Just Bite Your Tongue

My dad is my favorite person in the whole world. Nobody else understands me like he does, and we are the same person at heart. He has taught me to respect people and my authorities. No matter how wrong somebody is, respect them and just bite my tongue. This I believe.

When my dad walks in the door after he gets off work on the nights my brother and I stay at his house, the first thing he usually asks is, “How was your day?”. Most of the time we just answer good or alright, but sometimes I will tell him about all of the people that succeeded in making my day horrible. Usually these people are my teachers or my mom over the last couple of days. Then I get the talk about how I have to respect my teachers, no matter how much smarter than them I think I am. He also tells me that my mom is the only one I have and that I need to respect her also. The things he has taught me help me a lot. I have very little problems with other people that are spoken out loud and I would like to think other people have some respect for me and notice this too.

No matter how right or wrong they are, my dad has taught me to respect my authorities. I never realized it growing up, but I have never openly disrespected an adult besides my parents on occasion. When I was around six, I was babysat by my neighbor who lived in a purple house. She was really mean to me and only believed the things her two boys said. One day I brought my Uno cards over so I could play a game of Uno with the kids that were there. My babysitter Lisa put them on the top of the fridge and told me to wait until the youngest kid took a nap. Later on, the youngest boy went upstairs to grab them off the fridge. So, I was going to try and be sneaky and put the cards back on the fridge. Lisa caught me and thought that I took the cards and when I tried to tell her the story she didn’t believe me. She sat me in time-out for hours and kept yelling at me and calling me a liar, but I never said anything mean to her. When my mom came to get me, she told her that I was screaming I hate you and a whole bunch of things that I know I would not say because I would get in trouble with my parents.

Every time I might say something rude or disrespectful to somebody I always think about the situation. I ask myself, does this person deserve these words? And, what would my dad think? Now, I don’t always say what I would want my parents to hear but I try to think about my consequences. My dad taught me well and I have great respect for him and I always will. When I try to speak out of anger I always hear in my head, “Just bite your tongue”. I believe that anything that makes you angry is treated better with silence than it is with words.