Category Archives: Parenting

My Greatest Fears as a Parent

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over-protective-parenting-cartoon

I’m not this bad…yet!

Every parent in the world has fears about their children. The world we live in, which is more enabled and intrusive than ever before, has so much negativity and evil, that I know for sure as a parent, I fear every time my children leave the house.

I think my greatest fear, as with that of any other parent, would be losing my children. I can’t even imagine such a scenario and honestly, when such a thought comes to my mind, I usually shy away from it and push it away. It is such a scary thought to me that I can’t even imagine it!

Now that we’ve set aside any parent’s greatest fear, I do have other fears for BB & GG.

One of my biggest fears is that they do not fulfill their potential in life. Both are very smart and intelligent people and have a lot to offer others, but and a huge but, is getting them to understand this. With the proliferation of electronic equipment and smartphones, it is so easy to get sucked up in playing games that you tend to lose focus of what is important and when. At this point in their lives, they need to get a good education which will stand them in good stead and help them reach their potential in life. Today’s world is much more competitive than it was before, especially given how easy it is find out information. What took me a couple of weeks of research to find out can be found out with a couple of clicks today and so you are not just competing (for seats in educational institutions or even jobs) with people in your district, state or even country, but with the millions outside about whom you know nothing about! Irrespective of what that is, I will stand by them, but I just wish I had some way of reaching out to them about not wasting time today about game playing!

funny

Another cartoon which sums up us parents perhaps?

GG is today in a vulnerable age where I sometimes really fear for her. With half-baked information about many things that she learns from her peers, sometimes it becomes difficult to know exactly what she knows which is right and what is wrong. I fear that she will get sucked into peer pressure and start relationships. Both are not interested right now, but who knows when this changes. I read in one of the parenting groups I belong on Facebook, that in one of the class whatsapp groups, someone sent a link to a pornographic site which was clicked by others who liked the link! This may be quite strange to western readers, but I guess Asian parents may see my point. Actually this is true, irrespective of the gender of the child. Adolescence is a time when hormones are in full bloom and this is definitely not the time to be thinking of relationships, sexual or otherwise. I have time and again told BB & GG that they should wait till they are more mature about this. My hope for both is to wait till university when they have their heads firmly in their shoulders, but failing that, to be more mature when dealing with relationships. School, with its pressure may not be the right age to have this in the mix. At the end of the day, I hope if they do get into a relationship, I hope they consider me a friend and are willing to confide in me.

I don’t want them to grow up entitled, behaving like jerks. They are growing up in a a country which is fairly affluent as compared to its neighbors and I have seen first-hand behavior of my countrymen behaving with a huge sense of arrogance entitlement when they travel abroad. I want GG & BB to learn to appreciate the beauty and culture everywhere and know that everywhere in the world there’s a huge opportunity to learn.
These are my top three worries as a parent. I actually have more, but thought, I’ll keep that for another day. What about you? Do you have any worries for your child? I’d be happy to read them….

No Expectations….No Disappointments

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Expectation

Expectations: The act or state of looking forward or anticipating

Every day in our lives, we live in expectation of something or the other – the expectation that our needs will be met, the expectation we will get a promotion, our kids will do well in school and so it goes on and on!

The reality is that most of our expectations do not get met, which sets us up for major disappointments in life. What we do not realise that our expectations in life set the stage for a lot of unhappiness in our lives.

Last year when BB & GG were in their PSLE year, I went through many cycles of expectations – that they will be successful in their DSAs and get into their dream schools, that they do spectacularly well in the exams and get into the schools through the posting route, that I land a great job and so on and so forth. Each time when my expectations didn’t yield the results I wanted, I used to be very disappointed and in some cases, even went under mild bouts of depression. I was very disappointed, irritable and grouchy and then when things didn’t happen as I expected them to, even disillusioned with life and GoD! This took a toll on my relationships with everyone – S, BB & GG and even my helper. I think I was at my worst when the PSLE results came out and both didn’t do as well as we expected them to (see that expectation again!)

Sometime during the year-end holidays, something metamorphosed internally and I decided I will not have any expectations at all, if things happen, then that’s wonderful, but I will be happy with any outcome. It’s been a month now and I have found these benefits of not having any or having very low expectations:

Low Stress Levels: When I started to let go and had no expectations, I found that I was not as much stressed as before. I was not too hung up on the possible outcomes and any of the outcomes which would arise were all equal to me, hence it did not matter what the outcome was and so much lower stress levels. As an example, when the children had to choose their Co-Curricular Activity (CCA), BB had put the Flying Club as his first choice. This CCA was one of the main reasons that BB had chosen his secondary school and if he didn’t get it, it would negate the whole reason for putting the school as his first choice. Later after the choices were exercised, I heard that for every available place, there were 2-3 applicants and that the club was being very selective this year. Previously, I would have prayed hard for this outcome and bartered with God as well as have high expectations on BB being selected. This time, I told myself, it does not matter what CCA BB gets, it will be ok. With such low expectations, I was very pleasantly surprised when BB did get the Flying Club as his CCA!

