All About Your Child

Some days are better than others and some days you just wish you have a magic wand to make things better! *eyes rolled*

In my memory, I think yesterday was one of the most challenging day I had with my two boys or should I say…. with Keatkeat.

Yes, siblings do fight and its a common sight.

But my boys had never had a ‘real’ fight before. Yet, for the very first time, they fought in Public!!! *faint* I am a parent who does not like to put up a drama for public viewing. I prefer to give a stare, pull them away or literally walked off with them following my tail. I prefer to deal with the nonsense at home, behind closed doors.

But not for Allan. He yelled at them! Scolded them loudly and we became the family of superstars in that split second. *eyes rolled*

Not Once.

They physically fought with each other THREE TIMES TODAY at different places!!! *Super Faint*

The two boys were REALLY at each other’s throat’s today:

1. Fighting over who sits where…
2. Fighting over who is the first to hold my hand…
3. Fighting over who is the first to press the lift button…
4. Fighting over who gets to play what…
5. Fighting over who can stand closest to me… so much so that they kept making me tripped in the shopping centre!!!! *Aaarrggghhh*

Keatkeat has always been a boy I had to give more attention to. His unloving attitude towards his younger brother has been getting from bad to worse. Yet, Binbin continues to let his 7 year old brother have his way…. It would be another long post just to list the details.

So, since I know Keatkeat is at his ‘worst of worst’ state, I chose to show him more love. So while I was preparing the Christmas decorations, he offered to help and I nodded. Because he loved doing it so much, I gave him a task to count how many decorations we have.
He refused.
Fine.
No big deal.
I will just give the ‘privilege’ to Binbin.

So I asked Binbin to count. The moment I did that, Keatkeat snatched the items away from his 5 year old brother and the FOURTH round of fight nearly went off again at almost 11pm! Its been more than 12hours of nonsense! Enough!

I put a quick stop to it and Keatkeat STOMPED OFF! Man! That was my last line of patience! What kind of attitude is that!?!

Me: “COME BACK HERE!”

Keatkeat came back with unwillingness cum fear.

Me: “Because you did not want to do it, so I asked Binbin to do. I gave you the chance to be first, since you like being first. But you gave up that chance. Why then did you not let your brother count?”

Keatkeat: “Don’t know.” (His usual first answer to whatever question)

Totally pissed with how things went the whole day, I ended the decoration fun and declared Bed Time.

I do not like my children to have negative feelings just before they sleep. So we had a heart to heart talk with Keatkeat. Since Allan was a more fiery dragon than me, I kept quiet, sat listening and let the men do the talking.

During the long talk, Keatkeat said he feel that we love Binbin more than him….. (to be continued)

I succeeded!!!
This craze began with this post “Dare Take Up The Challenge”

I succeeded…..But that is not the end. Its the beginning of a life-long commitment that I have for my kids. Nothing that they do is going to make me burst my lungs and deafen their ears.

A stare, yes.
An angry front, yes.
A deafening silence in disagreement, yes.
A walk-away form of retaliation, yes.
A lecture in a stern voice, yes.
But no more shall I scream at them at the top of my lungs.
No more!

The 3 Days Challenge marked the turning point of the end of the fiery dragon.

I have tasted enough of what anger of a parent can do to a child when I was a kid. I shall NOT pass this down to my next generation. It has to stop with me.

Letting Anger get in the way of effective parenting is so easy. I must not let anger grow bigger than me. Anger can become uncontrollable when its not handled well. Its a scary monster when that happens….

I am not trying to be super human, I am just acknowledging that one’s mind is BIGGER than anger and not the other way round. *wink*

Have a super parenting day, Mommies! *smile*

The Best Punishment is not the cane,
its the silence of the Mother.
~ Angeline Foong W.L.

…..and probably the last, till many months or even many years later as a punishment…..

The boys remembered the 5 golden rules I laid down when they went for their very first movie. Unfortunately, they broke rule number 5 this time….

Remember my 4 free movie passes I received after the event with the Health Promotion Board? Yes, we put them to good use today for the earliest show of “UP“ in AMK HUB this morning.

Keatkeat didn’t join his class for the  trip to the zoo today so he had ‘holiday’. We explained to him that he had been there a couple of times this year and had so much fun because of the long hours spent there. Whereas the class is going there for just 2+hours and most importantly, they were NOT going to the WaterPlay area. So Keatkeat was no longer interested.

So instead of practising ‘joining-the-dots’ in school today, Binbin was with us enjoying the movie at 11am. They love it and so did we. Its really cool to be in a cinema when there are hardly anyone around, because of the time of the show > TOO EARLY!! *giggle*

And for buying the set of popcorn + drink, we kept the cup and got this beautiful ‘shaker‘, as souvenir.

The boys kept turning it upside down and back just to see the colourful ‘balloons’ fall like snow…*smile*

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The final list posts of my 2nd Hospitalisation in my personal blog:-

2nd Hospitalisation Day 1 of 7
2nd Hospitalisation Day 2 of 7
2nd Hospitalisation Day 3 of 7
2nd Hospitalisation Day 4 of 7
2nd Hospitalisation Day 5 of 7
2nd Hospitalisation Day 6 of 7
2nd Hospitalisation Day 7 of 7
1st review after 2nd Hospitalisation

I’m starting to wonder if expectations are the downfall of effective parenting.

