Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

I never consider myself a great cook. In fact, I’d frankly say that I’m just an okay cook. Someone who cooks because she needs to, rather than because she ‘loves’ to. Someone who cooks up simple dishes (read: easy and fast to prepare) and who’s very happy when her meals turn out tasty (well, who doesn’t).

Anyway.

This afternoon, for Anya’s light lunch (after school, she’d usually eat something first before going for her nap), I made a ‘wrapped omelette’!

It was actually an accidental experiment, because Anya asked for an omelette for lunch, but I’ve already cooked something up for her.

And so I created this! Hehe.

Seeing her gobble up every single bit of it makes me feel all so happy inside.

PS: Ingredients used:
Broccoli, carrots, minced pork, garlic, butter, oyster sauce, salt, eggs, milk.

Now that Anya has started going to school, I can’t help but see how the education system here in Singapore expects rather highly on our little ones. Academically, I mean.

While nursery and kindergartens in countries like Australia focus more on playtime and socialisation, schools here have started teaching kids – who turn four this year, like Anya – how to read and write.

I personally am not against introducing kids, at Anya’s age, to simple writing and reading. But when a school’s primary focus is on the academics and not so much on play, that’s where I feel better balance is needed somewhere.

If you ask me, I think kids at the age of three to four should still enjoy lots of playtime and socialising with friends. The majority of their days should be filled with stuff like creative explorations, fun with friends and physical / outdoor activities.

I feel they should also pick up skills like simple writing and stuff, but the focus should still be more on playtime.

Reasons being: academics and all its glorious achievements will always be there, always pursued, even by those whose hair has turned grey, but childhood moments can never be repeated. It’s gone when it’s over.

…

If I could decide for a nursery school’s syllabus, I’d probably go with, errr … 65% play and 35% academic learning?

But then I’d need to have enough money to buy an island and set up my own school there.

When we talk about the general rule of demand and supply, we all know that: when something is regarded as important by the market and is very well demanded, then the price will most likely be pretty high.

The thing is, God works so very differently.

HE knows what we need most and because HE knows we can never be able to pay for such a need, HE gives it to us for free! And THIS is called God’s grace (refer to last sunday’s post)

[if God wants us to pay for every bit of air that we breathe, then no one will be able to afford it]

And for other things that are less ‘critical’ – in terms of our survival in life, like our house and clothes – we need to pay for them so that we learn how to be ‘responsible’

[we tend to value, appreciate and care for something more responsibly when we’ve paid a price for that something]

God gives us so much blessings though HE’s not ‘obligated’ to give them to us. We receive so much everyday and every second of our life, though we hardly ‘work for them’.

Let us learn to not take this everyday grace for granted.

Let us learn to always be grateful and thankful to God, our Creator, for the many grace and blessings we’ve received right until this very moment.

I don’t know about you but I just feel lots of today’s toys somehow are not built to last very long.

Perhaps it’s because nowadays companies tend to go for cheaper materials and production cost, and hence placing more emphasis on lower overall cost rather than the quality and durability of the products? Hmm.

Anyway, I just thought I’d write about the little horsie we keep at my parent’s home in Jakarta.

See the photos at the top? The one on the left is a picture of my mom’s ELDEST sister, taken sometime in the mid 40’s. And the one on the right is Vai, riding that very SAME horse in December 2007.

The horse is REALLY old.

It was spray-painted some few years ago, but really, for a 60-year old toy horse made of metal, the condition is still excellent!

And getting the little ones in our family to sit on it while the parents take photos of them has sort of become a family tradition. Hehe.

I wonder if it’ll last till Anya and Vai take photos of THEIR kids on it too!

Anyway, if it does last that long, I’ll blog about it then. Hehe. Me, the granny blogger.

When we’re outside and I talk to the kids in Indonesian, I usually get people, mainly older chinese folks, saying to me, ‘Oh … I thought you’re chinese. You look chinese.’

And I always would reply, ‘Yes, we’re chinese. We’re chinese Indonesians’, to which they’d smile and go, ‘Ooo…’

As much as I would love to speak chinese (mandarin) or my Hakka dialect, I’m pretty bad at it.

Okay, I can understand a little bit when people talk to me, but my speaking skills are so very far from good. My vocabularies are minimal and I just can’t seem to get the ‘sound’ (intonation) right! (and let’s not go into whether I know how to write chinese characters!)

Being ethnically chinese, I do feel I should be able to speak chinese though. Well, at least I should know the very basic everyday conversation stuff.

And personally I think the more languages we know and master, the better. It helps broaden our horizons and allows us to explore the richness of other cultures.

