and a random picture. Then, in their social media account, people will show what they have with posting the picture of their food, random items, and mostly important, themselves, and it will makes others people jealous. Agatha also agreed that she will show what they have in their social media account because she will feel satisfy after other people know what she has. For that reason, it will appear negative effects because it can cause some to experience negative feelings, which can morph into criticism, judgment and competition with others or even depression and lowered feelings of self.

People do not think of their own life when comparing to others because they will want to have something best without paying attention on their lives after they looked into others people social media. The researchers, 2013, also found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives because they will feel lonely, frustrated and angry. Cahya also feels lonely, frustrated and angry after she saw her friend’s status and photos because she thinks that she cannot do the same thing as her friend did. In fact, if you want to be better than the others, you do not need to improve yourself because you only have to make the others look bad.  Therefore, we should stop to look on someone social media because we have to be grateful for what we already have now.

On social media, people can be anyone they want to be, but they will not know the real person behind the profile and that is bad for society. It is proved by Agnes, 2013, a student from Yogyakarta, because she said that social media makes her become worse every time. In her social media account, she said that she has more than 1000 friends, but she does not know who they are because they often manipulate their profile’s data. She thinks that many people want to show their best with showing and posting anything that they have and it makes her disappointed because they cannot be who they really are. According to Fischer Kristen, the users of social media cannot be happy because they always want more. When they look to other profile, they will be tempted to copy other people, to do the same things, and to act and think like other people. The problem with this is that if they copy someone, they will never know who they really are and what they really want, and then they will never grow spiritually. In consequence, we have to be ourselves, stop to become others and we will accept ourselves as we really are.

Social media users also compete to each other to show who the better one is because they want to become famous. Then, on social media’s life, it is easy to become the famous person because you just need to post your funny video or song cover or many more to get attention. They will instantly get popular because it is easy for other people to look what they are doing in their social media’s profile. After they become famous, social media users will try to beat each other because they will maintain what they already have now and will never let people to take what they have. Agnes has ever experienced it because she has ever posted the video when she was dancing “Gangnam Style” on her high school with her friends. After she posted her video on her social media account, she became famous instantly because she has just posted something different, but she could become famous only 2 weeks. Then, she realized that if she wanted to become famous, she has to post something new every time and it would waste her time. Therefore, if we want to become famous, we have to show who we really are in our real life because we are unique, so we will not waste our time.

In their social media account, people want to other people know that they are better than others because they always show what they have in their social media. On the contrary, it will appear some negative effects because they will do anything be the best in their social media lives. Cahya has ever experienced it after accessing her social media account. She said that she became consumerism because she wanted to show that she also had and bought many things that was popular and could make her happy, such as clothes, cell phone and many more. Therefore, we should limit to buy something useless and be careful of what we will do in the future because we may always want more and we cannot be satisfied of what we already have now.

Social media users become an individual person because they are used to work alone and when they have a problem, they will share it in their social media account.  In 1998, Robert Kraut, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, found that the more people used the Web, the lonelier and more depressed they felt. After people went online for the first time, their sense of happiness and social connectedness dropped, over one to two years, as a function of how often they used the Internet. Agatha Cahya Utami also experienced it because she often feels lonely and depressed when her social media’s friends can post many happy life event with their friends. On the other words, we can try to share our problem with our friends, so we will not feel lonely and depressed.

People become lazy to communicate in the real world because many people become addicted to social media, for example we can easily see people when they are checking their phones to see their texts or social media site and they cannot stop. Agnes rarely opens her social media account because she thinks that if she always opens her account, she will be addicted and will not want to stop posting many things in her social media account. According to the study by University of Michigan, 2013, the social media users feel happy when they can share anything in their social media but they cannot realize how awesome their life is if they can share her experience to other people in their real life. Therefore, let us make a good step for our future life with trying to share our happy life event to others and not often to open our social media account, so we will not get lonely and depressed.

According to the study by University of Michigan, 2013, people always do their own works alone because they are too busy with their social media lives. Besides, many people who have many social media account will avoid face-to-face communication because they think that they have already shared everything in their social media lives and they can also easily getting online friends more than real friends. Cahya has many social media account and she always posts what she has already done in her account. On the other hand, she realizes that it is not good for her because she cannot have much time to socialize with others and it can reduce her communication skills. Therefore, if we always share our activities in social media, we will not be able to communicate and socialize effectively in person with others.

People become addicted to live freedom with their social media’s account because they will feel happy when they can do everything they want and they think that in social media, they can do everything they want to do. On the other hand, social media can be bad for society because kids can go on social media and they begin to lose their social life. They spend most of their time on the internet, when they could be doing something productive. Cahya and Agnes also realize that they cannot focus on their study because they always want to post and know many things as possible as they can know. Even though we can get much information and many friends from social media, we have to pay attention with our lives, so we will live happy.

It is important to limit ourselves from social media because social media bring so much satisfaction, disappointment, comparison, shame, embarrassment and abandonment. If you are feeling a little down or even a little envious, do not beat yourself up about it. It is just a gentle nudge for you to look deeper inside and figure out what direction you want or need to go with your own life. Then, choose wisely how you react because we need to build a good life with our real world and do not let those feelings turn toxic. Instead, we have to be grateful, congratulate others and take the positive energy. In short, we have to limit with enjoying and savoring each moment of our lives with our real friends and try to make a better communication, so we can get a brighter future and a happiness life.

