All About Your Child

Binbin didn’t sleep till 1am last night. Nope, no tantrums, nothing out of the ordinary. He was just too excited and happy yesterday because everything went smoothly for him the whole day, that was the caused of his insomia.

He did so well for his very first attempt on ‘Bowling Buddies’ on my Facebook, got a couple of spares. His face was glowing with pride as he slowly fell asleep. Come to think of it, my Facebook games are played by everyone else except me, the owner of the account…Allan loved the games and was so addicted to it, which got the kids involved in it too and now Keatkeat is so good in the ‘Bowling Buddies’ that my sis opened a Facebook account just for him a few months ago….

When Binbin was truly in dreamland, my tummy was growling so loud I couldn’t ignore. So I got up, wanted to eat some Cheese Rings to shut my tummy up, but it went on with its protest till I had my bowl of instant noodles.

So Allan and I watched one of his favourite show ‘Dirty Jobs’ on Discovery Channel as I gobbled down that bowl of hot noodle soup. When that was done, I was too full to sleep (I do have a problem, don’t I…hmmmm…).

We kept switching channels till we saw a (repeat telecast) local Mandarin comedy variety program called ‘Conscience Found’ (in English).

The topic was on parenting. They acted out how parents through common practises slowly but surely spoiled their child, unknowingly. When they finally realised it, it was too late to turn back the clock…the show ended with this sentence…

(translated in English)
Kids are adorable,
but there are moments when they could be a pain in the ass too.
If we are too lenient towards them,
the consequence may turn out to be lamentable.

What are your thoughts about the above? I’m on the brink of breaking my angel-like patience with my 4-year-old Keatkeat already. Yes, I’ve mentioned before the characteristics of a 4-year-old. I thought I was prepared for it. Afterall, I’ve taught 4-years-old before and that was a whole bunch of them when I was in Child Care.

But then I realised that IT WAS DIFFERENT when it comes to your own kids, its just NOT THE SAME….you witness the change from a little angel to a little ‘devil’, someone who used to listen and goes with your whims and fancies has changed into someone who is all out to irritate you and when your confront him:

Me: “Keatkeat, why did you do this?”

Keatkeat: *Shrugged his shoulders*

Me: “Do you know by doing this, you will irritate me?”

Keatkeat: “Yes.”

Me: “Then why did you still do it?!”

Keatkeat: *Giggled* “I don’t know.”

Me: “You think it’s funny to this or it’s funny to irritate me?”

Keatkeat: *Giggled more*

(Then the man of the house would step in)

Allan: “Don’t need to talk to him, he never learns, let him feel physical pain, that’s how he will learn.”

Me: “Keatkeat, I don’t like to scold you and I don’t want to beat you like Papa, can you please (beggingly) stop all these nonsense?”

Keatkeat: “Sorry Mommy.”

Just when you have forgotten about the issue, he did it again in another way!!!! *Urgghhhhh* Then before I can open my mouth, Allan whacked him….you think that solved the problem? NO!!!!! ‘cos when the pain on the skin is long gone, Keatkeat is up to his mischief AGAIN! That’s how difficult a 4-year-old can be!!!!

So to me, those words of advice I saw at the end of the programme set me thinking….its not only about your parenting style its about changing your parenting style to suit the changing development stages of your child as he goes through self-exploration and changes in his personality before he is moulded and ‘take-shape’ permanently as a grown-up – that’s the challenging part!

My 4-year-old had his development assessment check at the Polyclinic. His performance for his eye sight was perfect. So far so good, remember my post on my super duper high myopia and how terrified I would be, if it could affect my boys….so no worries for now.

Gentle reminder from the nurse, “Don’t introduce computer games to him till he is 6 years old. Many kids have myopia as high as 300-400 when they reach 5 years old, all because of computer games and too much TV-watching.”

But the biggest words that came out from her mouth was, “Underweight & under-height.”

An average kid of Keatkeat’s age should be at least 107cm tall and weighs 17kg. But Keatkeat is standing at 100cm tall and weighed 15kg.

The nurse checked on Binbin (the 15month younger boy) and made a remark that I hear almost everyday from strangers, “I thought they were twins.”Binbin stand tall at 97cm (3cm shorter than his brother) and weighed 14.5kg (only 0.5kg lighter than his brother). “The younger brother must have been eating his brother’s share of food….” giggled the nurse.

But we know, with Binbin’s eating habits which comprises of so much vegetables and fruits in his diet, its hard that he doesn’t grow faster than other kids of his age.

Binbin passed with flying colours for his 2-3 years old development assessment and all the other on-the-spot tests like ‘name the animal’ and ‘blocks stacking’. Below is the development tracker for 4-6 years old and Keatkeat could do what was beyond his age pretty well, do you know of a child of this age group? Could he/she do these:

Personal Social
45.5mths – Your child uses a friend’s name when referring or speaking to the friend.

51mths – Your child can brush his teeth with some help.

54mths – Your child can dress himself up completely and correctly without help except for tying shoe laces and buttoning or zipping the back of dresses.

Fine Motor-Adaptive
47mths – When shown a picture card of a circle, your child can draw a figure approximating a circle that is closed or very nearly closed.

50mths – When shown a picture of a cross, your child can draw two lines, not necessarily straight exactly, which intersect at any point.

56mths – When shown a picture card of a square, your child can draw a figure with straight lines and with 4 square corners.

57.5/62.5mths – When asked to draw a picture of a boy or girl, your child can draw at least 3 or 6 parts.

Language
52mths – Your child can count from 1 to 10 in correct sequence.

55.5mths – When asked on the functions of a cup, a pencil and a chair, i.e. “What is a cup used for?”, your child can give the correct answers to all 3 questions.

63.5mths – When shown coloured blocks in red, blue, green and yellow one at a time, he can name as least 3 colours correctly.

Gross Motor
41mths – Your child can jump breadth-wise across a piece of A4 size paper, without landing on the paper.

41.5mths – Your child can peddle a tricycle.

53.5mths – Your child can hop at least 2 times in a row, on one foot, without holding to any support.

How did your child fare?