Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Goodness. My little girl turns five next week!

I must say, she’s a cheerful girl, but she needs time to warm up to strangers.

She asks LOTS of questions. She’s into analysing what she sees and hears. She notices and remembers little details.

She often finds it hard to share with others, even with her little brother at times. And I think it’s natural tendency that all ‘firstborn‘ kids have. You know, because they’ve had things FOR THEMSELVES for quite sometime before the arrival of another kid in the family.

And so I’ve been trying to teach her how she needs to learn and think about others more than herself.

[Btw, one of the books that I’d like to read up next is ‘Birth Order‘ by Dr Kevin Leman. It’s about understanding the personality and inborn traits of our children better, because our child’s birth order (ie. firstborn, middle-born, or last born), makes a difference, more than we realise]

She has a tendency to want to be better than her brother (another firstborn trait, I guess?). She’d ask if she’s behaved better, or if she’s obeyed Mommy better than her brother today. And if I notice Vai has a cough, she’d say, ‘Anya is sick too’

[Whenever such cases happen, I tell myself that I need to be mindful of my replies, because I believe we parents should never encourage unnecessary ‘sibling rivalry’ between kids]

She likes books, and I think it’s because of her love for books and reading that she can now read quite well for her age.

She likes to know how to do something, fast. And when she tries out something new and can’t quite know how to do it after trying it out a few times, she’ll start complaining about how difficult the task is, and she’d want to give up. When that happens, she needs continual encouragements from us, until she’s confident about what she does (and frankly, this is when our patience gets stretched and tested).

[Anya and her school homework : Daddy encouraged and taught a frustrated little Anya how to write her full name]

Since the beginning of the year, she’s gone through phases where she was VERY rude in her replies and attitude towards me.

She’d stomp her feet, walk out as I was giving a serious talk, roll her eyes and look away, scream at my face, refuse to be with me, frown and look at me straight in the eye rebelliously.

There were times when I was furious. Lost for words. Completely heart-broken. Helpless.

And I pray double hard for God’s wisdom when such moments happen, because I consciously never want my emotions take control of my words and actions. Really, while I work out how to best discipline her in such cases, I never want to burst into irrational anger, and regret it all afterwards.

It’s tough. And I sure had my share of parenting mistakes.

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In the past five years, Anya and I have gone through lots of ups and downs together. There were times when I struggled to put my impatience and anger under control. Times when she’s very unhappy with my decisions too, I’m sure.

But Anya, if you’re reading this many years from today, know this:

Things may not always be easy for Mommy and Daddy, but as I always say to you, we love you not because you’re a good girl. You may be good and obedient one day, and you may be disrespectful and rude on another. We love you just the same. And Jesus loves you even more than we do.

Whenever you misbehave, we feel sad about it. And God is sad too. God has given you to us as a wonderful little gift close to five years ago and it’s because we love you so much that we must be hard on you at times, and discipline you in order to teach you what is right and wrong.

I too am learning. As your Mommy, I learn to do and say what’s right. I learn to live out my beliefs and principles as consistently as possble. I learn to be the kind of parent God wants me to be – one who’s been given a task (a responsibility, a privilege) by God to bring you up according to HIS ways.

You’re a gift from above, Anya. You teach us things about life more than you ever know.

And we love you. More than you ever know.

I wouldn’t know about this if In-In hadn’t dropped a comment to let me know (Thanks In!)

She saw a little column today at Straits Times’ Digital Life section, and it says:

Got a favourite website? Share it with other DL readers.

It can range from online forums that give you tips on childcare, a site that offers free (and legal) games and software, to one that teaches you how to do things like encode video content or develop your own photographs.

If you have a site – or sites – in mind, e-mail it to stdled@sph.com.sg by March 4.

Just remember, the site has to offer useful tips and must be legal. Digital Life will go through all the recommendations and include them in our 50 hot websites feature which will be published on March 25!

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And so here I am asking, … if you like Our Everyday Things and its content so far, it’d really be great if you can spare a moment to drop an email to the Straits Times (stdled@sph.com.sg) and let them know of my site’s URL!

And perhaps, a Parenting Site by a Mommy Blogger like me can have a chance too and be in the top 50 websites selected by the Straits Times!!

It’d sure be a wonderful way of reaching out to even MORE people with inspirational and positive family messages and tips that this site always hopes to share.

THANKS SO MUCH!

In Singapore, all children who turn four years old (regardless of their birth moths) in a particular year can choose to start Nursery.

And if they turn five that year, like Anya, they can go to Kindergarten (referred as ‘K1’). Anya still has K2 next year before she starts Primary One the year after (Yikes! That’s Primary school in TWO years time! Already!)

