Tiger Teacher Mom? No such thing

I am surrounded by Tiger Moms. Sometimes, against my better judgement, I try to be one too. But I have discovered that at heart, I can't be one. I can't keep it up. I've been told I don't have enough resolve to be a Tiger Mom. I'm okay with that because I know the real reason I can't be a pure, true blue Tiger Mom. 

Because I was a teacher before I became a mother and that shapes how I parent. And the teacher is a whole lot more reasonable and sees a lot more long term than the parent does.

I recently wrote something regarding my educational philosophy. 

" children are innately curious and creative and when given the right opportunities will come to love learning and that love for learning will propel them onto greater things. I have always chosen to focus on the former rather than teach with the singular aim of getting good grades. While I do agree that good grades are important, I see them as a by-product of the love for learning rather than an end in itself. My classroom ought to be a safe space for children to discover who they are and it must be a safe space for them to fail, pick themselves up, re-group and try again"

When I try to go all crazy Singaporean parent on my kids, I always end up being chastened by my better angels. I fall prey to fear and anxiety, mostly with the boys who are often careless and messy. With Evan, we saw brilliance but unwillingness to apply himself. So when it came to Muffin, I came down on him with the wrath of a Tiger Mom angered. 

To wrestle with carelessness, the penalty was to do yet another exercise. In theory, it sounded like a good idea. Get rid of the carelessness and increase mastery. But in execution, I saw how I was doing my son a disservice in the long run and all of a sudden those mistakes he was making, did not seem a big deal anymore. What I was doing, was an even bigger deal.

It had gotten to the point where Muffin would not start any work because he was paralysed by the fear of making any mistakes. 

It had gotten to the point where Muffin would cry hysterically when he discovered he had made a mistake. 

It had gotten to the point where he was fearful of the words "You have to get some work done". 

That's when I knew, for a fact, I was doing wrong by him.

As a parent, I was making sure that he feared failing just so that he would give me a good piece of work. 

As a parent, I was punishing him for trying to figure out math for himself; something he had enjoyed thoroughly up to this point. 

As a parent, I was making him fear learning because now, in his mind, testing what he had learnt had become punitive.  

As a parent, I was not giving him space to be okay with not getting it right the first time. Instead, I was causing him to become catatonic at the thought of getting something wrong.

As a teacher, I would have pointed all these things out to the parent and drawn attention to how damaging that was to the child, his self-esteem and confidence.  

As a teacher, I would have known that careless mistakes did not define the person the child would grow up into. 

As a teacher, I know that the fear of failing would limit the person the child would grow up into. 

And so, as a teacher, I would have wanted to smack around the parent who did that to his or her poor kid. 

So, Tiger Mom be damned, I listened to the teacher. Hopefully it isn't too late. 

 

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To the parent of a first time camper

Dear Parent of child going off to camp for the first time,

I recently went through the first of my children going to camp. It was a somewhat surreal experience that I feel I ought to share. In a grand scheme of things, it is in preparation for the mother of all camps, 8 years from now for my eldest boy child.

We knew that it was coming but we didn't think it would be all that bad. After all, she has had sleepovers before.

But everyone did miss her and everyone felt her absence. She's home now though and we're back to regular programming.

There was a sobby (I am assured they were tears of joy) reunion but all is good in my world now and I can now objectively think back to the last three days.

So here's what I've learnt.

1. You will want your child to call home. Don't.
Packrat went to the briefing and reported that teachers were inundated with questions about whether their children could bring air-mattresses, sleeping bags, portable diffusers. They faced disgruntled parents when they informed them that the children would not have access to their mobile phones and that no, they could not queue up to use the coin phone either.

This caused much distress and I think this was where the camp experience differed from a sleepover. A sleepover would have involved the constant exchange between the parents on what funny things the kids were up to and this sometimes included photographs and videos. This time however, there was a complete cut off from our children.

But, now that she's home and she's told me what went on at camp, I think the teachers were indeed wise. After all, they have done this year in, year out.

She told me that she went to the sick bay on the first day. It was a bad headache, despite drinking gallons of water. And she stayed there for 3 hours, napping before she felt better and more human. It was at that point, that I realised that, had she been able to call home or get in touch with me, she would have told me about being in the sick bay, possibly been weepy about it and I would have immediately asked if she needed to come home. There would have been a possibility that she would have said yes and then, the camp would have been a slightly extended version of a day camp.

Because I didn't know, because she had no idea that coming home would have been an option, she got  over herself and her headache and went back out to play.

