Allan and I often sit together to refine our parenting style. Coming to a compromise is the ultimate aim. Yesterday was another round, but this time it was school-study focused.

As I had said over and over again, I am not that kind of Mommy who wants to give my children extra assessments apart from what the school gives. To me, a person has only ONE CHILDHOOD. I do not want my kids to spend their childhood under books and stress and pressure. To me, after completing school assigned worksheets, its time for the child to play and relax. Thus, that was exactly what I did for Keatkeat for the first 6 months in Primary School.

However, his teachers are unhappy. They feel that he should do more. They are more ‘unhappy’ with his results than I am happy with his scores. *sigh* The complaints from the teachers affected Allan and affected KeatKeat.

Now the man and the boy want to achieve the standard that the teacher wants. But to me, the leap from where KeatKeat is now and where his teachers expect him to be is too great.

I have always told my tuition kids’ parents when I was still doing tuition many many years ago, “Please be realistic. Let your child learn at the pace that he/she can absorb. If the level of understand is not up to a level, even if I give more assignments, your child will still be up to his level. Forcing will only push him further away and create negativity towards learning. That is the last thing I want.”

The Spirit of Wanting to Learn Must Never be Negative.

So ever since we heard the complaints from KeatKeat’s teachers, Allan insisted that I should start doing tuitioning for him and at the level that his teachers want. *sigh*

It was a painful July and I had enough of awful teaching in August so far. I HATE TO FORCE MY CHILD TO LEARN AT A LEVEL THAT HE IS NOT UP TO YET!

Its painful for KeatKeat and Me!

Yesterday, I had enough. I want to put a stop to it. I sat down with Allan after a 2 hour of drilling with KeatKeat on how to write a READABLE composition, to prepare him for the composition test today.

I said, “Allan, I am NOT Happy. I am doing something that I do not like. I do Not like to force my children to do what they do not like and are not of their standard yet.  Although KeatKeat can speak proper English sentences but writing proper English sentences is still way off. Keatkeat’s foundation is horrible. He has problem with simple grammar and tense and you want me to teach him how to write compositions that is presentable? He cannot do it at this moment.”

Allan, “Then how? He cannot even write a decent composition. The way he writes a composition will not pass.“

“To help him with his final year and NOT the composition test tomorrow, there is still time. I will start teaching him the basics; how to construct a grammatically correct sentence before I go into teaching him how to ‘beautify’ the sentence.” I replied.

I continued to say, “When his foundation is so weak, even if I give him all the tips on how to write an award winning composition, he cannot perform; because the way he construct a basic sentence is incorrect.”

*sigh*

So it was decided that from today onwards, there will be tuition from me for my Primary One boy for his English and Chinese every single day….

Oh Man! This is totally against what I believe in. School is tough enough, coming home with more school work to do is worse and now I have to give even more on top of what he already has?!

When will he get to PLAY??!! *Aargghhh*