Of cos, there is over-expectations and there is under-expectations. Where do you draw the line? ‘Good-Enough-Expectations’ that can motivate your child to move forward and yet not too over-consuming that he can’t even breathe. I’m finding that line…I’m struggling to find that line fast….

Its been a really tough year for us to handle the 4year old Keatkeat. Now that he is already 5+years old, we don’t see improvement, we witness deterioration.

Do you have a kid who develop ‘backwards’? I’m facing one everyday and by having another younger child who advances so rapidly, beyond his peers’ abilities, it just makes the retrogression of the elder child that much more significant.

From Motor skills to Habits to Learning abilities to Storing what was learned in his memory files, I see him moving the opposite direction. Below are just 4 examples out of many others:-

• He used to be able to semi-control his chopsticks, now he can’t even maneuver his fork and spoon!

• He used to put his milk bottle back on the table after drinking; now he just leave it lying beside his pillow and walked out of the bedroom.

• He used to be able to understand a concept with one simple explanation, sometimes even completing the unfinished sentence for me; now even after going through elaborate explanation several times over, he still can’t see the picture.

• He used to be able to absorb what was taught weeks or even months ago, now he has even forgotten how to write certain alphabets or write them in mirror image! Yes, it was NORMAL when he was in Nursery, but the whole year of K1, he had NEVER repeated such mistakes. Now that he is in K2, his standard has slipped back to where he was in Nursery.

How come? We (Allan and I) constantly question ourselves. We STRONGLY believe there is NOTHING wrong with him because there were still random occasions where he did the above the right way; So we believe its just another WEIRD transition period to test our parenting skills.

I’ve always believe parenting tactics SHOULD CHANGE as our children grow. What works on a pre-schooler may NOT work on a teenager. They are human, they are NOT robots; Antidote to one could be poison to another.

In the beginning, we thought it might be a way of ‘stealing’ our attention from the loud rooster brother. So we changed DELIBERATELY, giving him more one-to-one time with us. Hugged and kissed him twice as much. But it never seemed ‘Good Enough‘, in fact it made him wanted such favoritism that much more; so much so that he started to put his brother down with sentences like, “Mommy loves me more than you!” No matter how many times we corrected that sentence the very next second.

As times passed, we changed our view, we thought he might have lost interest in what used to capture his attention. So we tested. But the more we conduct trials, the more we realized his couldn’t-be-bothered attitude magnified in multiple areas.

We amended our methods again, we were determined to find back the ever-so-keen-to-learn son. To our shock, we discovered he had mastered a powerful skill known as ‘I’m NOT Listening’.

You can tell him “Keatkeat, it should be done this way.” coupled with reasons, examples and even demonstrations. THE VERY NEXT MINUTE, he did the WRONG thing AGAIN! And this can be done as many times as my fingers on one hand BEFORE he did it right. Unbelievable!

We were heading nowhere. We sat down and discussed when they were sound asleep. My motto is ‘Understanding Your Child Eliminates Frustrations in Parenting’ and now I’m frustrated, ‘cos I don’t understand my Keatkeat anymore. When I don’t understand the cause of it, how then can I cure it?

Having a Scorpio-Goat son is a double dosage of indolence, jealousy and secrecy. It can be extremely strenuous to the boiling point with constant persuasion, with never-ending reassurance and continuous probing before you finally get him to be on the go again, to accept that his parents DO NOT belong to him and him alone and for him to tell you exactly what’s on his mind.

Having a son who gets sick so easily just made the challenge that much more intense. Envy me don’t you? ‘Surprises that increases my creativity’ are gifts from my Keatkeat every day.

What REALLY gets on my nerves is Persistently doing things that he KNOWS is NOT Likable.

From an eager-to-please boy, he has become an Irritating one now.

“Keatkeat, do you think we like what you are doing?” Often the very first question.

“No.” With a little guilty expression written on his face.

“Keatkeat, by doing ‘that’ how do you think we feel?” We questioned further.

“You don’t like. You will be angry with me.” Answer without hesitation.

“And you like us to be angry with you?” Seeking confirmation.

“No.” Affirmative.

“Why do you still choose to do it then?” Needing a good explanation

“I don’t know.” as he shrugged his shoulders.

We reasoned, we pleaded, we coaxed, we handed out punishments, we took away privileges. Nothing worked so far. He still does it when the mood-to-irritate comes knocking on his door again.

Exhaustion made me broke down a couple of times. Frustration made me flare up too often. Sense of helplessness made me said words I’ve yet to regret.

I’ve STOP expecting my ‘old’ boy to come back.
I’ve STOP expecting my boy to perform what a 5, 4 or even 3 year old can.
I’ve STOP expecting my boy to do things that he KNOWS is Right.

I realised the cause of all the frustrations was due to the mismatch of expectations to performance.

Am I giving up? I wish I could but I can’t, ‘cos if I – THE PARENT give up, who else will give my boy another chance? Many say I’m too skinny. When you exert so much energy every single day I guess its hard for the fats to stay for long. So even if it means to leave me with skin and bone, I’m not giving up.

Purpose of recording this down is with the hope of having a triumphant post in future….