For my case, I guess I could always ‘blame’ it on the fact that I was only fourteen when I was sent to Australia and thus I hardly spent time with my hakka-speaking family in Jakarta during my nine years of study there.

But then again, I’ve been here in Singapore – where mandarin-speaking people are just everywhere – for close to nine years, YET I’m still quite clueless about the language.

Yes I know it’s bad.

The other day Anya showed me the chinese books her teacher gave her. And as I flipped through the pages, I was SO surprised (read: shocked) by the level of difficulty she’d need to learn within this year alone. I mean, she’s still in nursery and she’s supposed to know (read, write and speak) all THAT!

Anyway, looking at the brighter side of things, at least I can use her books, learn from it myself, then help her with the lessons? Hmm.

AND SO.

As part of my resolution, I plan to be able to speak better mandarin by end of this year! And since going for a tuition with Vai tagging along is pretty much out of the question, I plan to pick up the language from interactive CDs and the many available online resources (lots of free ones too now!).

Oh, btw click here to see a very good site my hubby came across – www.chinesepod.com. You need to register to use the site, but it’s free! I especially love the clearly pronounced sound files!

Anyway. Now that I’ve announced it to everyone, I hope it motivates me even more. Heh.

PS: If you know any great online chinese learning sites, I’d love to hear about it!

I know the day will need to come. And Anya and I have been having seemingly endless talks on how Mom will wait at home while she’s in class and go to pick her up again after school.

From our super long conversations with each other on this topic (and her endless pleas), I start to see her biggest worry: what if Mom leaves school, goes home AND ‘forgets’ to pick me up, leaving me stranded at school!

So frequently she goes: Mommy, pick me up from school okay? Please don’t be late. Please come early. Please pick me up when I’m done. Please don’t forget. Why don’t you stay at school anyway. Mommy, pleaseeee pick me up later.

The insecured feeling (read: separation anxiety) from being left at a foreign place and to be physically away for a few hours (from those you feel most comfortable with) must be really intense for someone like her (many other kids will feel the same too, I believe).

I know this feeling will slowly go away as days go by, but for now, to make her feel better and less anxious, these are some of things I do:

>> Continual reassurance

I repeatedly tell her how I love her, how I can’t stay because the school doesn’t allow parents to stay, how all her other friends’ parents also wait for them at home, and how I will surely pick her up after school.

I firmly tell her too that when I say I’ll leave, I’d really really go. And this means if she happens to cry again, she’ll be with her teacher and I won’t be there. After saying so, I assure her that I’d however pick her up afterwards.

[This exercise is pretty verbally exhausting, and I’m so learning to be persistent and patient]

>> Physical ‘reminder’

I wrote on her doodle board ‘Pick up Anya’ and place it prominently in our living room.

Seeing such an obvious reminder I believe somewhat helps her in feeling more secure about the whole ‘Mommy forgets to pick me up’ worry.

>> Special handshake

We now have this special handshake – that involves a few moves, hehe – that only the two of us share. We do it before we part and when we meet again after school (and at any other time, really).

With this I hope she can feel a stronger bond between us, and learn to trust Mom’s promise and love for her.

>> Reminder of her previous brave moments

I reminded her of the time when she stood in front of hundreds of audience and conducted the orchestra at Babies Prom (post: 8 Dec 07). Or the time when she chose to go for the flying fox experience in Jakarta!

I told her how she’s done those brave things, and she sure is brave enough to go and attend school too.

>> Keep our words and deliver our promise

If we say we’ll leave and only return after school, then I trust we have to keep our words, so that our little ones can see that we mean what we say (read: and not play us out)

>> Keep goodbyes as least emotional as possible

The time when we parents have to leave the child is possibly one of the worst moments.

For my case, I try to keep my cool and avoid ‘prolonged’ good-byes (that generally will make the child feel worse about the whole ‘parting’ bit).

I give her a quick hug, kiss and smile, and firmly reassure her of my love for her and my promise (that I’ll not forget about her nor picking her up afterwards).

…

And so, yesterday and today, after we said good bye, she cried real loud, clinging onto me and was carried away and comforted by her teacher.

Yes I felt my heart ached, but it wasn’t like last Friday’s kind of feeling though.

This time, I felt okay in away, and I guess it’s because I know I’ve done my best in preparing Anya for the situation (unlike last week). I’m mentally more prepared too after reading more about such separation anxieties in kids and lots of other parents’ stories.

[Btw, thanks heaps to those who’ve emailed and shared your stories!]

Anyway.

Anya did cry for a good five minutes or so (for these two days). Her teachers did well in comforting her too, I think. After those initial sad minutes, she’s all okay for the rest of the day!

I’m a happy and relieved Mom!