Encouraging Children to Make Better Choices

I had been following Doctor's Becky A.Bailey's Conscious Discipline on Facebook since reading her book, Easy to Love, Difiicult to Discipline. 

Today, they posted below on their Facebook page. What a timely reminder. I need to remind myself to encourage my children. I'm guilty of having a sharp tongue and using it on the boys. This morning, I got cranky myself while coaching them.

Encouraging Children Who Have Made Poor Choices

We all make inappropriate choices. The last thing we need is a lecture. Focus on encouraging children to solve their own problems. Some examples include:

💙 You almost did it. You were so close. Try again. You just need some practice. 

💙 I am confidant you will think of another way to handle this.

💙 You'll figure out a way to be helpful. I know you. Inside, you don't like to be hurtful.

💙 That's a rough spot you are in, but I know you can work it out. Let me know if you need help. 

💙 Oops! We all make mistakes. What could you do now that would be helpful?

💙 You can do it.

As always, we wish you well!
iHeartCD 💙
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Upgraded Haze Mask

I saw the boys giggling while doodling on their magazine. I have no idea what air plus they are talking about.  Upon a closer look, I saw that they upgraded the haze mask to "air plus" for their magazine character. Air plus is the brand name for the mask I got them during this haze. I didn't even take notice of that. Kids are more observant than adults. 

I guess this is the result of successful marketing?

Book Club Thoughts and Review - Internal Drive Theory

My 2 boys had very different character when it comes to work. I have K who is unmotivated but completes his work just because he has to. I have Y who is quite competitive and wants to do well for his exams. He comes home with things he doesn't understand from school and bug me to go through certain work with him. This scenario is totally different from what I had envisioned 2 years back. K was a diligent boy who has a hunger for learning. Y was the lazy boy who swims on the floor, doing everything he can just not sitting down to do more serious work aka worksheets. We seldom do worksheets during their preschool days but when we do, it was a struggle with Y. I thought to myself then that this boy is going to have problem in primary school and I was so wrong.

The first term of Primary 1 went well with both boys enjoying school and they were very enthusiastic to learn. They did pretty well. But I noticed a change in K's attitude in Term 2. And completing his school work started to be a chore and any revision ended up in a fight with me. It had been about 6 months and his attitude didn't quite got back to how he was before. I wonder to myself what is causing this lack of motivation and the will to succeed. Then I saw this book in the library few days back, Internal Drive Theory - Motivate Your Child To Want To Study. I finds this book to be quite in line with my way of parenting, in a local setting.

The first chapter begins with the author trying to convince readers that internal drive for school work can be developed. I totally agree. It went on to give examples of how she managed to drive the kids while their parent can't. However, I believe that the parents are not wrong to say that their kids generally behave better with another person other than themselves. K has been a well behaved boy in teacher's eyes. Or at least, that's the comments I got from his teachers. However, he behaves differently with me. I have no problems with other children. Other than attributing the problem to the adult caring for the child, we should also look at the relationship between the person and the child. There is a reason why so many teachers pay other teachers to teach their child when they are so good with other children.

This book provided some insights and reminder as to how I should coach my boys with their work.

• Attitude and Patience on the parent part.

I have to admit that I'm not very patient to my own kids. I guess it has to do with the relationship and expectations. I'm working on this one, especially with my younger boy. His character and mine clashed a bit and he is an expert at pushing my buttons.  

• Choose their work carefully and make sure they know the topic before attempting.

I made the mistake sometimes to just give them an assessment book and say, "3 pages" or "1 exercise" without looking into the work and see the suitability and if they know what to do. I expected them to know and to figure it out on their own if it's new. A little challenge will do fine but some kids may be turned off by something totally new and it will be an attack to their confidence level. I usually have different reactions, 1 will gladly take the challenge and the other will be fearful of making mistakes by attempting something new to him.

• Regular feedback.