So, the radio silence was great. It prevented homesick children from indulging in their homesickness and anxious parents from finding reasons to bring said child home early. I suppose if she really were unwell, they would have called me. And headaches, in their book, weren't serious enough to warrant a potentially heart dropping phone call for me to receive.

2. You will want to spy on your child. (See Above)

With 240 ten year olds away from their parents for the first time, there were bound to be anxious parents. And because Singapore is small enough and the camp location was made known to the parents, some showed up, testing their prowess at stealth hunting and paparazzi level stalking. There were also parents who worried that their children needed creature comforts and attempted to show up under the guise of delivering them or simply delivering pizza. Whatever was necessary to gain access to the child. 

I asked her if she saw parents hiding in the bushes or pretending to be trees. After she finished laughing, she looked at me in all seriousness and asked if I had been one of those nosy parents. I said no. She said good. I asked her why. She said it would have been an interference on the part of the parents. She said it would have been embarrassing (She tried to soften the blow by saying she would have been happy to see me but even then...). And she said it was only for 3 days and if she could miss me and didn't beg her teachers to send her home and didn't run away from camp to come find me, I didn't need to stalk and spy on them. 

Basically, she was telling me, in her 10 year old way that she needed this space to grow up. 

Wise one, my first born. 

3. You will underestimate your child. (Ditto the previous point)

Admittedly, I worried. I worried that she wouldn't be able to sleep in a sleeping bag. When I found out that someone snuck in a pillow (I didn't even think of getting her to pack beyond her packing list), I found myself wondering if she could sleep without a pillow. I found many other little things to wonder and worry about. Above all, I worried that she would not have a good time and she would be miserable.

Much as I hate to admit it, Packrat and the teachers were right. She had been fine and she came home brimming with excitement of all her achievements. She told me she abseiled down 7 storeys. She told me that she rolled her jacket into bundle and used it as a pillow. She slept like a baby. She, whose extent of cooking at home was to make a grilled cheese sandwich, was able to cook up her own meals on an open flame. She managed to also successfully put drops into her eyes like we taught her to at home. 

In short, not only did she survive camp, she thrived. 

So, my advice? Cede control, trust the school and child. 

And you'll get all the good bits. You'll get to hear the stories through triumphant rose-tinted glasses, you get to stand anxiously at the school gates waiting for that first glimpse of her and you get to get all the air squeezed out of you when she throws her arms around you and gives you a hug big enough to make up for all the time she was away.

I promise you. It'll be hard to do all these things. But it'll be worth it.

From a parent who survived her child being away at camp.

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Childlike enthusiasm

The nice thing about having kids is to see the world through their eyes rather than our own cynical ones.

In the last week or so, despite the fact that the twins have been ramping up for exams, they've been very excited about things happening in school. Things that an adult would yawn and roll eyes at.

For Evan, it's an emergency preparedness exercise. He's filled with importance because it's his job to lock all the windows and draw the blinds. And we all know how important that job is especially since Mas Selamat climbed out of an unlocked one.

He also very conscientiously packed his 'lock down' bag full of supplies (enough food and water for himself and some friends, how considerate). We were all briefed. There would be a cryptic message that they'll have to listen out for, along the lines of "The chicken has flown the coop, catch it!" that begins the lock down and a similarly innocuous "All clear" signal as well. So there were muttered prayers for good weather because any sort of attack on a school would only occur when there is good weather.

Jordan, on the other hand, has been a jumping bean because she got roped into auditioning for one of Packrat's student's film project. She thinks she's going to be on TV. She asks everyday if we've heard from the student. We tell her not to get her hopes up. We tell her that she won't be on TV or famous. But she can't hear that, while bouncing around excitedly.

At the same time, there's a concert in school. Where they get to sing and play the ukelele. I'm not sure how good she is at playing it or singing for that matter but every spare moment of the day has been dedicated to strumming and singing.

I would really like to be in school to watch both events happen but short of a Big Brother camera in school, I can only wait for them to recount them to me.

I like that they get excited over these little things. And their excitement is so genuine, you can't help get infected by it. Especially when half the time, we're snippy, cynical and critical of things around us like Trump managing to fail Easter.

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Not supposed to

I know I am not supposed to get angry.

I know I am not supposed to yell.

I know I am not supposed to bang on the table.

I know I am not supposed to feel like I want to cane.

But

I do get angry.

I do yell to the point that it echoes round the block.

I do slam the table, so hard I have a bone bruise on my finger.

