Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 558, Being a Strict Parent.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 558.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is called Being a Strict Parent.
It's a dialogue between Allison and Ola.
And you're going to learn about this particular parent and all of the rules that she wants her granddaughter to follow.
Let's get started.
I'm almost ready for my granddaughter's visit.
She'll be here tomorrow, and I want everything to be perfect.
I'm going to spoil her rotten.
My daughter is very strict and doesn't allow her to do anything that a normal ten-year-old wants to do.
Well, her time is very structured and regimented.
She's never allowed any time for just frivolous fun.
And you're taking off the shackles.
That's right.
She can play as much as she wants to for the next week.
I don't want her to miss out on any experiences just because her mother is overprotective.
There will be no curfews and no time schedules.
Are you sure that's a good idea?
Yeah.
I'm sure your daughter has instructions about how your granddaughter should behave and the punishments she should get if she misbehaves.
You're right about that.
I'm expecting a long list of rules for my granddaughter while she's here, but she shouldn't expect me to toe the line.
I'm the grandmother, after all, so I have special privileges.
Nobody tells me what to do with my own granddaughter.
How did a free spirit like you end up with a daughter who is so uptight?
Beats me.
She's not going to thank you for spoiling her daughter, you know.
I know, but I'm her mother and there's still a thing or two I can teach her about raising a daughter.
Allison begins our dialogue by saying, I'm almost ready for my granddaughter's visit.
Her granddaughter would of course be the daughter of either her son or daughter.
She'll be here tomorrow and I want everything to be perfect.
Ola says, what do you have planned?
Allison replies, I'm going to spoil her rotten.
To spoil S-P-O-I-L someone rotten.
R-O-T-T-E-N means to do something nice for another person, especially a child.
Never doing anything negative, never yelling at them, always doing nice things for them, giving them whatever they want, for example.
Most parents try not to spoil their children, meaning they don't want their children to get used to getting good things all the time, and then, when they don't get good things, they don't behave or they don't act appropriately.
This expression actually can also refer to vegetables or fruit or meat, any type of food that after a few days will begin to go bad so that you can't eat it anymore.
That means it's no longer something you can eat because it's gone bad.
Allison says, and doesn't allow her to do anything that a normal 10 year old wants to do.
To be strict means to insist that someone follow all of the rules without making any exceptions.
You must do everything according to the rules.
So a strict parent is someone who has a lot of rules for their children and expects them to follow all of these rules.
Ola says, like what?
Meaning, give me an example of one of these rules.
Allison says, well, her time is very structured and regimented.
To say something is structured means that it has a lot of organization.
It's very organized.
It can't be changed.
We might say it's inflexible.
You can't change it.
Structure has a couple of different meanings in English, however.
You can get the other meanings by going to our website and downloading the learning guide for this episode.
Regimented means with a definite order, a definite discipline, almost like the military, almost like the army.
In fact, the word regiment can also mean a group of soldiers.
Here it simply means very ordered, very disciplined, not changing.
Allison says her granddaughter is never allowed any time for just frivolous fun.
Something that is frivolous.
F-R-I-V-O-L-O-U-S is something just for fun, something that isn't serious, something that has no important meaning.
Sometimes frivolous can be a criticism, meaning someone isn't very serious, they don't take anything seriously.
Here it just means fun just to have fun, no educational or other purposes for it.
Ola says, and you're taking off the shackles.
To take off is a phrasal verb meaning to remove.
Shackles are fun literally heavy pieces of metal that you put around someone in prison on their arms and sometimes on their legs.
So shackles would be something that you would put on a prisoner, someone in jail.
Here, the expression means to remove restrictions or limitations.
To take off the shackles doesn't mean that her granddaughter is actually wearing shackles.
We hope not.
It means that the grandmother wants to remove these rules and strict regulations that her granddaughter has to follow from her mother.
This, of course, is what grandparents often do.
When they have their grandchildren over, they feel they can be as nice to them, not have to discipline them, because after all, that's the job of the parent.
I never knew my grandmothers, so I don't know if that's true.
They were dead by the time I was old enough to know who they were.
In this dialogue, Allison says that she's going to take off the shackles from her granddaughter.
She says she can play as much as she wants to for the next week.
I don't want her to miss out on any experiences.
To miss out on something is a phrasal verb meaning not to be able to enjoy or participate in something.
To miss an opportunity.
Don't miss out on seeing the movie tomorrow.
