Mothering Corner

My boy skipped school when hubby and I were away to Bangkok. No one can take care of my kids here, and we sent them to my parents who offered great help in taking care of them while we worked on some issues in Bangkok. After 2 weeks in Penang and another week of school holiday, you can imagine how much homework had left for my boy who’s only 3 years and 4 months old.

I try myself not to force him into finishing his work these 2 days, but I can see the frustration in him when he’s repeating the same numbers or strokes more than 30 times each. Completing the homework is not always a child’s duty, but a parent’s responsibility too. However, I won’t finish his work for him, but if he’s really not catching up, I might ask the teacher for more time frame. She’s nice, she said that she will lead him at school and he can just finish what’s given today and leave the rest to the teacher.

I found that most parents in Malaysia will have to deal with kids with tonnes of homework. My 6 years old godson has more than 5 exercise books per day, and close to 10 on Friday. Not to mention, he has spelling tests in all languages which rotates once a week and some simple tests too. If my boy is to complete the local kindergarten and transfer to international school by Year 1, he will be so advanced and find that elementary school might be boring and easy to him. Frankly, which is the best? I would prefer kids to learn what’s appropriate for their age instead of beyond, but what to do? Majority of Malaysian Chinese still prefer schools with lots of homework.

So, my boy will have to stick around with his homework until we relocate a few months later. After that, I think he will be blessed with only some simple assignment instead of writing and tracing.