I do want to cane.

Then

I feel the tears.

I feel the frustration.

I feel the pain.

I feel the distress.


These aren't useful emotions; they don't equip me to do anything useful or to help JED in the ways that they need it. But much as I would like to say that I am the master of my emotions, I am not. So, on days when I really just lose it, I am thankful that Packrat is there to even the keel.

I know what I need to do.

I know I need to stop rescuing.

I know I need to let failing be the teacher.

I know I need to allow natural consequences to follow.


I just need the guts.

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The child becomes the teacher

Muffin has effectively completed the first term of Primary One. He's doing okay. He takes on everything with his usual cheeky outlook on life. Like his siblings before him, he isn't too big on homework.

Being the third child through primary education with older siblings whose academic demands regularly floor me, he ends up drawing the short end of the straw. On so many occasions, I've forgotten the spelling and ting xie and remember only to ask him the day after it's tested in school.

So I try to remember.

If I forget, I deputise one of the twins to go through his spelling with him. That often sends him to tears because there is actually something worse than the tiger mom. The Tiger Sister who is stricter and more demanding than the mom. She will berate him in a tone worthy of the Tiger Mom and lay down her strict expectations of his corrections.

But that's where the difference ends.

Unlike the Tiger Mom, the Tiger Sis will be taken in by his tears. She will cave and will try and carry  him. That's when she'll change her tact and surprisingly coax him into trying again. She's has also learnt that yelling at him doesn't work so she tries to be a little bit more encouraging so that she doesn't have to deal with his tears.

His worksheets then end up having encouraging words planted all over like her teacher does for her, I suppose. And she gets him to re-learn the spelling words he isn't clear of on the white board or with magnetic letters which I used to do for her.

In short, she has learnt some pedagogy.

He'd just as soon not do it if given the choice. His toys are still a big thing for him and he still spends long hours just re-connecting with his Lego and his Transformers toy or reading. 

So it's a fine line that we tread on. To make sure that he revises the stuff he has to for school but to give him time to read and be silly. This is where the Tiger Sis empathises with him and totally caves in; when he looks at her with puppy eyes and says he wants to just spend some time reading.

The young teacher still has much to learn.

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Fake news

JED hear snippets of things in school. They aren't all right because there's the 'telephone game' effect where things get lost in translation.

They tell it to each other and then, it must be true because they are not the only ones who know it. (self-perpetuating prophecy)

Their version of the world is a hilarious one.

Jordan: A King got poisoned.
Me: Really? In one of your stories?
Jordan: No, in an airport. A king got poisoned in an airport and died.
Me: A KIM got poisoned. A guy, his name was KIM, he got poisoned in the airport and died.

That led to a whole discussion about North Korea and somehow the conversation led to North Korea having nuclear weapons.


Me: The world gets very upset when North Korea tests its nuclear weapons.
Evan: What do you mean test?
Me: They launch it to see how far it can fly and whether it can hit its target.
Evan (slightly disturbed): Where do they test it? 
Me: Usually, they launch it over water.
Evan: Then the missile drops into the water and everything explodes?
Jordan: Then BOOM, all the fish die?
Me: Yes or they mutate with 3 eyes.

Muffin (walking in): What? There are 3 eyed fish in North Korea? Cool!

A little while later.
Jordan (singing): There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
Me: What?
Jordan: The nuclear missile hit the sea. So there's a hole in the bottom of the sea!

Alternative News.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

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A $1.60 lesson

Muffin's turned 7.

How did that happen?

Anyway, he really is growing up and we're seeing signs of it everywhere.

1. He's become more shy with strangers though still extremely cheeky and rubber-faced with us.

2. At the same time, he's become more rambunctious. Rough playing with his friends and having a whale of a time.

3. He's learning to problem solve quite effectively.
When daunted, this small one finds a way around it. Faced with difficult words to spell, he doesn't give up taking down information as would have some of my other kids, he approximates. So his school diary is a hoot to read and it has to be read out loud so that we know what word he's phonologically spelled out.

4.  He's learning to be responsible.
He's also learning that whining and obsessing about a problem doesn't help him. His wallet strap broke as a result of rough-housing with his friends. I hear later that his friend is the one that broke it. But all Muffin did was to be matter-of-fact about it. He tells me his wallet strap broke and could he have $1.60 to buy a new one.

It did puzzle me how he knew it was $1.60.

