All About Your Child

After my post yesterday, my sis had a chat with me over the issue.  She was there when EVERYTHING happened, yet she was unclear of the hidden reasons behind Allan’s and my reactions. If she can’t even ‘see’ it when she was right there in the house, I think most of you didn’t too…

I feel the need to clear up the grey areas, even though I may seem to be Over-Doing this…its just me, I can’t bottle-up all the unhappiness, I need to ‘vomit’ them out till I’m completely well again! So here goes….

To Allan, SPEED is priority. To me, COMPLETION is more important. I don’t care if you finish your bowl of rice in 1 hour or 2 or even 3! So long as you finished it. My concern is the child has to be full. The child should ENJOY his food and not eat under stress!

To Allan, its a waste of time to sit at the dining table for 1 hour. But to me, WHOSE TIME IS IT ANYWAY? Its the kids’ time NOT yours!! And kids like to spend their time in enjoyment! Ok, sometimes when we do dine out, Allan finds it frustrating to sit there and wait for them to finish their food. His frustrations can explode when he sees the table beside us have already changed 3 groups of diners! To him, he could have used that precious time to print his flyers, call his clients or look through documents. FINE! I CAN UNDERSTAND THAT! But Monday was DIFFERENT!!! We were at home! He could print his flyers, call his clients or look through documents! So WHOSE TIME IS BEING WASTED THEN???!!!!

To Allan, if the kids get to choose what they want to eat, then there is NO excuse for eating it slowly. To me, able to choose what they want to eat gives them the enjoyment of eating! My MIL ever scolded me for giving the kids the power to choose what they want to eat. The old-fashioned woman thinks that we, as parents, should decide for the kids and not let them have freedom of choice at this age. So when the mother of my hubby thinks that way, you know the kind of conditioning that has been instilled in his mind. But to @#$% with that! Even adults can’t really swallow food they don’t like, why should children be deprived of the choice of food?! Anyway, Allan gave in to me on this issue after many many meals 2 years ago.

To Allan, the kids cannot drink and eat at the same time; drink ONLY when all the food is gone. To me, that was not how I was brought up. It took 2 years after dating him to change my eating habits. Surprisingly, my MIL always provide a small bowl of soup with rice for every kid during our Sunday Family day there. To my MIL, soup is fine, but not other beverages, not even plain water. I did a search on the net once and sad to say, its true that drink-as-you-eat do harm your gastric. Oh well, my gastric is terrible and who knows, maybe that might just be the cause of it. So for this issue, I gave in to him. So, kids don’t get to drink till they finish their food. He said, “If I could be brought up that way, there shouldn’t be a problem for our boys.”

To Allan, we need to train our boys to eat faster when they are still young, so that when they are in Primary school, they would be able to finish their food during the short recess period. To me, OH PLEASE!! When there is peer pressure, miracles can happen!! There isn’t a-teeny-weeny-bit in me worrying over this issue!

To Allan, feeding them can speed up their eating. To me, that’s creating laziness in them! My MIL (I have to keep mentioning her because the Allan he is TODAY is because of how my MIL brought him up) scolded me several times, saying that I should NOT allow them to feed themselves, because they take a longer time to finish and when the food is cold, its “moh-yek” (not nutritional for the body – in Cantonese) anymore. She kept saying that my niece was ALWAYS fed by HER (my MIL) at home, but after attending school she could feed herself so well now! OH PLEASE! My niece’s kindergarten provides food, like porriage or marcaroni and they are given 15mins to eat. So like I’ve mentioned above, when there is peer pressure, MIRACLES DO happen! But my boy’s school do not! They bring their own snacks and they are only given 5mins to eat! Oh please be fair when YOU (my MIL) make a comparison! *Urrrggghhhh*

Wouldn’t feeding them cause you MORE FRUSTRATIONS??!! Cos’ you are STUCK there and had to keep repeating, “Bite! Chew! Swallow! Eat Faster! Move Your Mouth!…” all the time! So why not just let them eat at a pace they are comfortable with and you are free to do your own stuff!?

Some parents prefer to feed their kids because they don’t like the mess created after the meal. But to me, cleaning is never an issue at all. I don’t mind the mess, with rice on the floor and the chair, oh, which kid doesn’t, at this age?! I did when I was that young (I believe)!

To Allan, chasing him out of the house is as good as sending a signal that he is not wanted and that (supposedly) should inflict some pain in the kid. To me, how can that ‘signal’ be sent across when the DOOR is kept opened and he could actually watch you working at the computer??!!! If that was the signal YOU (Allan) want to send, then the door should be closed! But then again, we can’t! So that’s why I flared up! Why in the world introduce a punishment that doesn’t make the kid come to a realisation of what is wrong?!! Keatkeat was enjoying his punishment!!!! And this punishment reminded my sister of a terrible childhood event. Go see her comments for yesterday’s post, under ‘Angela’. Allan knows about her experience and YET he doesn’t seem to ‘see’ the danger!

