The "International" Friend


Thanks to the new normal that is COVID-19, my 8 yo daughter had to make new friends (The parents of her old friends weren’t willing to let them play together). As it turned out, her new friend is a kid who goes to an international school (of the real “international” variety: different sylabbus, iPads instead of books, and hi-fi facilities). Therein lies a tale.

I soon realized her  old gang of friends was responsible for her English being cringe-worthy (“Off the light” instead of “Switch off the light” being the worst offender). Because the international kid has caused her spoken English to improve by leaps and bounds in such a short interval. The ultimate proof? My daughter can spew insults in English…

Her Computer Science teacher has this horrible practice of having them write half the answers in the text book, the rest in the note book (I hate it because it means I have to switch books when making her study). So I told her that I’d copy the stuff onto her text book so everything would be in one place.
She: (horrified) “My teacher will know it’s not my handwriting, and I will get scolded.”
Me: (maliciously) “Your problem, not mine.”
She: (demo’ing her recently acquired English skills) “Dad, that is not how they do things these days in modern schools.”
(Adding next) “What you are telling may have worked when you went to school… in the 70’s.”
Before her new friend, she wouldn’t have been able to make a reference to a decade as a sign of ancient-ness.

Of course, her new friend also makes her realize school could be so much better: iPads instead of notebooks, in particular. Too expensive, I said dismissively. A few days later, she came back to the international-schools-are-so-much-better theme saying, “Sometimes, the kid who tops gets an iPad as a reward. If you sent me there, I might win an iPad, and you wouldn’t even have to pay for it.”

All in all, I consider this new friend as positive: after all, every friend’s going to evoke comparisons and complaints about something or the other in your kid. But not every friend can improve your kid’s English…

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