His friend's mom filled in the blanks when she apologetically told me that her son broke it. Apparently, the strap broke during recess. All the boys were stunned and wondered if they were going to get into trouble or if Muffin would cry. Muffin didn't. He suggested going to the bookstore to see if he could buy another. They discovered it was $1.60. However,  this was post recess meal and all the boys, Muffin included, on emptying out their wallets discovered they didn't have $1.60 to pool together.

So Muffin decided he would break into his savings and buy one for himself. When the boy came to school with a replacement for Muffin, Muffin declined. He said he had his own money and he'd buy it for himself, otherwise his friend would be short of one for himself. Another of their friends was clamouring for it and Muffin suggested he give it to the other friend.

The story amused me but also made my day. Muffin is truly growing up and he's growing up great.

With this figured out, who really needs to learn how to spell neighbourhood?

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Flunking

One of the things that kids today are not allowed to do a lot of is to fail. We try our darndest to protect them against failing. Offering them pre-emptive help, berating them for failing and instilling the fear of failing in them because that leads to them not doing well and not doing well causes them to not be able to get into good schools and not getting into good schools causes them to not get good jobs and then they will be broke and homeless. Or so the cautionary tale goes.

It's hard not to get sucked into it. It's so much part of our vocabulary. It leaves our lips before we can stop ourselves.

One of JED came home with a badly done math paper and hides it from us. Another of JED calls from school to dejectedly inform me of failing Chinese. Another had an entire page of math streaked with angry red crosses.

How do we respond?

The immediate, instinctive reaction is the Tiger Mom one.
1. To be accusatory: WHY DID YOU FAIL?
2.  To be reactive: More with the tuition!
3. To be punitive: No more toys, no more TV.
4. To be self-flagellating: It's my fault. I haven't done enough work with them. I haven't been home enough.

But then, when those thoughts have been processed, the lingering question is "To what end?". Would more tuition help? Would punishment help? Would my sitting beside them all the time be of advantage to them?

Then the more reasonable Mom struggles to take control.
1. Failing is good. At least JED learn to fail. Learn to cope with failing. I did have a 'gua gua gua' moment when the math paper was discovered. Because that's something so rare in our lives.
2. Failing allows for introspection. Why did they fail? Lack of preparation? Lack of comprehension? Lack of motivation?
3. Failing allows for longer term solutions. How can it be fixed? Should WE fix it? Or should the child learn to fix it?

The latter is really hard to do. It isn't as solution-oriented. The outcomes take a long time to surface. And we really do struggle to not be reactive. It's so easy to panic. It's so easy to get sucked into the vortex of grade obsession.

So the important thing is for us to remember is that in the larger scheme of things, what's failing a test in primary school? What's failing a test full stop? Do we do more harm than good when we prevent them from failing when it isn't of great consequence? Conversely, would a perfect school record be indicative of anything else later on in life?

What are we going to do about the little fails that JED have encountered?
1. We've figured that the math fail was about being reluctant to go the distance. To read the question in its entirety. To slowly break it down. When we sit at the table and help deconstruct the question, everything works. Unfortunately, exam entry usually prohibits a parent sitting beside the child so said child just has to learn to do it without us there. How do we do that? Model the sum and set many others. As with sport, much of math is about repetitive memory. Hopefully.

2. Chinese- well, that's an uphill battle. When I've figured out that one, you'll be the first to know.

3. Fearing the fails- The constant reiteration that they have to tell us if they don't do well because we need to work with them to figure out why it happened. Hiding it from us does none of that. They also need to take responsibility for the fail. And also the undying promise to each of them that we love them for who they are and not what they can do. That while we may berate them when they don't do well, it doesn't take away from how much we love them.

To which, all 3 dissolved into puddles of grateful tears of relief.

For us, when JED fail, we have to learn to not take it personally and by 'we', I actually mean me because Packrat is more chill about it. And the most important question to ask is...

"So, what's next?"

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Experiment 1: Nature study

The twins are doing science this year. They spent much of last year excited about doing science this year. They read, they watched videos and they spewed scary non-sequiturs about poisonous/ deadly animals. They taught me the difference between a poisonous creature and a venomous one.

Unfortunately, school science is not just about remembering crazy facts but actually being able to make observations about these creatures or phenomena. That bit is what we've been trying to help them bridge; articulating all their weird, random bits of information into coherent observations.

The wonderful thing about science is that it's all around, especially now as they tackle living things as a topic. I discovered one morning after dropping the twins off that one of their schools faced a bank of wild vegetation. Peering at the various plants and trees by the pathway, I noticed with a great amount of glee, an army of different sorts of trees and shrubs as well as leaves housing spiders and leaves folded downwards because of sacs of spider eggs. Time to bring them on a nature ramble.

