Irene S., Hadley E. Watts Middle School
Helping Others is Fun
My little sister isn’t the best at academics, so I was asked, by my parents, to tutor her. Although she is irritating most of the time, I enjoy helping others so I agreed. I clearly remember sitting down with her and discussing a variety of strategies to help her with addition, subtraction, and spelling. As we continued to work together, she started grasping the concept and was getting almost all the answers correct.
This experience made me feel good about myself because I felt like a teacher, and I could see her improvement immensely, someone excelling always brings me joy. She started to improve when I had a positive attitude and was more friendly. She felt more comfortable and not intimidated by me like she was before. She relied on me whenever she needed help and that was a comforting feeling, the feeling you matter and someone looks up to you. This raised my self-esteem because I was feeling down at that time and like I felt like I was worthless. Someone looking up to me made me forget all those bad thoughts that made me think I wasn’t good enough.
The most rewarding part of this experience was when she hugged me and said, "You''re my favorite sister, thank you for helping me," After this, I looked forward to tutoring her, and I didn’t mind helping her an hour every day for a few weeks because I was having fun. I always tend to give more when I’m having a good time because it doesn’t feel like a chore and I always feel happy when I tutor her. “Happiness doesn''t result from what we get, but from what we give." - Ben Carson. My parents congratulated me and said that her grades were amazing after my help and I was finished tutoring her. But I was having such fun that I asked if I could tutor her daily because having fun inspires me to help more. Now I look forward to my everyday tutoring sessions with her and I feel so proud of myself for not giving up on her even when she was difficult. This experience gave me a positive attitude and made me realize that helping others can be rewarding for both the person helping and the person being helped.
Even though tutoring my little sister was only a small thing I could do, it still made me happy. “If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way.” -Napoleon Hill. I look forward to my everyday tutoring sessions with her and I always go into her room with a great attitude because when I am positive, my attitude reflects on the people I’m near and encourages them to be positive. In conclusion, Helping others always gives you so much joy and strengthens relationships just as it did with me and my younger sister.