Agata Nina Puspita


References:

Anonymous. (2012, November 2). Negative Effects of Social Networking Sites for Students. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://performancing.com/negative-effects-of-social-networking-sites-for-students/

Bell, Poorna. (2013, August 8). Facebook Is Making Us Unhappy, Fact. We Ask Top Happiness Experts For Advice On Switching Off (PICTURES). Retrieved November 11, 2013 from http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/20/facebook-unhappy-happiness-advice_n_3779510.html

Fischer, Kristen. (2013, October 28). Is social media making you unhappy? Retrieved November 11, 2013 from http://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/1019441/is-social-media-making-you-unhappy

Gluskin, Dawn. (2013, September 11). Is Social Media Making You Unhappy? Retrieved November 10, 2013 from http://www.wellnesstoday.com/inspiration/is-social-media-making-you-unhappy

Goldsmith, Belinda. (2013, January 22). Facebook Study Says Envy Is Rampant On The Social Network. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/facebook-study-envy_n_2526549.html

Konnikova, Maria. (2013, September 10). How Facebook Make us Unhappy. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/the-real-reason-facebook-makes-us-unhappy.html 20 08 2013

Indonesian Food: The Most Colorful Food

By Agata Nina Puspita (121214066)

Indonesia is an archipelago country which has the most colorful food in this world. Every place in Indonesia, from West to East, and from North to South has many different characteristics of food. Each of food has their own recipe and it is different from one food to another. The differences will be seen when all of the traditional food is gathered together because the food comes from different places and it makes the taste of the food different.

Indonesian food is also different with other countries food, because it is influenced by other cuisine, including Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, Indian and Dutch. Many of Indonesian foods have its characteristics and Indonesian people should be proud of their country. For this reason, most of Indonesian foods are spicy because of the influence of various cultures above, so it is not surprising that everyone could easily find chili in Indonesian food. Chili is usually used as herbs seasoning in main course. Then, if there is not any chili, Indonesian people will use sambal (Indonesian term for chili sauce). Sambal from Indonesia is spicy and hot because Indonesian put many chilies in their sambal. In addition, Indonesian foods have also sour and sweet taste, so people can easily find many varieties taste in Indonesian traditional foods. Therefore, for somebody who wants to try Indonesian food for the first time, they should take a taste test because they will get surprised from the food.

Besides, Indonesian has many traditional foods which are so colorful in their varieties and some of them look similar with other countries cuisine. One of the examples is chicken curry from Indian because it will look similar like chicken curry from Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia has many various kind of chicken curry, for example, chicken curry from Aceh and chicken curry from Java. Chicken curry from Aceh will look spicier than chicken curry from Java because Aceh people put many chilies and pepper in their chicken curry, but all of the chicken curry from Indonesia have some similarities in the taste because most of Indonesian people usually put coconut milk (santan) in their chicken curry, so the taste of chicken curry from Indonesia is so tasteful. Then, Indonesian fried rice will look similar like Chinese fried rice, but the color of Indonesian fried rice will be darker because Indonesian put the soy sauce in their food. Therefore, for somebody who wants to know the differences, they have to look at the food carefully, because if they do not look at it carefully, they will not find the differences.

Indonesia, as a unique country, still has one more food which looks similar like other cuisine and it is meatball. Indonesian meatball is so different, because the meat is so soft and delicious. The taste of Indonesian meatball is unique and wonderful because the taste is the combination of sweet, sour and spicy and it also represents every place from Indonesia. Then, fantastically, during a state dinner in Jakarta, Obama as the president of United States of America tried Indonesian foods and Indonesian should be proud because it is one of the precious moments. “Meatball soup, fried rice ... it is all delicious!” said Obama with a huge smile. Besides, Ken Woytisek, chef instructor in Asian cuisines at the Culinary Institute of America's St. Helena, Calif., campus, agreed, saying “The Indonesian version really does tend to be the king, the real granddaddy of all of the southeast Asian beef ball brethren.” “It is the whole idea of Asian beef balls taken to a higher realm. They are just better tasting” said Ken.

Wonderfully, based on the survey from CNN, Indonesian rendang is the tastiest food because in 2011 CNN International viewers voted rendang to the top among “The World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods.” Indonesian people are so surprised, but most of them agreed that rendang is the tastiest food because it is very delicious. In their opinion, it is also comparable, because if they want to make rendang, they have to spend many difficult processes and it will take a long time. Therefore, because of the difficult processes it will make the recipe spread out into the meat and it also make the texture of the meat becoming so soft. In fact, Indonesian put many herbs seasoning in their rendang, so it is not surprising that Indonesian rendang is so spicy and tasteful. Then, for those people who have not tried rendang, they have to eat rendang because they will want to eat rendang again after they try to eat rendang.

As a result, Indonesia is so colorful in their uniqueness because Indonesia has more than hundred foods. For that reason, Indonesian people should promote their food more. If they always promote their food, it will make people all over the world know that Indonesian food has many varieties of traditional food and the taste of each food is also varieties. In short, Indonesia will become famous because their food is the most colorful food.

References:

Cheung, T. (2011, September 7). Your pick: World's 50 best foods. Retrieved September 16, 2013 from http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/eat/readers-choice-worlds-50-most-delicious-foods-012321

SBS Food. (2008, July 1). Indonesian food is one of the most vibrant and colourful cuisines in the world, full of intense flavour. Over the centuries many different races have visited and left their stamp on the cuisine – Indian, Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, English and Dutch. Retrieved September 15, 2013 from http://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2008/07/01/about-indonesian-food

The Associated Press. Bakso: The Indonesian meatball soup President Obama loved as a child. Retrieved September 16, 2013 from http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/bakso-indonesian-meatball-soup-president-obama-loved-child-article-1.454324#ixzz2g4w9VCJL