Mothering Corner

My kids are only 16 months apart, so they are great playmates for each other. Like most kids, they enjoy playing with each other but there are times when they fight as well. I’ve just stopped them from pushing each other at the staircase just now as I was worried that either one of them would tumbled down the stairs and got themselves hurt. Some times, they would use any toys or objects to hit one another and I have to snatch the things away and pull them apart. Now you know why I haven’t bought any Baseball Equipment, especially the baseball bat? Who knows if they will use it to hit each other?

I am trying my best to teach them to express themselves verbally. If they want to get a toy from others, they will have to ask for it politely. If my boy is still playing with it, then my gal will have to wait for her turn. They are still learning about waiting patiently and taking turns. Sometimes, my gal will walk to her brother and say, “Share share (with) me.” Of course, my boy doesn’t share his stuffs all the time, but he is willing to share with her occasionally.

I guess it’s normal for kids to fight with each other as it’s one of the ways they interact with friends and siblings. However, I do hope that they won’t fight much when they are older. It’s quite tiring listening to those cries!

I try my best not to push my kids and I didn’t teach them how to read. My kids have interests in books because they enjoy listening to the words we read and looking at the pictures on the books. I don’t think my kids can read, even if my boy can recognize that alphabet. I started some simple phonics because they love the song, and I didn’t go further.

I have been wondering if I should start teaching them how to read now some blogger mommies are doing so. I searched on the net and found that Starfall.com has lots of useful tips that most mothers will be looking for. I think I will show my kids tomorrow and let’s see if they like it.

BTW, there’s an online store selling reading materials on how to teach children about phonic at Starfall. However, they don’t ship to Malaysia. I’m downloading the material now but too bad it’s not the colorful version. Nonetheless, I will try them out once my kids are ready for more.

Actually, I wanted to write about Kelsey Briggs here days ago but I couldn’t do so as my blogs were being migrated. I wrote a post about Kelsey Briggs on my personal blog but I want to express my opinion here again.

As a parent, I admit that I lose my temper sometimes, but I know that we can never hurt a child. I know that some parents spank but you need to know how to do it right without hurting the child. However, if the adult is doing this purposely to hurt a child, it’s a crime. I don’t understand how can someone hit a human being who’s so much smaller and weaker than himself? It’s totally insane. Furthermore, I don’t understand why Kelsey’s mother let this happen to her own daughter. Don’t tell me she didn’t know about it, she knew!

Another thing is, if you suspect that a child is being abused, raise your voice. Don’t act dumb or you will hear more sad stories like what happened to Kelsey.

I love bring my kids around even if it means packing for four and unable to have a relaxing trip. Hubby and I hope that we can expose my kids to different cultures and environments instead of learning them from TV or books alone. We have only brought them to the nearby countries but some day, I hope that we will travel as far to US.

This trip will be quite costly so I think I will only stay at those affordable New York Hotels or cheaper hotels in other parts of US, if we are going there. I know that the kids would love to go to Disneyland, but I want to shop in New York. LOL! Let’s see if we have the money for a trip to US in the future.

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.

I still don’t have a cane at home because I try myself not to hit my kids. Nonetheless, you might want to read about Why smacking your child is a hit again. Honestly, I try not to judge how other parents are treating their kids, but I try my best not to smack mine. However, I began to use some emotional blackmail lately and I think I have to stop this.

When my kids are really naughty, their grandparents told them that the police might catch them away and they believe it. I don’t use this until last week when my kids were really naughty and crossed my border. But then again, I realized that this might not be a good way of parenting so it’s best to avoid it too.

So, I better stop using Mr Policeman as the bad guy.

Since we are going to set up the internet connection for our kids during their stay in Penang, I think I might want to install a parental control software on that PC. I have disabled the pop up, but just for my peace of mind, I think it will be a good idea to install the software too.

I found some free software but I haven’t made up my mind on which to install. May I know what type of software are you using?

The news about the sex scandal involving Edison Chen and other girls like Gillian Chung is nothing new by now, but for the first time ever, Gillian came out and said something about it. She said that she was naive and silly in the past and she’s grown up now. Frankly, as a mother of a girl, I do have worries like this. I mean we will do our best to raise our kids, but what if they are doing things in the influence of their dating partners without us knowing anything about it? Besides that, it’s not easy to handle cases like this, even if as parents, we want to stand by our kids. I don’t know how Gillian’s parents think about this but it’s not going to be easy for them.

That’s why as a parent, I try to think from a parent’s point of view over this scandal. I’ve seen some clips of girls being so naive to have their photos taken by their boyfriends without thinking about the consequences. Besides this, what about those who tattooed the boys’ names like they are lovers forever? Or get themselves pregnant when they aren’t capable of taking care of themselves?

Thus, I think I will try my best to be a friend to my kids. I hope that we can talk things out openly and may even talk about porns or the consequence of the sex scandal. I know that most of the parents are emphasizing too much on academic performance reviews of their children, but sometimes, we can’t ignore the morale of our kids.

In short, girls, just don’t be so silly. It’s going to cause a lot of emotional pain to you forever.

We went to a relation’s place last night and after dinner, almost all the adults gambled. I sat besides hubby to join in the fun and at the same time, walking around to keep an eye on my kids. My kids wanted to sit with us and played the games but I wouldn’t allow. They are too young for this and furthermore, I don’t want them to learn about mahjung and gambling at such young age.

I have some cousins who gamble along with us when the adults are playing. They are not addicted though, but only do so during Chinese New Year. But nonetheless, it’s best not to introduce gambling to young children as they are too young to understand when to stop if they win or lose the money.

Luckily, you need to be old enough for online casino and they can’t play the games online secretly too. Kids are so into internet these days, who knows what they are doing behind our backs? Of course, my kids are too young for the computers too, and I will worry about this later.

My boy has settled down at his new school but since we are moving, he will have to change to another school again. I have been searching high and low for suitable schools but I haven’t visited any of them. It’s going to take time selecting the school that works best for my kids and me, and I try not to rush for it since both of them are still very young.

I found that I wrote down a few points some time ago on how will I evaluate a school and I’m going to share the keypoints here.

To me, here’s how I’ll evaluate a kindergarten:
1. Caring teachers who pay attention to ALL children.
2. Safe and clean environment, which means the tables and chairs, teaching aids, staircase, toilets, and etc are suitable and safe for children.
3. Easy to leave and pick up children, where the kindergarten has a good “Come and Go” system for vehicles.
4. Easy to access or talk to the teachers about our children, if necessary.
5. Besides academic or homework, there should be some activities which emphasize on a child’s well-being, like teaching them how to dress up, pretend play, sports or outdoor activities, songs and dances, and MORAL too.
6. Not too many children in a class. I think 10 children to 1 teacher ratio is good enough. If the number of children exceed 10, then there should be an assistant in the class to help out.
7. Please don’t force children under 3 years old to write, they’re not ready.
8. Homework is given occasionally and reasonably, not to scare children or kill their interest in learning by piling them with lots of writing. spelling test or exams.
9. No labelling of children and arranging their class by academic performance (this is very common)
10. No enforcement of children should stay back at school for tuition class, as most kindergarten teachers would “force” the parents to leave their children for tuition class, if not the kids won’t be able to catch up.

But things might be different now as my kids will be going to international schools. I guess they won’t have much pressure in academic as comparing to studying here in our local schools. Once they have settled down, I will start planning for myself. I can’t just sit there doing nothing when my kids are at school. A friend of mine suggested that I should set up a webstore since it’s not not to find wholesale fashion jewelry and clothes in Bangkok. So, I will think about this thoroughly.