With 2 kids, I sometimes assign work to one and he is expected to complete them without coming to me while I coach the other kid. It often ended up with scoldings as they couldn't complete them without coming to me like 1 million 10 times in a span of 30 mins. I ended up getting frustrated with them and nothing is accomplished and that made me felt worse. I should have assigned feedback time  and expect some interruptions from time to time as I helped him through completing longer periods of independently work.   

Overall, this is a good read for parents with children in primary school. 

Book Club - Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline

I've read many parenting books and this is one book that has made the greatest impact on me as a parent. I used to think my sons had a problem with the frequent meltdowns. Well, they do. Their sensitive traits often create problems for me as their mother. But this book made me looked at myself. I realised I was highly stressed during their first five years. It was physical taxing to care for them for at least for the first three years. I had problems with my own self control. I snapped easily, probably due to the lack of sleep and fatigue. I had no energy left to discipline them and to look at each misbehavior as a teaching moment. When I can't compose myself to look at their whining objectively, their whining gets worse. It's a vicious cycle. It would not be wrong to say half of their meltdowns could be prevented if I had the energy and the composure to help them through. But I'm only human, I could possibly look at the first meltdown as a teachable moment, the 2nd of the day as another and just how many can one bear when the child treated you as their sandbag source of comfort. Anyway, things did get better. At 6 years old, they have learnt to have more self control and the meltdowns are almost gone. They are still learning to cope with stress from school. They still get anxiety meltdowns but we manage better now.

This is a great book. It's not only a book about parenting. Discipline starts with looking at yourself, your behaviour before your child's behaviour.  

 

Old School Games - Animal Chess

SG50 theme this year had us reminiscing many old school games. I think one forgotten game is the Dou Shou Qi. We only thought about this game when we wanted to introduce the Chinese chess to the boys. We went around many shops but we didn't have any luck. Y suggested going to the school bookshop to ask. It was a great idea. He got this at $1.

The kids had fun playing with it. This makes a great family game and it is simple enough for the kids to play on their own. The kids learnt how to strategize their moves and the consequences of each move.  

Literature Study - Pippi Longstocking

We started reading Pippi Longstocking with the boys and I enjoy the book very much. The boys had different views about the book. Y can't stop laughing at the funny things Pippi does and K doesn't like her unusual behaviour. We did 2 activities this week.

Activity 1 - Illustrate Pippi

I love how the author described Pippi's physical appearance.

"Her hair, the color of a carrot, was braided in two tight braids that stuck straight out. Her nose was the shape of a very small potato and was dotted all over with freckles. It must be admitted that the mouth under this nose was a very wide one, with strong white teeth. Her dress was rather unusual. Pippi herself had made it. She had meant it to be blue, but there wasn't quite enough blue cloth, so Pippi had sewed little red pieces on it here and there. On her long thin legs she wore a pair of long stockings, one brown and the other black, and she had on a pair of black shoes that were exactly twice as long as her feet. These shoes her father had bought for her in South America so that Pippi would have something to grow into, and she never wanted to wear any others." 

They didn't see any other illiustrations of Pippi and I asked the boys to draw their own version of Pippi with the description. I drew my version too and this is what we had.

I liked how this activity shows how differently one can illustrate with a same description. 

Activity 2 - Create your own character. Illustrate and describe.

Further to this, I wanted them to create their own character. They can choose to draw or describe first. I wanted it to be a person but the boys are very into fantasy books now and K did this. For a start, he is just using colors to describe the features of his character. I will be introducing some new adjectives to him that he can use for his character features.

He was inspired by Beast Quest to do his character fact card. (check out my pretty Japanese paper doll magnet at the side... hehe)

We will be continuing with more literature study activities as we continue reading the book together.

Learning Multiplication

It's the start of Term 4 and I know the school will be covering the topic of Multiplication soon. The boys had grasped the concept of Multiplication during preschool but I never made them memorise the times table. I don't see the point of making them memorise so early when there's no need for them to use it at preschool level. They could do simple 2 -3 times tables though. And I had been going through the times tables every now and then but it was never a priority.