Better Relationships: I can’t stress enough on this benefit. When I was high strung with the load of expectations, my relationship with everyone was based on the expectation I had from them. When I removed expectations from the equation, things became much smoother. When we remove expectations from our loved ones, we open ourselves to them and have a much better relationship with them.

Peace of Mind: One blessed by-product of letting go of expectations has been a better quality of sleep for me. I don’t have a million things swirling around my head all the time and especially at night, which used to impact both quality and quantity of sleep. These days I sleep almost as soon as my head touches the pillow. I have a lot of inner peace also as I am no longer caught up with the whys and whats of life. I no longer over analyse my life which has resulted in a lot of inner calm!

Become more Aware: As I start to let go of expectations, I realise I am becoming more aware of myself, my internal self, the one that no one really knows about. When I start to have expectations, I internalize it and try to let it go, this way raising internal awareness. I am also able to focus more on the present and not on a vague future based on my expectations which leads to peace of mind.

So let go of potential outcomes and learn to live in the now. You will also find that life suddenly becomes so much easier and happier!

Teenagers and Smartphones

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Last weekend, in preparation for the new school year, we finally caved in and brought GG & BB smartphones – second-hand iPhone 5S’ to be precise. While they’ve been using a phone to communicate to whoever is at home while coming back from school, the phone they’ve been using using in Primary school was an old-school Nokia one as I felt they only needed a phone to communicate with us at home while walking home alone from school and this phone was more than adequate.

However, the parenting forums and facebook groups that I frequented all said that in secondary schools, a smartphone was more of a necessity that a luxury as whatsapp will be the main mode of communication. So after checking out the prices (ouch!), we decided to get iPhones for both of them so we’re all on the same iOS!

The children of today are digital natives – they can’t remember a time when they’ve not been surrounded by technology. They take to technology as if they are born to it and so can’t really understand us parents when we question them on the need for a smartphone while still young. I remember an incident when GG & BB were younger – they were in Primary 3 (around 9 years old) and I was chaperoning GG’s class on a learning journey. I was surprised to see at least half the class with smartphones with them, and of the half around a quarter had the latest version of the smartphone (mostly iPhone or Samsung). Some were carrying versions which were more advanced than me!

There are many pros and cons to giving your teen a smartphone (latest or otherwise). Some of these are:

Pros

Emergencies: Most teens, especially in a country like Singapore travel far from home for school once they hit secondary school. A smartphone (or any phone for that matter) becomes a tool for them to get in touch with an adult in their lives in cases where they get into situations they are not capable of handling. The phone also becomes useful in case they need to contact law enforcement in case of sticky situations with the phone’s geo positioning helping to pinpoint their location.

Tracking: A smartphone helps in parents track where their teen is after school. In our case, I launched the ‘Find Friends’ option on their phones and use it to track them when they get home from school. This is especially useful since they are travelling home alone for the first time in their lives. On their first day of school, I started tracking GG when she called me to let me know she’s left school and realized she was taking the wrong route home and immediately called her to check her location. I was able to track her all the way home and it was only then I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. This is so useful for working parents who do not have the luxury to being at home to make sure their child comes home on time. A parent can also check if their teen is spending time in malls (as seems to be the case of many Singaporean teens) instead of heading home straight from school. This would also be a boon when a parent travels for work and can track their teen even when not in the same country. Imagine the sense of relief the parent feels (I know what that feels like)

Responsibility: Having an expensive phone in their hands teaches teens responsibility. They have to take care of their phone and losing one will not make their parents buy another one as easily. So they start to learn to be responsible. Conversely, they learn about consequences also as when they lose their smartphone, most parents will not replace it and they will have to learn to live without things they are not careful about.

Learn about the world at your fingertip: Having a smartphone is quite useful for a teen, especially if they are students. The whole world is literally at their fingertips! When they have downtimes, your teen can browse the internet and learn so much. Youtube videos teach new skills, TED vidoes are awesome and I can go on and on…conversely, there’s so much smut online that the teen can get sucked into that too…

Cons:

Excessive usage of social media and games: I think all of us are guilty of this – we play games on our smartphones, but teens are especially susceptible to this. Most teens play games that are seen as ‘cool’ and ‘on-trend’ to the extent of not doing anything else the whole day when they are online. They are also very into social media and having x number of friends and followers is of paramount importance to them. Gaining or losing followers could mean the difference in having a moody and sullen teen or a happy one in the family. With a laptop/desktop, this is something that parents can control to an extent, but with social media and games on a smartphone, control is almost non-existent!