That's when I decided that I was going to make their textbook real to them. Part of what the twins are doing is to identify the different characteristics of leaves. Once again, it's about observation. So, armed with the scissors from my very guniang Swiss Knife and a plastic bag that Muffin had carelessly tossed at the back of the car, I braved commando mosquitoes and started clipping off different leaves.

So yesterday's revision for next week's Science test was to set up their leaf scrap book, identify and list the various characteristics of each of the leaves after pasting them in. Of course from the academic point of view, it's a small section of what they need to know but it was fun and they'll remember it past their use of the scrap book.



Another part of the topic required them to learn the functions of the different parts of the plant. They could learn it by heart or they could see it. I opted for them to see how plants and their system for transporting water worked. To do this, all that was necessary was food colouring, big jars and leaves of Chinese cabbage.

They marvelled at how quickly the water was transported to the tips of the leaves, how the tips of the leaves coloured first and how extensively the network of veins was. And the added bonus was that it was very very pretty. 

If these questions were asked next week, it would be a bonus. If they didn't, at least they'd know how to make very pretty coloured flowers next time. 

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What mornings are like...

Picture essay of the first hour after the morning alarm goes off.

Pictures by Jordan.

The alarm goes off at 6 am. 

Is it a school day? 

Disgruntedly washing up.

Asleep but he remembers to lift the toilet seat.

Breakfast Reading

A hot breakfast with the sun streaming in.

Time to leave for school. Bye to Min the cat. 

Finally, feeling jaunty enough to head off to school.

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Missing friends

The school year has begun in earnest. And there has been a change. This time, the twins feel it acutely. It's not like the last big change where they went up to P1 as slightly gormless, guileless and very young middle schoolers. While that was a huge change, the adjustment problems were more to do with routine.

This time, the adjustment is social. And being smack in the middle of their middle school years and on the cusp of being almost tweeny, they are very affected by it. They miss their friends.

Each are in a new class. For Jordan, it's worse because she's not only in a new class, she's in a new school. Evan is almost there, being in a class where he has only 2 classmates from his previous class. So they're pining in different ways and I feel sorry for them.

Evan is constantly asking if I can arrange play dates with his friends. He's a bit miffed at how Jordan seems to be going out on all these play dates, that he isn't invited to, are full of girls and where girly things are done. He feels left out. It makes him want to hang out with HIS friends, without his siblings tagging along. I get it. I suspect that it's also an age thing. They're developing their own identities, interests and don't really want to exist in a combined life in all aspects. He doesn't really want to play 'family' with his sister or have his younger brother tagging along and trying to copy him in every way and usurping his friends.

Jordan, on the other hand, has been busy making new friends. That and the excitement of starting a new school has distracted her from reality. It didn't hit till last night, Sunday night before the 3rd week of school. This was after a weekend of one of her ex classmate's ringing her every day just to chat and another one declaring that she missed Jordan on the bus and school wasn't the same without Jordan. Upon realisation that come Monday, she was yet again not going to see her old friends, she melt down into a puddle of tears lamenting how the school hours in the new school are longer (by 15 minutes; 10 minutes of which are an in class break) and how she's homesick when she's at school. We gently tell her that there were things she didn't like about her old school either and sometimes, she and her friend on the bus fought like cats and swore they weren't ever speaking to one another again!

So, we've promised to arrange something soon with just her friends and sworn blind that they haven't forgotten her. We've made the same promise for Evan, swearing that he'll be able to go on his own, without his limelight stealing siblings.

Now, to find enough hours and energy on the weekend to do all that.

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Lessons from a sleepover

I've been away for a while hence explaining the blog silence. While away, I bought Jordan a night shirt with the words "I love sleepovers". She was chuffed because in a nutshell, she does. Once I had gotten over the jetlag, she set about bugging me for one. And if anything, that girl is persistent so we caved.

She invited some of her best friends and my head spun as I wrapped my head around the idea of 3 more girls in our house.

I'm happy to announce that post play date, my house is still standing and my sons haven't run away for good.

But here are some things I learnt from it.

1. Sleepovers are a misnomer.

There was no sleep to be had. For them and for the rest of the household. They were too excited and they spent all their time nattering. There were multiple toilet jaunts and declarations of one girl having fallen asleep but being woken up by the other 3 in one way or the other. No amount of warnings or threats, on the part of our exhausted helper, of "I will wake Jordan's Mommy and tell her you all are still not sleeping!" did anything to quell them. I walked in on them at 1 am to someone in a handstand on the bed in the dark.

