I'm a full-time mummy

I came across this article which I must definitely share with you guys as I'm very interested to know your thoughts on this. Do note that sharing this does not mean I agree or disagree with it. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here:

THERE is no rule book when it comes to parenting. We say things to our kids that come naturally. And often we say things that our own parents said to us. But unfortunately research has indicated that some of these simple sayings can have negative long-term effects.

Innocent sayings like “naughty boy” or “don’t be stupid” can be bad for a child’s self esteem because it teaches them to label themselves, explains Gregg Chapman, Psychologist and Clinical Manager at Strategic Psychology. He further adds that this may lead to a child developing poor self-concept. Now you might be thinking, ‘But my parents said this to me and I turned out fine.” But as Dympna Kennedy, founder of Creating Balance, a parenting organisation that encourages parents to connect more closely with their children, points out: research and knowledge has come a long way in recent decades.

“It’s not about looking back and thinking my parents did the wrong thing by me,” says Dympna. “It’s about looking back and saying, ‘OK, they did the best they could with what knowledge they had at that time. But I now have the advantage of research and knowledge that they didn’t have.’”

And that research and knowledge says we should stop saying these things to our children.

1. “You naughty boy/girl!”

 Instead address the situation. Gregg Chapman suggests a better statement might be: “Was what you did helping or hurting? If it was hurting let’s see how we could turn that around”

2. “How many times have I told you?”

Clearly your current approach isn’t very effective. Plus, do you really expect your child to answer this question? Gregg suggests saying something like: “I’m upset that I’m not getting my message across to you. How do you think that you could make better choices that don’t hurt you and/or others?”

3. “How could you do this to me? After all I do for you!”

Gregg explains that the child is not doing things out of a sense of obligation to the parent. They are acting to meet their needs and get what they want. He suggests not focusing on oneself as parent but instead helping the child understand the impact of their actions on others.

4. “You wait until you get home!”

As a parent you want to build a close relationship with your child but, according to Gregg, threats generate fear and insecurity and certainly don’t strengthen the parent-child relationship. Gregg says a better statement might be: “We will need to discuss this at home. I’d like you to think what you could do to put this right”

5. “Don’t be Stupid.”

Once again, children will label themselves as they have been taught. And negative labels such as ‘stupid’ do not foster a happy, healthy relationship with themselves.

6. “You make mummy very happy when you eat all your dinner.”

Dympna Kennedy says it is important not to teach children to do things for external praise. This teaches them to be people pleasers, which may lead to them doing things they may not want to do during their school years just to be accepted. Dympna suggests just saying “thank you” when a child does something you want them to do, or encourage internal self praise and say “you should be proud of yourself for eating all your dinner.”

But it goes without saying, sometimes in the heat of the moment a situation might get the better of you and what you say isn’t the best choice of words. And that’s OK because it is impossible to be a perfect parent all of the time. It is not about being the perfect parent because children don’t learn from a parent who is perfect,” explains Dympna. “They learn from a parent who makes mistakes because that shows your child it’s not about being perfect but it’s about reflecting and learning and trying again the next.”

So the next time you go to say one of these sayings to your child, stop, reflect and try to speak to them in a way that will encourage them to become resilient, compassionate and confident.

What do you think?

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I recently did a little DIY sewing project while still incorporating some teaching and learning moments for our kiddos as well. I used to play this game, it is called 'Batu Seremban' in our country (Malaysia in case you don't know) or five stones in English. This game is usually played by girls individually or in groups of two to five people. You can watch this tutorial on how to play the game. I remembered playing this game during my schooling years, so much fun!

I initially tried to sew using my sewing machine but it doesn't turned out nicely as the sizes I made is a bit too small and I feel really clumsy working on such a small piece with my sewing machine so I abandoned the idea and decided to hand sew the pieces myself.

So what we needed to make the batu seremban are:

- Cloth (any scrap cloths you have)

- Scissors

- Pen and ruler

- Needle and thread

- A small spoon

- Grains or beans (I used rice grains as I can't find any beans at that time)

Tutorial:

1. Using a pen and ruler, draw out 5 pieces of equivalent sizes (my measurement was 2.5 inches by 2 inches for each piece)

2. Cut out the respective pieces.

3. Take one piece, fold the piece into half (make sure the ncier looking surface is facing inwards) and start to sew along the edge leaving the last side for you to pour in the grains/beans.

4. With the thread still uncut, turn the piece inside out so that the nicer surface is facing outwards now.

5. Use the small spoon and start to scoop bits of grains/beans into the piece until about 70% full (I prefer a bit space in my pieces)

6. Sew off the remaining side to close up the piece and ensure no grains/beans are leaking or falling out.

7. Repeat the above steps for the remaining 4 pieces.

Teaching & Learning Moments:

1. I let our older 2 kiddos (6.5 years old boy and 4 years old girl) take turns to help me fill up the pieces with grains/beans. Get them to practise their concentration and motor skills.

2. I get to impart the knowledge of this traditional game in my country to our kiddos and let them have a feel of one of my childhood games.

3. At this early stage, I'm just teaching our older 2 kiddos to just throw 1 piece and try to catch it back with 1 hand. They get to practise their balancing, focusing and being able to juggle back the same piece that they bounced up in the air. It was quite fun to watch our kiddos trying to bounce off the piece from their palm.

4. I noticed that our 4 year old girl is still mostly throwing up the piece and not able to catch back the piece while our 6.5 year old boy tried to hard to bounce his piece. I had to get him to slow down and start with small height, to bounce by few centimetres from his palm and catching it back on the same hand and guiding him to increase the height as he gains confidence. Our 2 year old girl who didn't want to be left out tried to follow her older siblings as well but only managed to grab on tightly to her piece, hahaha, need more practise for her to learn to release her grasp of her piece.

And oh boy... my fingers are really rusty, can't juggle and throw and catch as good as when I was a kiddo playing these last time! Need loads of practice!!! But at the same time, I'm happy I get to impart this fun game to our kiddos as well  :D

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I had started to teach our 4 year old girl how to write number 1 in late September 2015. She has been nagging me to include her whenever she sees her 6.5 year old big brother doing his kindy schoolwork.

In early November, I started her on number 2. In between we do other activities and once I feel she's comfortable with writing number 1 and letter A/a, we moved to the next level.

I am not a big fan of buying workbooks as I feel it is wasting money to just have our kiddos to scribble and write on it. Of course you can always make a photocopy or laminate the worksheets but I was too lazy for that and also some worksheets found in the workbooks that I have seen are just too simple or too advance for her age, so I ended up scouring through the Internet and customizing some or at least, looked for some that is as close as it can be to meet my expectations.

I started off by explaining to her number 2 and how to write the number 2. What I said to her as we draw the number 2 was 'Climb up a bit, oh no, we're falling! Go inside! Phewww... okay come outside!'

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.