All About Your Child

Parenting my 7 year old has been nothing but a a bed of roses with untrimmed thorns.

Bed of roses ~ totally amazed at how independent he has become and how he used that to help out in the family.

As for thorns, they are still making me bleed every single day.

In fact, ever since he started Primary school education last year, it has been an uphill struggle. My patience were tested over and over again. My creative parenting ideas were slammed with failure.

Am I defeated?
Well, I am not throwing in the towel yet.
It is a stage that every child has to go through. I have been there and done that too. Yes, this stage will pass. But my question is, this is also a stage where parents have to start molding the child, how can I let my child makes the most out of this stage without burning myself out?

ATTITUDE is the focus for any parent parenting 7 year old.

Attitude of the child, as well as attitude of the parent, both are just as important. When you think badly of your child, he will react even worse. So parent’s attitude is crucial too.

For the very first time, he challenged me…

He was doing his comprehension worksheet. It was a long answer and the two lines given on the worksheet were obviously insufficient for him to write his answer, no matter how small (the wordings) my 7 year old could write.

So I suggested, “Draw one more line in between that two lines, so that you have enough space to write the answer.”

Totally ignored me.
Keatkeat started to write the answer in super small handwriting.

I continued, “If you choose to write without drawing the extra line and if the space is insufficient, you will need to erase and write again.”

Showing Extreme Frustration, he picked up the ruler, clutched his pencil and drew a ‘here!-give-you-your-line.-now-shut-up’ kind of line. Totally crooked, slanted line; even though the ruler was placed on the paper. Then he glared at me, “Nah! Here’s your line!”

“Don’t give me that attitude!” I snapped.
I erased the awful line and said, “Fine! If you choose to write without drawing the extra line. Go Ahead!”

In the end, he could not squeeze his full answer in. In fact, he needed TWO extra lines to be drawn.

He looked at me after completing his sentence and said, “Ok! So you were right. Happy now?!”

Me: “Why did I ask you to draw the extra line?”
Keatkeat: “So that I can write the answer.”

Me: “After writing so much and realised you do not have enough space. How do you feel?”
Keatkeat: “Angry.”

Me: “When you were erasing your half written answer, how do you feel?”
Keatkeat: “Angry!”

Me: “Why are you angry?”
Keatkeat: “Because you are right again!”

Wow! Do you see that? My 7 year old wants to be ‘RIGHT’ or rather ‘BETTER’ than his Mother.

A clear sign of growing up. Significance and achievements have become a priority to him, regardless who he is against with.

Me: “What is the difference between an adult and a child?”
Keatkeat: “Age.”

Me: “An adult is older, which also means an adult has made more mistakes than a child. Yes?”
Keatkeat: “Yes.”

Me: “And from mistakes, we learn. Without making mistakes, we cannot be smarter. Yes?”
Keatkeat: “Yes.”

Me: “So why do you think I am right most of the time?”
Keatkeat: “Because you learn from your mistakes.”

Me: “Yes, I was once a child like you too. I was once a 7 year old. I made the same mistake as you in the past. I learnt from it. So I could tell that you needed to draw extra lines between that two lines given on the worksheet. Who do I want to help? Myself?”
Keatkeat: “No. You want to help me.”

Me: “Good. So can I continue to help you now?”
Keatkeat: “Ok.”

Me: “You missed out two words in your answer. Please erase and re-write.”
Keatkeat: “…………………”

Before I move on, I must define the word ‘lecture’. To me, lecturing your child is a long conversation with your child, whereby you talk about the wrong doing, the right value system, the appropriate action and reaction you want your child to have when a certain situation occurs.

It is unlike scolding. Scolding is short, straight to the point and really loud (most of the time). Well, it’s the case for me. *giggle*

Here I am, sitting by the pool, waiting for my boys to end their swimming lesson and there she is, a mother of a 11-12 year old boy, lecturing him over an incident which her son claimed he is unaware of.

“I really don’t know.” the son stayed firmed to his stand.

“Don’t lie to me. You were there, how is it possible that you do not know?” the mother rebuked.

Even though the son kept shouting, “I am not lying!” the mother refused to believe.

After 10mins of that back and forth argument, the son gave in and in all his unwillingness, decided to shut up, since his mother was so adamant about her verdict.

Then the mother moved on to label her son ‘a liar’ and started to talk about how bad lying is and what damaging effects it will have on his life in future.

She is well aware that everyone, which includes parents, helpers, kids were ‘watching’ the Free Show. Somehow her facial expression tells me that she is more focused on the attention that is on her, than ‘really‘ wanting to lecture her son. The more she goes in depth into the topic, the louder she became. I don’t know, maybe it makes her feel good in some way.

Regardless if the child lied or not, in this case, I seriously do not think the lecturing should be done in public, especially when the child is already in his teens or near.

Children have pride and we as parents should respect that.

It is NOT a life and death issue, I think it is perfectly alright to wait till you get home to trash out the topic.

If you must, I think it is more appropriate to bring the child to a quiet corner and not in the midst of the watchful eyes of the public.

I am not saying that the mother is wrong, but what she did is not something I would do. To me, there is no right or wrong parenting. Its just different values and priorities in life that resulted in different parenting styles.

Would you lecture your child in public for all to see?