Huge Bills especially data: If you give your teen a SIM card with data and they are allowed to use it without any checks, then be prepared for huge phone bills at the end of the month as a couple of hours on Youtube or some of the more data-heavy games can easily use up a month’s data.

Limited attention span: Most teens already have a limited attention span and smartphones feed into this. Instead of getting articulated answers to questions, you will get single syllable answers or worse, grunts instead of words!

Cyber bullying, inappropriate content and predators: Enough said! Giving a smartphone to a teen is giving them a loaded gun! They love to see their face and name online and so it becomes a matter of time when someone posts inappropriate content and this in turn makes them vulnerable to online predators as well as cyberbullying. They need to be taught online posting ettiqutte before handing them a smartphone.

Health Risks: Listening to loud music which will result in long-term damage to their growing earbuds, weight gain due to the sedentary nature of this device as well as the potential radiation effects are all well documented. I’ve also learnt that playing violent games tends to change their personalities. BB has been playing a multi-player game which is more violent than I’d like and I can start to see his personality change – from being a soft-spoken boy, he has started to disobey us and also raise his voice and fight/argue which he almost never did. I am still not sure if this is due to his gaming habit or he is testing boundaries as he goes through puberty.

Managing smartphones

You can give your teen a smartphone and still, to an extent, control their usage. Here are some which we are doing with BB & GG

Smartphone curfew: Every night, before they go to bed or 9 pm (whichever comes earlier), they gave to switch off their phones and hand it over to me to be charged. The phone will remain switched off the whole night and they can switch it on in the morning after they are completely ready for school to check any messages that may have come overnight before switching it off once again. The phones are to be kept off when they are in school as both their schools are very strict about usage within school premises. Disobeying the rules will mean their phone will be taken away by the school and the offender will get detention.

Passwords: I have passwords for both their phones. Even better, since they have the finger scanning password, my thumbprint is scanned into both their phones and even if passwords are changed, I can access phones. Actually passwords can’t be changed without letting me know the new password. If this happens, phone privileges will be revoked.

Social Media: Since BB & GG are not yet 13, they do not have access to social media yet, but when they do, they have to add us as friends and we will vet their social media presence till the time they are mature enough to do it themselves.

Location Tracking: I’ve turned this on for both of them, but this only works when cellular data is switched on, which is normally switched off. I need to figure out a way out of this,

These are some of our smartphone rules at home. We’re also learning as we parent teens. If you have any other ideas on how to manage smartphone usage with teens, I’d love to hear them.

PSLE Reflections

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I’ve been mulling about this post for a while now, contemplating whether or not to write what was in my mind. I’m not sure if I have any readers from Singapore and so whether this post will be of use to anyone. But then I decided to pen it down after all, who knows who will gain from this. Also this may make me self-reflect as GG & BB go through Secondary school.

For anyone who wants their child to shine in the PSLE exam, the first thing, I would suggest is know what kind of a learner he/she is. You should know their learning style by the time they get to Primary 3 and then from then on, you need to cater to them using their learning style. Also another thing every parent should know that hot-housing a child to do well in national exams so that they get into a reputed secondary school is good and well if the child continues to excel. I feel that if you place a child in a secondary school which is far too advanced for them, then they will be running just to keep up and at some point they may get frustrated by how they are in comparison to their peers and just give up. Last, please take into account your child’s interests when choosing a secondary school. If you child is passionate about music, but the school you have chosen does not have a decent music programme, the child will not be happy there.

As a parent, you should start in earnest for the PSLE exams when your child enters Primary 4. At this point, as a parent who knows their child best, you should be aware of his/her potential, interests and passions. Also this is the point when you should build strong foundations in all the four subjects. Primary 4 is slightly more difficult than Primary 3, but is much less stressful than Primary 5 when the jump is much higher. So use the time in Primary 4 to thoroughly drill the child in the basics in all the four subjects.

For the languages, get them to read regularly. Most schools have a silent reading programme daily for both English and Mother Tongue, but please take them to the library regularly and supplement this programme with good books. I would also advise to parents to be the final arbitrator of the books their children read, and get them to read different genres, so they are exposed to different writing styles. This will improve vocabulary immensely and will help them with composition and comprehension writing as well as for the oral exams at the PSLE exams. If possible, try and get the child to read a one or two levels beyond where he is so that he is exposed to a higher standard of vocabulary early on.

For maths, make sure they have their foundation clear and understand concepts well. Expose them to the different types of questions they will have to answer and also get them to do timed question papers as this is something I see children having difficulty in – in completing their paper. Also questions about real life estimations may help – remember the infamous $1 coin question in this year’s Maths paper?

For science, I notice that there is a slight but sure shift to application based questions. So when learning science, try to get the child the real-life application for that concept. In Singapore, the science text books only teach a fraction of what they are expected to know and buying science guides is inevitable. It may help to start doing this earlier, even in Primary 3 as that is when they start science.  