Eventually, they might have ended up with about 4 hours of sleep not that anyone can confirm it because they outlasted everyone else in the household. They knew this for themselves. All complained that they hadn't slept much though it didn't deter them from anything.

2. Noise and Number of children; not an incremental correlation. 

Packrat had the 4 girls in the car and by the time he got home, he was a little bit on the deaf side. He was also sure that before the end of the night, one of our neighbours would have called the police on us. He said his ears were ringing from the high pitch chattering, squealing and giggling of the 4 girls. His exact description was that they were like Gremlins, fed after midnight and then sprayed with water. They laughed at everything and they were plotting against the boys.The most repeated phrase of the night was "Ssssh, I can hear you girls through 3 closed doors!" And even their whispering was loud. But when one left after lunch the next day, the noise level dropped massively. So our conclusion was the increase in volume rose exponentially with the number of girls. 

3. Household chores are fun too.

With 6 kids in the house, the probability of mess was going to be a high one. So in order to keep all our sanity, we declared that they have to make their own bed, clear up their own clothes, bags, towels, soft toys and clear the table after lunch. Any mess that they made, they had to clear up or Jordan would find herself very short of toys by the end of the play date. 

It worked. Everything was fun because they did it together. It was probably the only reason why the house was still standing by the end of the day. One of them declared that it was like going to camp but the bed was comfortable and there was air-conditioning. Jordan opened her mouth to suggest creating an adventure camp but one look from myself and the helper told her that it was as wishful as her desire for wanting a puppy. 

4. Plan outdoor activities. 

To give our helper time and space to actually clean the house and to prepare lunch, also to restore some of her hearing, I took them all out. 6 children squished into the car and all the way to the park where they could run wild. And run wild they did. It was the most peaceful three hours I had with them because they created their own games including the boys and run amok in the open space. They ran, they crossed stones, they sat on the swings,  they threw a frisbee around and they made up games. By the time I got them home, they had expended much of their energy, bouncing off the walls much less and deigned to play quietly after lunch. 

5. Separate the kids. 

Eventually I shipped the two boys off to Evan's friend's house for their own play date. Even though there were two of them, they really didn't stand a chance against the girls. They were laughed at, teased, excluded (on account of their being boys), made to play the monster/ enemy/ bad guys (on account of their being boys) and locked out of the room (on account of their being boys). It was going to end up in tears (on the boys' part) at some point so I thought it would be better if they went off to safer waters. And it helped. The boys were happy, the girls knew no better but I had a much more peaceful time because I didn't have to mediate the boys' whining about being left out, teased, locked out etc. 

6. As little sugar or chocolate as possible.
Even with minimal help, the girls were on such a high; talking loudly, laughing loudly and giggling at every.single.thing. If we had given them more sugar or chocolate, I think the house would have truly fallen down.

By the end of it, Jordan was exhausted. But apparently, the girls all went home talking about their "camp' non stop so I'm assuming they all had a great time as well. Despite making it sound like it was exhausting, it was really fun to watch the girls play, squabble, make up and natter. It made me hope that for Jordan's sake, she stays close to these friends of hers. And the boys, being boys, came home asking where all the girls were and were genuinely saddened that they weren't around. Jordan's already asking me when they can do another sleepover. 

But it's like jet-lag. It takes a while to recover from. So I'm going to tell her to ask me in a year's time. 

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Respect the child's decision

- There are parts of this post that are spiritual in nature so consider yourself warned before you roll your eyes-

For the longest time, Jordan has been wanting to move schools. Initially, it was because she wasn't settled at her school. But even when she did settle and found her footing, she seemed to still have this inclination to move schools.

By then, we weren't so keen to do so because she had a group of friends that we liked and she could count on. She had strong teachers who were providing her good grounding. It was a good school with simple, decent and strong Christian values. There were no airs to it and we liked that very much.

Unfortunately, she kept picking on things like the girls beingnoisy and sometimes mean and the toilets being smelly and dirty. While we tried to assure her that she would face the exact situations in any other girls' school, she remained like a dog with a bone.