I am soooooo glad he didn’t eat lunch and dinner with us yesterday, after the big commotion on Monday. Cos (although) the kids took 1 and half hour to finish their rice, they had their meal, laughing and chatting with each other. You see, dear Angie, its not that I gave my boy MORE than he could manage, but he just prefer to eat at a slow pace. But still, I want to thank you for the suggestion. At least that shows how much you cared. Thank you, everyone of you, for your supportive words and wonderful suggestions too.

Though they took a long time to FINISH their food, they are happy! They are full! They have their little tum-tum (tummy)! And I like that~!

See the BIG PROBLEM here? The problem is NOT WHAT punishment should be given. The BIG PROBLEM is : Allan is punishing my boy for something which I think is PERFECTLY ALRIGHT! Now THAT’S the problem! I don’t want my boy to be punished for eating slowly!!!!

*Deep Breath* Its so stressful eating with him since one and half month ago. I MEANT ME! I feel so stressful eating with him and I hate that feeling!!! Does he know? He does! Like I’ve told you guys, I can’t bottle-up my unhappiness, I must let the person know how I feel, or I’ll RATHER jump down from an overhead bridge at the highway and let the cars knock me around like a pinball till I die horrendously!!!!

….sometimes….

and it did yesterday night. It was back to the same old issue. This is probably THE only issue that Allan and I just can’t come to an agreement on.

You see, Allan and I hardly argue over anything. Yes, we have our disagreement sometimes, but we are never at each other’s throat….hmmm… but it seems that this just might be the very first.

Punishment started to be introduced some weeks back. First, it was taking away privilleges. Then it was ‘quiet corner’ and yesterday he made Keatkeat stand outside the house! Yes, I know the link on top ‘the same old issue’ is more on Binbin and I did mention that “so far Keatkeat is more or less out of this category of ‘slow eaters’, so no issues on my 4year old.” in that post. But these few weeks, Keatkeat was NOT HIMSELF. He eats slower than his already-very-slow-eater-bro.

Sometimes it can take over an hour! The food just stays in the mouth, no biting, no chewing and obviously no swallowing.

This was what happened during yesterday’s lunch. Allan put a stop-watch on their mini-dining table. 20mins. Binbin reacted very fast, in the good way. He sped up and was left with one spoonful of rice just before it beeps. Allan said he recognised the effort that Binbin put in and so he was not punished.

I was unhappy about this. To me, rules are rules. If you said, “when you can’t finish your rice before the beep, you’ll have to get out of the house.” Even if its one spoonful, Binbin still failed the mission, hence he should be punished too! (not that I love to see my kids being punished) But its unfair to Keatkeat!

In 20mins, Keatkeat merely stuffed 4 mouthful of rice. Obviously his plate still seem quite untouched. He cried. He kept saying, “But Binbin didn’t finish his rice too.” Anyhow, my Keatkeat is a very unusually-matured boy, he just opened the door himself and stood outside the house. Allan kept the door opened. The punishment lasted for 15-20mins.

My rule of the thumb is “never interfere at the point of punishment” no matter how unsupportive I am. ‘cos I don’t want my kids to see an angel and a devil. It took great efforts to establish their ‘happy’ father and son relationship – see my post on ‘Anti-Dad’ back in January this year.

But when dinner comes. Boy oh boy! I can’t stand it anymore! Though I know Allan will never let the boy sleep outside the house for the night, although he said that. But I don’t like my neighbours to be involved. You see, my neigbours are out for work in the afternoon (obviously), but they are back in the evening. They are a bunch of nice people, often very caring and sharing. It would be a surprise if they didn’t come over with questions…. I don’t like that.

It was 20mins again. Keatkeat was stuffing till he got choked and on the verge of vomitting…..

I can’t stand the sight, I just yelled, ” For goodness sake! Why introduce such punishment!!!!?”

“Ahhh… what the F***! Whatever I do is never right?! Isn’t it ridiculous? The speed that he is eating?! Ahhh…I’m not gonna care anymore! Do whatever you (referring to my 5year old and me) like! I’m not gonna care!” Allan shouted back and stormed to the PC desk.

Hey hey where did that come from???! When in the world did I say, “Whatever you do is never right?!” Anyway, I got my point across. That’s all I wanted and badly needed.

I didn’t care too, leaving Keatkeat really confused – “so am I going out of the house now?” or “do I still need to finish my rice?.” I’m sorry boy… I wanted to be occupied with something else, so I just got Binbin ready for bed…. and I fell asleep as I patted his bum.

This morning, Allan was out early, didn’t get to see him at all… but I know we’ll be fine, I just know it will be….

(some of you ask if Allan reads my blog. Actually he doesn’t, only when I asked him to read a particular post like the one on our 8th wedding anniversary. So he’ll probably not get to read this either. Whatever it is, that’s fine with me.)