Y came home one day very grouchy and cranky. I later found out it could be because he brought home the syllabus and test schedules for Term 4 and he was feeling stressed out. He told me he is going to fail the test for sure as his teacher told the class that she won't be going teaching the times table and they should all know it by now.

I comforted him and told him that he knows the table from 1-5 though not very well. He just need to work on memorising some of them. And I will be helping them with times table 6-9. He felt so stressed up as he felt inadequate that he doesn't know something that all should know. And some of his friends who attended Math enrichment classes all knew by heart.

**edited on 6 Oct to add.

I went through his worksheets on multiplication done in school and they were just very simple multiplication concepts! All the drama for nothing. This is my kiasu kiasi boy... lol... He got his diagnostic test result home yesterday and was bragging over how easy multiplication topic is. haha. From this incident, I realized he needs more confidence in tackling new topics in school. Something to think about as I don't prep the boys for school syllabus. I expect them to learn in school and I will help them along. But they told me they want me to teach them first so they can raise up their hands to answer questions in class. Hmm.. **

Anyway, to help him gain some confidence, we continued our multiplication learning activities.

I used a few resources for our learning activities:

- Multiplication Chart 
They skip count and list out the times table, making their own chart.

- Times Table Worksheet
I printed the 6 times table worksheet from worksheetfun.com. It helped to do the times table worksheet in sequence first.

- 6 Times Table Chart
I cut pieces of paper for them to do their own flip board for the 6 times table. I had a very happy boy here doing his own lift the flaps.

- 6 Times Table Snake
Fold a paper strip to let them write the 6 times table on it.

- Bingo Game

This was the highlight of the whole session. I randomly wrote some numbers from the 6 times table on a paper. They started with 1 dice. A player roll a dice and multiply the number on the dice by 6. They will circle the answer and try to form a row. A horizontal line earns them 1 point and a vertical (longer) line earns them 2 points. After a few rounds, we added another dice. The add the number of the 2 dices together to multiply by 6. I would say they picked up the 6 times table quite well with this game. It was effortless remembering at work. They even did division unknowingly, trying to see figure out what number they need to get to form a row.

It was a fruitful session and we are continuing our multiplication learning with 7, 8 and 9.

Japanese Paper Doll with Kids

I found a pack of pretty Japanese paper from Daiso while I was spring cleaning the boys' study room. Through this spring cleaning, I realised they have lots of construction paper, origami paper, coloured paper of all sorts that is more than enough to last them a lifetime. I'm the guilty one, of course. I often can't resist purchasing craft supplies and thought we should always keep a good supply for our crafts. However, I didn't know the daily crafts and activities we used to do is not possible once they enter formal school. The mornings before school were spent on school related work and revision. Any time that's left is their precious free time. I'm usually beat after I go through their work with them too.

Rewind... back to the Japanese paper. I don't know what to do with these beautiful paper and googled for "Japanese Paper Craft". Images of pretty Japanese paper dolls were all over the screen. I wasn't sure if my boys will be interested to do that with me as they are at this "Eeee... it's so girl girl..." stage. So, I decided to give it a try myself. To my surprise, the boys were excited to see the paper and wanted to have a part.

I found a few website that gives a good tutorial and I followed the one on Omiyage. Being bad at following instructions, I didn't cut out the measurements as indicated in the tutorial. I just estimated the size and thickness and went with what I thought is ok. And it was easy!

The boys chose the paper they want to use for the collar, the dress, the band, etc. They were the designer while I'm the "seamstress", doing the cutting and folding. We have one thing in common, we love pretty clothes.

We came to the head part and though most of the pictures we saw had no facial features, they wanted to draw. Y even wanted to draw the hair. So these are the 2 versions. I was laughing at K's potato nose (we started reading Pippi Longstocking.. lol) on his doll. Y wanted it to be a puppet and we attached a straw behind it and they had fun playing with it. I agree with them that it's nicer to have facial features and made another 2 myself.

Here's some basic steps to making your own Japanese paper doll. There are lots of detailed tutorial online like the one at Omiyage.