I still remember how things were not easy for us when Anya started her schooling days last year.

She cried and refused to let me go home! She slowly started to settle down on the second week, and I posted a blog entry sharing some of the things I did to make her less anxious about the idea of being at school.

And throughout the whole of last year, Vai and I sent Anya to school too (and picked her up afterwards). Rain or shine. It’s a choice that I made and in May last year, I shared my reasons behind our daily school trips.

Now.

At the end of January this year, the thought of letting Anya go on the school bus crossed my mind.

Anya asked about it a few times, and I too realised how if she did start taking the school bus this year, quite a few other things would work out for the better.

And so she did.

She officially started taking the school bus on February 1st. Happily.

[Holding up a hand puppet in her Chinese Class]

A few friends asked about how I feel. You know, about ‘Anya taking the school bus’ and ‘me no longer sending her to school’ thing. And so I thought I share it here with you too:

– When Wilson and I finally confirmed our decision to let Anya start taking the school bus, the reality of ‘I won’t be sending her to school again then’ hit me. And I felt rather sentimental inside.

It’s like, I know sending her to school and picking her up again every single day (ie: walking under the scorching sun or the pouring rain together with Vai) was tiring. But really, the funny thing is, I don’t mind.

Yes there were (many) days when she was moody, and threw tantrums in public almost as soon as I picked her up from school. Our daily school trips were not always sweet and easy too. But again, as I look back at how things were the whole of last year, I must say I really never regretted my decision to personally send and pick her up from school myself.

I enjoyed and treasured the experience.

And I felt sad inside, thinking how there would be no more of such days.

– I cheered myself up though by thinking that IF I’d like to pick her up from school myself on certain special days, I still CAN anyway. I’d just need to inform the school bus lady.

And so after having that thought, i felt much better.

– With Anya taking the school bus, it’d mean MORE time spent with Vai alone. Which is something that I’d also look forward to.

I’d have FOUR good hours with Vai, instead of just 1.5 – 2 hours with him.

And that means Vai and I would have enough time to go out and about together! Just the two of us!

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I’m happy that Anya starts taking the school bus this year because,

– I’ve at least experienced sending Anya to school myself for one whole year last year. Lots of nice memories for us to treasure.

– And, as the little brother is older and bigger this year, and understands more things, the timing is just nice, because I get to spend MORE hours with him alone, especially BEFORE he starts going to Nursery next year!

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And so there. By now, it’s been more than three weeks since Anya first started taking the school bus.

She’s enjoying it, and I too enjoy my extra twosome time with Vai.

Things seem to work out well for everyone.

Earlier this year I recommended a book by Dr Kevin Leman called ‘Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours’.

I don’t know if you’ve read it by now. If you haven’t, I’d still encourage you to pick one up from a book shop or borrow one from your local library. It’s a very insightful read.

Anyway.

Today I’d like to share with you three parenting reminders I personally find useful.

And hope you and I can learn to put them into practice, consistently, everyday.

Happy reading!

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1. Listen

Ask your children how they feel about their school, their activities, the family, the events of the day. Really LISTEN to what they say.

And when they do share, it is often a good idea to ‘refrain’ from giving  ‘quick negative comments or corrections’, as it will ‘dampen’ their willingness to ‘share their true feelings about something’.

Asking a simple and sincere question like ‘Ooo, and then?’ will further encourage the child to open up too.

(I know I need to be better in this)

2. Spend time WITH your children

Put special time in your schedule just to be with them.

Fulltime moms usually feel they’re with the kids all the time anyway. But when we look closely at how we spend the day with the kids, are we just ‘together’ with them, or do we really have those ‘special time’ with them?

Every child longs for that special bonding time with his parents. And it could be anything, from going out and about regularly as a family, cuddling up while reading a book together before bedtime, to helping Mommy out in the kitchen.

3. Spend time WITHOUT your children

Get someone to help and look after the kids while the parents plan a night out.

Okay now, this is a tough one for us.

Unless our parents or other close family members are here on holidays, it’s tough for us to get someone (whom we’re comfortable with) to babysit the kids.

For our case, our ‘time together without the kids’ is when they’re all asleep at night. That’s when we can freely chat, catch up, share, or even watch a DVD together.

Oh another option (which we did last Saturday) is :
we let the kids to play at IKEA’s Smaland, a supervised play area themed after a Swedish forest, for one good hour, while we both walked around the store, and enjoyed a good chat over IKEA’s yummy hot-dogs and curry puff!