Since there was no dissuading her, we told her that it was then up to her to make it happen. We told her that we would submit her application for her but everything else would be up to her. She would need to

1. Provide consistently good results.

Her edict to herself as she worked towards the year-end examinations

2. Do whatever she felt necessary to get in.

3. Pray for God to open the door for her.

And then we left it. All I had to remember was to submit her results every semester. Jordan on the other hand, talked about it incessantly as if it were already going to happen. When we told her not to get her hopes up, she took it one step further and chose to write to the principal of the school. Jordan then convinced Grandma to drive her to the school and hand deliver the letter to the school office.

A day after her final term exams began, we heard from the school. They were offering her a place for next year. It was what we had been half hoping for for the last two years but thought was never going to happen. Once we got over all the hairs on our arms standing because we knew that it was by the Grace of God more than anything else, we were overwhelmed with nostalgia and reluctance. After all, her current school had done her no harm but in fact given her so much room to grow and develop as a person. And by taking her out, we were in some way hinting that it wasn't good enough for her. And by taking her out, we were throwing her into a brand new environment that she would need to get used to and make friends, all over again.

But the decision wasn't ours to make. That conflict was the hardest to bear. As parents, we are used to calling the shots for JED. But we had put the responsibility of her getting into her school of choice, into her hands. So it was only right to let her decide. We waited till her exams were over before we told her. In the ensuing days, Packrat and I went back and forth, weighing the merits of the new school but lamenting the loss of the her current school.

When we did tell her, we did so most dramatically. We pulled her out of school once her exams were over, took her to brunch and showed her the email. And as she read the email and chomped down on her buttered toast, a grin spread across her face, wide enough to split it. That was our answer enough. People asked if we would have pulled rank and demanded our preference over hers. That grin and the look on her face told us that we would be doing her and in the long term, ourselves a great disfavour, if we took that moment away from her. It was her moment. She did everything she could to get it and if we pulled it from under her feet, she would never trust us again.

                                 

Later on, I asked her what she thought were the reasons why she got into the school after such a long wait.

Her response was that
1. She had worked very hard and she had got herself some pretty good grades.
2. She had prayed. Very very hard.
3. She had written to the principal.

I asked her when she had prayed. In the words of those annoying click bait posts on FB, her answer blew me away.

Me: So, Jordan, when did you pray?
Jordan: Today, at recess.
Me: You prayed today, at recess that you would be able to move schools?
Jordan: Yes. And after recess, you came to pick me up and told me I got in.

Goosebumps.

So, with a heavy heart and trepidation on our part and an excited one on hers we're off on this new adventure, all because God heard the prayers of our 8 year old. May she always remember this as her first encounter of God's faithfulness to her.

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Of tears and recriminations: a post mortem.

The end of the exams did not come fast enough for the twins. And they rejoiced, from the night before the last paper till the day they got the papers back. Then there was a bit of a pall in the house. One did better, one didn't do as well. The problem was that the one who didn't do so well, didn't do so well because of a lackadaisical attitude rather than general inability.

 

As with grief, there were different emotions that I encountered.

First it was denial.
Those scores couldn't be. The incredulity was greatest for English. After all, the twins are the products of two English teachers. How could it be that their English was so bad? I had to remind myself that my 8 year old self once spelt "other things" as "oether thinks". So, if my 8 year old self had crap English, why not the twins?

Then anger. 
When I saw the results and saw the mistakes that led to the results, it truly did make my blood boil. My emotional and irrational response was to wonder if I could get away with caning them. I had grown up listening to how my classmates got caned for bringing home less than perfect scores. Then I asked myself, to what end? How would my inflicting pain on them do anything beneficial? It might make me feel better especially since I would have an outlet for my frustration but I would not inflict pain on a child to make myself feel better. That would just be plain child abuse.

Then the big bad word came along. Guilt. 
I work. I'm out of the house 3 days a week till evening. By which time, I can manage a cursory glance at what they've done through the day. Most of the time, I leave them instructions as to what they need to do. Would it have been better if I had been home every afternoon and put a gun to their heads and made sure they did what they needed to? It was easy to blame myself for it. Could I have put in more effort? Could I have been more vigilant and drilled them a bit more? Then it occurred to me that I wasn't the one taking the exams and I wasn't the one who had to do the work. If it was only being done because I was there, then the work was done under duress. Admittedly, I think if I had drilled the twins more, they might have been in a better position for the exams. But what would they have learnt? That Mommy is their crutch? As they get older, it would get more and more ridiculous for me to be home just so that they would get their work done. So the uphill task that the rational part of me had was to convince the not-so-rational- penchant to be helicopter- tiger mom part of me that it wasn't my fault and my stopping work or staying at home more wasn't going to do the twins any favours. I haven't stopped feeling guilty but Packrat keeps reminding me that the twins have to take responsibility for their own learning and their own achievements.

