Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

This was when we were in Indonesia last month and we stopped by ‘Taman Budaya’ at Sentul City (on our way to Puncak from Jakarta).

[Anya and Vai getting their ‘Flying Fox gears’ ready]

You see, one of the many things I love about Indonesia is the chance for the kids to be exposed to ‘new’ experiences, especially activities that are not available here in Singapore.

And this time round, Anya and Vai checked out the Flying Fox facility at Sentul City!

[We paid Rp.20,000 per child, which worked out to be just about S$3, and it entitled each kid to TWO jumps!]

[That’s Anya at the top, getting ready to jump!]

It was Vai’s first ever ‘solo jump’, and he was 3 years and 10 months old at the time.

For Anya, who’s 6 years and 3 months old, it was her fourth solo jump.

This was the challenge they had to go through:

The kids had to climb the wobbly and widely-spaced ‘spider net’ and work their way up towards the top.

And when they’ve reached the top, the instructor hooked them up to the appropriate rope, and OFF they went!

Whoopee!!

[Anya went first]

[And then it was Vai’s turn to ‘fly’ all the way down!]

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Click HERE (or the image below) to watch the clip on youtube!

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As parents, both Wilson and I encourage our little ones to go for positive challenges, ie. Experiences that can somewhat be ‘enriching’ to their overall growth (be it emotional, spiritual or psychological).

And when Anya and Vai made the decision to do the solo jump that day, they found out for themselves how they managed to:

– go up the spider net themselves, although it wasn’t easy for them
– conquer their own fear and do the jump from such a height

And I hope, it became an encouraging experience that they’ll remember.

One thing is for sure, we don’t force them to go through the challenge. We encourage and cheer for them, but they themselves need to be ready for the challenge.

And.

We too need to show them that we are open to such challenges ourselves.

Just a week earlier, Wilson and I were at Anyer City and we all went on a 130m-long Flying Fox! Anya went alone, twice. But Vai wasn’t prepared to go alone, so he went together with us (it was his first ever flying fox ride). He went down once with Wilson, and once with me.

Click HERE to catch our Flying Fox ride at Anyer City on youtube!

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Yep, we had so much fun at Anyer too!

And oh, we LOVE the paddyfield view there as well! So refreshing!

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[INFO]

– The Flying Fox ride at Taman Budaya (Sentul City) was designed more for children, though adults are also allowed.

– The length of the rope is about 20m (it looked like it’s much longer than that though!), and the height is equivalent to a 3-storey building. Or something like that.

– The Flying Fox at Anyer (ie. Lembah Hijau Bandulu) is 130m long and is equivalent to about 10-storey building.

– We paid Rp. 50,000 per person per Flying Fox ride at Anyer.