The kids enjoyed themselves! And, so did we.

While Anya was away at school last week, Vai and I did some simple activities together using strands of wool.

We made a wool-haired face!

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What we used :
– Strands of wool (we used our black ones)
– A piece of paper
– Pencil

What we did :
– I drew an outline of a face (from ear to ear). the eyes and ears
– I smeared some liquid glue at the top of the head where the hair strands were supposed to be
– And Vai did all the sticking and drawing

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For the child, I think the fun part of this activity is when he gets to decide how the face will look like.

And as usual, I didn’t hold Vai’s hand when he drew. I just let him make the strokes and decide for himself what he’d like to draw.

To me, it’s better this way (compared to us holding the child’s hand and always guiding and deciding for him WHERE and WHAT to draw) as it allows the child to freely explore and create.

Anyway.

This was what Vai made.

A smiling face wearing a pair of glasses.

Err … I think he drew … ME?

Vai turns two-and-a-half years old today.

He talks quite a lot now (in Indonesian) and he likes to describe what he sees. If we walk past a cat, he can say things like, ‘Mommy! Mommy! Look! There’s a cat! The cat’s not sleeping. The cat’s just sitting there. The cat is not with a friend right now. Vai just stay here and watch the cat. Vai cannot pat the cat. The cat can scratch Vai. And later Vai’s hand will get hurt’. He does learn a lot from talking and playing with his sister, I guess.

He’s a friendly little guy. He generally has no problems saying ‘Thanks!’, ‘Sorry’, or ‘Hi!’ to strangers. He can mingle with a group of new friends relatively fast.

He’s cheerful, playful and likes to clown around. He likes to make silly faces, sound effects and body moves.

[‘Look, Mommy! No hands!’]

He is an expressive little guy. And this means, if he doesn’t like something, or if he doesn’t get what he wants, he can let out a good scream.

Lately, he somehow adopts the art of whining. And so these days I too learn how to ‘swallow’ my impatience, keep my cool and teach him how to communicate in a ‘normal’ voice.

He loves his toy cars and he can play with them for a very long time. He’d usually insist on packing his toys inside his backpack when we go out and about too.

He is now okay when it comes to getting his hair cut. He’d sit by himself and cringe a little when the hair shaver gets close to his ears. This btw is a great improvement, knowing how he’s always badly rejected the idea of getting his haircut by someone else since he’s little.

He likes his sister. And although they of course have their moments of ‘disagreements’, somehow I think he’s going to grow up being the kind of brother who’ll take care of his sister. You know, the kind who’ll ‘protect’ his sister from getting bullied *smile*

He’s still very clingy when it comes to being left alone at Sunday School. It’s been close to a year, but until today he would still INSIST for one of us to stay in the Sunday School class with him. I really hope his separation anxiety goes away real soon.

He’s partly toilet-trained (YAY!). He tells me when he needs to pee. He only wears his diapers when he sleeps (afternoon nap and night time).

BUT. He STILL refuses to poo in the toilet! He’d wait till he has his diapers on (ie. before sleeptime), and he’d poo! Sigh. I’ve gone from feeling mad at him to feeling relaxed about it, to feeling annoyed about it again. And right now, I choose to not be mad (because it really is pointless) and just tell him how he should do it in the toilet because I know he can.

He falls asleep by himself now! If we’re at home, I’d kiss him goodnight, close the bedroom door, and he’d fall asleep within a few minutes. It’s been like that for the past two months or so, and I’m very very happy with the progress.

He drinks about 270ml each time, still spoon-fed, three times a day.

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There are too many things that I can share when it comes to the development of our little Vai. I do feel very blessed to have had the chance to be a fulltime mom who can be actively involved in Vai’s life.

My moments spent with him may not always be sweet and tantrum-free, but I guess that’s the beauty of being a fulltime parent.

You get the see the good, bad and ugly. You get to be a part of that little person’s life. You get to see the change and experience the ups and downs together. You get to continually learn how to be a better parent. You get to be involved in his character-building. You get to pass down your own values and perspective on life. And most important of all, you get to share your life and your faith in Christ with the child.

It’s a bitter-sweet burden I know I will willingly carry. With God’s help and strength. Everyday.

Err, … but apparently keeping a straight face for a few seconds was simply too difficult for little Vai! Hehe.

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I remember how I used to do this with my sisters when we’re little. Someone’s coming towards our bedroom, and we’d all be rushing to the bed, pretending to sleep AND trying our best to look as ‘naturally asleep’ as possible! Haha.

It was such silly game, but it’s FUN, and I’ve always loved it!