That means don't miss the opportunity when you have it to do that thing.
Miss is a verb that has several different meanings also.
You know where you can find those in this episode's learning guide.
Allison says she doesn't want her granddaughter to miss out on any experiences just because, or only because, her mother is overprotective.
Someone who is protective tries to keep someone else safe.
But to be overprotective means that you're trying to protect them so much that you are taking away their legitimate freedom.
You're not allowing them to live a normal life because you're protecting them too much.
Sometimes parents can be overprotective of their children.
Husbands may be overprotective of their wives.
In this case Allison, is saying that the mother of her granddaughter, her daughter, is overprotective.
Allison says there will be no curfews or time schedules.
A curfew C-U-R-F-E-W is the time when someone, usually a child or a young adult, must be home and after which they cannot go outside again.
Some places have official curfews saying that anyone who is less than 18 years old, for example, must be at home or with one of their parents.
Usually parents have curfews for their high school children, telling them they need to be home before say, 11 o'clock at night or later.
10 o'clock at night on days when there is school.
Those are curfews.
Governments sometimes, when there is a lot of violence in a particular place, will have a curfew.
My parents never gave me a curfew.
I think they expected that I would behave myself and not get into trouble and be home at a reasonable time.
I have however, lived under one case of a curfew from the government in 1992 after the riots, the violent actions of some people after a certain court case had finished.
The riots caused the police here to issue a curfew.
You could not be out on the street after the sun went down.
That lasted I think for about a week or so.
I wasn't actually living in the city of Los Angeles at the time so it didn't affect me very much.
That's quite unusual however, for the government to impose or to tell people they have to abide or follow a curfew.
Well, Allison will have no curfews for her granddaughter.
Ola says I'm sure your daughter has instructions about how your granddaughter should behave, should act and the punishments she should get if she misbehaves.
A punishment is something you make someone do if they've done something wrong.
If you commit a crime, the government will give you, for example, a punishment of going to prison for a year.
To misbehave is the opposite of to behave.
To behave means to act properly, act appropriately.
To misbehave means to do things wrong.
We use this word in talking about children.
The children are misbehaving.
My neighbor's children are misbehaving every day, right outside my window.
Allison says, you're right about that.
You're right about my daughter having these punishments.
I'm expecting a long list of rules for my granddaughter while she's here.
But she shouldn't expect me to toe, T-O-E, the line.
To toe the line means to follow the rules, to do what you are told to do.
Allison says, In other words, grandmothers can do what they want with their grandchildren.
Ola said, How did a free spirit like you end up with a daughter who is so uptight?
Uptight is the opposite of Uptight, U-P-T-I-H-T, one word, means to be very worried, anxious, not relaxed.
Uptight is really an insulting term.
It's a negative way to describe someone.
Just because a parent has rules doesn't mean they're uptight.
But Ola uses the word to describe Allison's daughter.
Allison answers his question.
The expression beats B-E-A-T-S me is an informal one used to show that you don't know the answer to something.
Someone says If you don't know, you could say Ola says, When somebody uses the expression, a thing or two.
They mean many things, especially when you're talking about how much a person knows about something.
Someone says, do you know about iTunes or podcasting?
And if you do, you could say, I know a thing or two, meaning you probably know a lot about it.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm almost ready for my granddaughter's visit.
She'll be here tomorrow and I want everything to be perfect.
What do you have planned?
I'm going to spoil her rotten.
My daughter is very strict and doesn't allow her to do anything that a normal ten-year-old wants to do.
Like what?
Well, her time is very structured and regimented.
She's never allowed any time for just frivolous fun.
And you're taking off the shackles, That's right.
She can play as much as she wants to for the next week.
I don't want her to miss out on any experiences just because her mother is overprotective.
There will be no curfews and no time schedules.
Are you sure that's a good idea?
I'm sure your daughter has instructions about how your granddaughter should behave and the punishments she should get if she misbehaves.
You're right about that.
I'm expecting a long list of rules for my granddaughter while she's here, but she shouldn't expect me to toe the line.
I'm the grandmother, after all, so I have special privileges.
Nobody tells me what to do with my own granddaughter.
How did a free spirit like you end up with a daughter who's so uptight?
Beats me.
She's not going to thank you for spoiling her daughter, you know.
I know, but I'm her mother and there's still a thing or two I can teach her about raising a daughter.
Our scriptwriter knows a thing or two about writing dialogues.
You know her as Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
