—________You have been playing computer games all morning.

　From my second grade on, there was oneevent I feared every year; the piano recital(独奏演唱会).A recital 1 I had to practice a boring piece of music and performbefore strangers. Each year I 2ask my father if I could skip therecital “just this once”. And each year he'd shake his head, muttering(嘀咕) 3about building self－confidence and working towards a 4.

      So it was with really great5that I stood in church one recent Sunday, videocamera in hand, and 6my 68－year－old father sweating in his shirt 7risingto play the piano in his very first recital.

      My father had longed to play music since childhood, but his family was poor andcouldn't 8 lessons. He could have gone on regretting it, 9toomany of us do. But though he was rooted in his past, he wasn't10there.When he retired three years ago, he 11 his church music director totake him as a student.

      For a moment after my father sat down at the keyboard, he 12stared downat his fingers. Has he forgotten the 13？ I worried, remembering those splitseconds14ago when my mind would go blank and my fingers would 15.But then came the beautiful melody(旋律)，from the 16fingers thatonce baited(装饵于)my fishing lines. And I17he had been doing what music teachersalways stress：18themusic and pretend the others aren't there.

      “I'm19of him for starting something new at his age，” I said to my son Jeff.

      “Yeah,and doing it so20 ， ”Jeff added.

       With his first recital, my father taught me more about courage and determinationthan all the words he used those 30－plusyears ago.

Parents are creating an “I want it now” generation by indulging children's every demand at Christmas，say experts.Youngsters are becoming increasingly selfish，claim the education analysts.

     Consumer­savvy children are forcing their families into racking up huge debts and risk becoming spoilt and dissatisfied in the future.

Behavioural consultant Chris Calland said，“Parents are desperate to make Christmas into a magical fairy tale for their kids.There's nothing wrong with that as such.The problem arises when it means always giving into all our children's demands—even if they are beyond our price range or not ageappropriate.”

Ms Calland，who runs “Santa Says No” style sessions with colleague Nicky Hutchinson，added，“Many of us go into so much debt providing the gifts our children want that we spend the rest of the year paying off the bills.Yet so often the parcels we've carefully wrapped，once opened，are just pushed away because the very thing our little boy or girl was once so desperate for，they have now lost interest in.”

Ms Calland and Ms Hutchinson have drawn up a list of guidelines to help pare nts manage their offspring's Christmas lists this year.They say that adults can actually improve their relationships with their children by resisting “pester (纠缠) power”．

Ms Calland said，“All too often we say yes because we want an easier life when the fact is that we're only building up problems for the future.We are helping create a generation of youngsters who are blind to the needs of others and the necessity of hard work.”

   “Children learn fast—if we sometimes change our mind，they quickly realise it might be worth lying on the floor and screaming for it.Make sure you and your partner are working together on this.Be consistent.And try not to get caught up in competition with other families or friends.”