Direct School Admission

I wish I’d known what I am writing now earlier, it would have saved us so much heartache and who knows; maybe GG & BB would have gotten into their dream schools under this scheme. I realise many people, especially parents who are first time PSLE parents do not really know about this. The DSA scheme was started in 2004 for Primary 6 or Secondary 4 students to be guaranteed a place in Secondary school or Junior College. This is so that students who are particularly good in a subject or have niche talent can get into a school/junior college which wants them before they sit for their exams.

If you have identified a school/niche area where you want to apply for DSA for your child, the right time to start the process is in Primary 4. Every school offering DSA will have an Open House sometime in May and it may be a good idea to go to the school and see it. You will get the general idea of what the school will offer your child and you then have a good feel of whether this is the best choice for your child. Once you’ve zoomed into your choice schools, you need to start researching what they are looking for in a successful DSA applicant. Some schools have multiple entrance tests, while others give more importance to the school marks from P4 onwards. So it is important to make sure your child does well from Primary 4 onwards, especially in the subject that they will be applying DSA in. If you are applying in sports and/or aesthetics categories, you will need to go for trials and auditions, so it’s a good idea to start preparing from this point on. Of course, all this preparations does not guarantee a spot as the number of places varies by year (exceptions are NUS High, SST and SOTA who take almost 100% through DSA), but this preparation gives you an added edge over the others who only start in Primary 6.

Please join online forums like kiasuparents and facebook groups which really help. There are so many parents out there who know so much and are willing to share information which really helps.

Hope this post will be useful to people. I’m no expert by any stretch of imagination, and all this has been gleaned through personal experiences and online forums. If you have any questions, please leave it as a comment below and I’ll try and answer it to the best of my ability.

Parenting Tweens: Stresses and Fears

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GG & BB turn twelve this year and they have already started behaving like teens. They are growing so fast, both physically and mentally, it’s a challenge to keep up with them. BB has reached approximately 1.7 meters and GG is around 1.6 meters in height, GG wears a shoe size slightly smaller than me and BB has surpassed my shoe size! They have started looking more adult than children, where did my babies go?

With social media at their fingertips and knowledge a Google or Wikipedia page away, the breath of things these tweens know is precocious! They know far too much about things that they probably should not know, yet in the next breath, they are innocent babies! What contradictions they are….

This year, along with becoming twelve, they are having the most stressful year of their life till date. Nothing they have done till now has prepared them for the stress that is the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE)

One thing as parent I do know is that while they are not to be treated as babies, but as someone with a brain, at the end of the day, we are still their parents and know more about life and them than they do and the decisions we make with them for their future has been well thought out and is for their benefit. They are after-all still children and not yet grown-up adults. This is perhaps the Indian parent in me who comes to the fore in times like this, but I think I would know my child best.

This time of transition – from coddled and pampered children to young adults who need to start taking some responsibility for their lives – is a magical time for both children and parents, but only if we parent them right! As parents we can make our homes a safe haven for them as well as encourage them to speak to us about anything they want to without judging them. Listen to them, then give your two cents worth. If you have a good relationship with your children, I am sure they will listen to you and take heed of what you have to say.

Another thing I am very worried about is the dangers around us, especially that of sexual predators. This is especially since from next year, depending the school they go to, GG & BB will have to use public transport and travel a bit to get to school. I have started talking to them about people who like to prey on young children, but I am not sure if they have understood all the implications yet.

Speaking of which, this is also the age when children start getting curious about the opposite sex and may want to experiment. GG is a typical girl and a typical tween/teen, in that she’s in the extremely giggly stage and wants to watch and read about romance. I’ve told both of them that if they want to have a boyfriend/girlfriend, they should wait till they get to university when they can think this through, but I doubt, if the time comes, they will listen to me. Hormones will probably rule them at that time and all my advice will fly through the window! Hopefully, at that point, we will have a relationship where they still confide in me, we can always hope! BB at this point, is anti-girls, which should change anytime soon when his hormones kick in, though I’ll be happy for the hormones to wait another six months so we get through PSLE with minimum of fuss, I have my hands full with GG as it is, two full blown teens in the house is too much for anyone I’d guess!

Another thing that is often gets pushed down in the scale of priorities is adequate rest. For children between 7- 12 years, they need between 10-11 hours of sleep daily while for those between 12 to 18, this reduces to 8 – 9 hours per day. I’d say for someone in BB & GG’s age, they’d probably need around 9 – 10 hours of sleep daily. Sleep helps them battle stress in school as well as allow their growing bodies to get the growth it needs during sleep.

I now need to walk the talk as we countdown to the PSLE. As of today there are 58 days to the Oral Exams and 14 weeks to the written exams – panic mode on!!