All About Your Child

I remembered showing Kitkit the video below when he was still in his preschool years. Though it may had been a few years ago, what he said after watching the video left me thinking and realising that it is very important to KNOW how my child interprets a message, an event, a statement, a video, etc; because What I See may NOT be What My Child Sees.

Before I share what he told me after watching the video, while he was still in his Kindergarten years, let’s watch the video first.

Few years have passed, and Kitkit will be turning 10 in 4 months time. I show him the video again.
The Same Video.
To the Same Person.
But review was different…..
…..very different…..

We talked about how people change over time.
I witness how dramatic my child’s reaction to the same thing could change over some short years.

When he was still learning how to spell simple words like ‘family‘, I showed him this video. I remembered he just came home from school and was still in his Kindergarten uniform….back then, he did not read a single word that came up on the screen, because he was still so young and his vocabulary was still limited to simple words like ‘Me‘, ‘I am’, ‘Father‘, ‘Mother‘, etc.
Me: “Kit, how do you feel after watching this video?”
Kitkit: “We SHOULD NOT finish the food on our plate, so that the poor children can eat.”

I was stunned.
Totally shocked.
Surprised because that was the exact OPPOSITE reason as to why I chose to show him this video.
I wanted the video to tell him NOT to waste food.
Instead, his COMPASSION ruled.
He pitied the unfortunate little ones.

It would be SO WRONG of me to say something like “Noooooo….I showed you this video is to tell you NOT to waste food.”, won’t it? I would appear to be NOT compassionate, won’t I? Would I then be teaching my child NOT TO SHOW COMPASSION?!?

I Kept Quiet.

Almost 5 years later, I showed him the same video.
His facial expression no longer show compassion when he saw how the hungry children gobbled down the wastage.
He was disgusted.
He frowned.
His closed lips turned jagged.

I waited for the video to finish.
He also watched it till the end.
I asked once again: “Kit, how do you feel after watching this video? Do you remember you had watched this video before?”
Kitkit: “No. Don’t remember. Its so DISGUSTING!!! They were eating other people’s saliva! The dumpster was so dirty. Eeee… [He read and understood the words which came on the screen] I know this video is to tell us not to waste food, but its just too disgusting.”

So different eh?

Me: “So you understand that the video was trying to tell you NOT to waste food?”
Kitkit: “Yes I understand. But its just too disgusting.”
Me:  “So you think they should not eat other people’s saliva? But they are poor, how else can they get food?”
Kitkit: “Wait for people to give them food lah! PROPER Food please!”
Me: “There are too few people who do that. By the time these people feed these poor children, they would have died of hunger.”
Kitkit: “But we must know where they are first mah. If we don’t even know where they are, how to give them food?”
Me: “So, if you know where they are, would you give them food?”
Kitkit: “Yes lah.”
Me: “Since they are so poor that they could not even get proper food for themselves, do you think the place that they stay in will be clean and nice or dirty and smelly?”
Kitkit: “Dirty and smelly.”
Me: “Then will you still go?”
Kitkit: “Errmmm….when that day come then say.”

I chose to leave it as that.

A simple video that is trying to educate the audience NOT to waste food.
A simple video that is trying to remind each one of us to think of the millions who died of hunger before we decide to leave our table with unfinished food.
But when this simple video is watched by little ones, the Message Behind the Video, which the film maker intended to bring forward to the audience, may be distorted.
So it is very important to LISTEN to what your child says after watching or hearing something.
This way also helps parents to understand their children better.

However, I need to stress that every one has the right to their opinion.
Never say, “You are Wrong To Think that way.”
Just because you are an adult and they are just kids, when their opinion is different from yours, it does not make you MORE RIGHT than them,

Everyone has different brains and so will their understanding and interpretation of things or events.
Please respect your child’s opinion.

It is important to share how YOU think.
So that he or she can see different sides of the coin.
Yet, it is also vital to show Respect, even though your child’s brain does NOT work the same way as yours.

Cultivate a child, NOT Force the child to Think the same way as you….unless you are aiming to clone another you.

What You See may NOT be What Your Child Sees

Its been slightly over a month that my boys started going for weekly soccer training. Ermmm… over this one month, Allan and I were there faithfully throughout the 2 hour period. However, I would not say that there is any proper training at all.

After simple warm-up exercises, some 30-40 kids were divided into 3 groups based on age. Each group were given a ball to have their own soccer match, with an assistant coach around them, to be referee and care-taker.

To me, a proper soccer training would look more like this (video below):

….whereby every kid were given a ball and the coach would teach a particular skill, eg, passing, dribbling, ball controlling, etc. But that was not seen during my boys’ soccer training.

Actually, it was more like a weekly get-together for kids who love to play soccer and could have a match or two with other children.

Well, we had been with this coach for one month plus only, so it might be too early to judge. Let’s see if there will be similar training as the above video for my boys, for the rest of this year. *shrugged*

Though I am hoping that there will be, I am still happy to see my boys playing their hearts out every week with their new-found soccer kakis.

This coach had been organising kids soccer tournament for previous years, but this is the first for my children.

The tournament starts at about 8.45am. When we were there at 8am, many of  coach’s students were already warming up in the court. His 2 ‘late‘ students were scrambling into their soccer boots so that they could join their soccer mates in the court.

Coach has yet to find a sponsor for the soccer team jersey, thus during my boys’ very first soccer tournament, coach’s instruction was to wear light blue or blue-coloured outfit as their team’s original jersey last year was light blue.

So while other teams were unified in the same jersey with one or two in other outfit (probably just joined the team), our team were in a sea of blue with different tones.

Thank goodness there were no other teams in any other shades of blue, otherwise it would be pretty difficult to spot their own teammates, especially when everyone is running so wildly for the ball, many would go for recognition of the jersey instead of the face, I think.

After a short 15mins of running around with their soccer mates, the assistant coach sat everyone down for a short briefing before the actual tournament began.

[PHOTO BELOW: Kitkit – facing the camera but not looking at me, with his chin resting on his hands. Binbin – right side of photo, looking at me, showing the ‘V’-sign.]

In total, the boys played 5 matches each. They were in different groups and Allan and I were busy filming them. There was once when the two groups were playing at the same time at different courts, Allan ended up filming Kitkit while I filmed Binbin, so that we could watch each other’s video and would not missed anything. *smile*

Will not be posting all the videos here. I have decided to post just one video each. Kitkit’s 2nd match and Binbin’s 1st match.

Kitkit had a great fall from trying to get the ball, but he was no Humpty Dumpty at all : at 3:55 in video below:

Binbin did a great pass to his team mate and resulted in a goal at 3:18 in video below:

I was pleasantly surprised to see THE OTHER TEAM which we were supposed to join earlier this year at the tournament. They did NOT CALL ME BACK, which they promised!!!! *Humph* Read post here “First Soccer Training – Complete Disappointment” as well as this follow up post.

Thank goodness we did not wait for them and decided to join this current team which had their training much further away from our home. Though its more time consuming due to the longer traveling time, it is good to know that our boys are having so much fun with this current coach.

Their team did not win the Gold nor the Silver. Every team which did not come in 1st or 2nd place received a Bronze trophy. Coach feels that every child is a winner so long as he participates and had fun, therefore, each kid went home with at least one trophy and that’s the Bronze.

Personally I think that is the BEST decision, as the trophy was all that matters to the younger players. *Super Wink*