I really liked how these dolls turn out. And I liked that my boys love them too. They can be bookmarks, stick a magnet piece to the back and turn it into a magnet or attach a stick or straw like my boys to have a puppet. I think they make great gifts too.

We Should Stop Teaching Our Children to Say "Sorry"

I made a decision to stop telling my children to apologize anymore. This decision arose from 2 incidents that happened the past 6 months.

The most recent incident happened a month ago.

Incident (1)

My son was a victim of a bicycle accident. He was walking on the pedestrian pavement when a boy came dashing right into his back. We wanted to let the boy's parents know about the dangerous act. The boy was riding very fast. The grandmother (not the old auntie that you are imagining. She was young for a grandmother and conversed well in English) came over and asked the boy, "did you say sorry?" The boy answered yes and the grandmother spoke indifferently to us, "he said sorry already...". Well, it turned into an ugly episode when she started blaming my son for not moving away when his grandson rang the bell. And she even told her grandson, "Don't worry, it's ok. You did nothing wrong." Well, does a driver has a right to knock a pedestrian down because he had sounded his horn? And in this case, the pedestrian didn't hear the horn? A young child doesn't understand this maybe but what about an adult?  

I digress. I'm not going to discuss about the safety issue here. The right and wrong in this incident is not even debatable at all. The point that I'm driving is, is the word "sorry" so important after you hurt someone? Shouldn't the well being of the person that was hurt the first to come to mind? That kid never knows what he did wrong and what he should have done. All he knows is, whatever I've done, it's ok so long I've said "sorry".  

Incident (2)

I was in the queue with my son waiting for his turn to wash his brushes after a calligraphy class when the boy in front of him sprayed black ink all over his face and clothes. My son lost his cool and shouted "How dare you?!" Though I can understand the frustration of being sprayed ink all over, shouting back at the boy was inappropriate and I reprimanded him. I apologised to the kid on my son's behalf and explained that my boy was too upset. What I didn't expect was, the boy went crying to his mother and accused my son of threatening to beat him up! His mother confronted us. I explained the situation to her and the first thing she asked was "did my son say sorry?". Her son didn't and I wasn't even interested in an apology. Is the apology so important? How about the child who had ink all over his face and clothes? The child that I had a hard time cleaning up? The child that was so upset that the ink may never be washed off his favourite t-shirt? Anyway, the mother was only concerned of her own son. After she knew he didn't apologise, she brushed it off and said that he is only a child. I totally understand that it may be an accident (which I'm not too sure now as it happened again the next day) and that was why I didn't even pursue the matter. She just continued to complain how my son had scared her son.  

From the above 2 incidents, I noticed that today's parenting and discipline stops at "SORRY". Whatever you do wrong, you MUST say SORRY. Any misdeeds stops at SORRY. You are ok so long you have said your SORRY. But sorry, "sorry... no cure". That's what we used to say to our friends when we were a child ourselves.  

When a child's action cause hurt to others, saying sorry isn't helpful. An apology doesn't wash off all the responsibility from them. In my opinion, the hurt child's well being should come first. 

"Are you alright?"

"Is there anything I can do to help to make you feel better?" 

Forget about the "sorry",  teach the child to ask themselves what they have done to another kid. How would they feel if they were hurt. Look at his/her face, is he/she alright? How can they help? Young children does not know how to react, so we, as parents, should teach them empathy. If we can show our concern to the hurt child, our children will learn. At the same time, we should stop being overly defensive and protective of our own children and disregard other people's children. Bear in mind that it can happen to your own children as well.   

We should stop teaching our children to say "sorry" and as a result, teaching them to use it to escape from the situation instead of being responsible for their actions. 

We should also stop using the excuse "children are too young to understand". They may not understand but we, as adults, should know better. We should model the right behaviour to our children so they can follow. Treat other people's children like how you want your children to be treated by others. 

So, my dear fellow parents, let's forget about saying "sorry" and rethink how we can teach our kids to be responsible for their actions, to empathise with others and to treat others with respect.