So where am I now? At this point, while writing this, I think I'm still at  the bargaining phase, full of despair; trying to find reasons and solutions.
I ask myself "Why?" Why is it that the papers were so badly done?  I ask Packrat, what can we do? Of course, the million dollar instinct is to plough them headlong into tuition classes. After all, part of the problem comes from that fact that there is so little rigor in the school work that they aren't used to sitting and practicing for extended periods of time. They don't take, as seriously, the homework we set for them because they know that we aren't their teachers. But this is a path that I'm willing to explore but unwilling to take. The time, the cost and how it's still a short-term solution that breeds a certain amount of dependency and helplessness make it a less than desirable plan of action. We have sat and talked about it to death, coming up with reasons, justifications and recriminations. Eventually Packrat suggests a two-fold action. First we sit with them and ask them the following questions.

1. Do you think you could do better? (Rhetorical question that has to be asked)
2. What do you think you can do to make it better?
3. How can we help you to make it better?

With that, we devise a holiday work schedule (even though we promised no work during the holidays, the caveat had been that they had to earn it) where they stipulate how much work they are willing to do and stick to it. The pages would have to be done to the best of their ability. By the end of the holidays, we'll give them a 'supplementary exam'. If they still show that they aren't doing well, then we start thinking about additional help. The consequence of that, as told to the twins, would be that we will have less money to vacation and they will have less time to play.

I'm not sure if I've reached Acceptance yet though. I'm still annoyed with careless mistakes and and the low grades. I dread finding out what the consequences are. There is some calm albeit resigned acceptance; that these are the grades they were meant to get and the classes they get streamed into are the ones they were meant to get into for whatever reason. That and the fact that 15 years from now, no one will really care what they got in primary school and the ones who did well and the ones who didn't would have all levelled out onto the same playing field. Those thoughts need to become strong enough to block out the more negative, dark and twisty ones that convince me that with these grades at 8, come 12 at PSLE, we're going to be in trouble. Such dark and twisty thoughts have the potential to snowball into panicky, psychotic, crazy mother behaviour which benefits no one.

So have we returned to reality and the living of a normal life?
On the surface, yes. For now, We're giving them a bit of breathing space to go nuts and just play. But deep down inside, I'm still upset and angry. But I know that it's important to move forward and use this as an opportunity to fix what they are weak at. I also know that they need to take on the responsibility of getting the grades they are capable of getting. The latter is a bit harder to teach because it involves us watching them by the wayside and not reacting even if it is a train wreck in slow motion.

There have been counter suggestions. Migrate. Leave this less than ideal system. We would still like to, at some point, but if we did it for this reason then we wouldn't be any better than who pay to get their kids certified as special needs and we'd be running away. Now, that would truly be something to feel guilty about.

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Exam prep, the 8 year old version.

It's the twins' first exams and it's bringing into very sharp focus the difference between the boy and the girl.

Preparation: 
Girl- She wants everything planned and sorted out. She wants to know exactly what she has to do each day.
Boy- He stares, jaw on the ground, at the practice timetable that I set up for the both of them and has no idea how to make head or tail.

Actual practice: 
Girl- She takes it seriously. She does every paper neatly and she wants it graded and she wants it scored. She checks off what she has done.
Boy- He sees it as time away from his Lego and his Harry Potter books. He sees it as an interruption and he needs to get back to the important things as soon as possible. That means, careless mistakes, messy work and haphazard answers. He rips off the Post It and crushes it up. I suspect the ripping and crushing is symbolic as well as literal.

Attitude: 
Girl- The exams are something meant to be feared. So she practices and practices. But she still fears to the point that she bursts into tears. When poked and prodded, she admits that she fears failing.
Boy- There's no sense of urgency. The exams are treated as an annoyance that need to be dispensed with as soon as possible. He tolerates the work we set him because he knows it's his passport to free time and TV time on the weekend. His stress doesn't come from the work but the thought of what he might be missing as he does his work.

The Exam Schedule.

Though the exams aren't over yet, these are my takeaways.

1. I get why people send their children to tuition. Trying to get through the twins' work and corrections  makes me want to run away to the office and hide there till the exams are over. I want someone else to do it.

2. But there's something to be said about going at it by myself. I know how long their attention spans are, I know where their weaknesses and strengths lie and I get a bit of insight into how their very bizarre brain functions.

3. The blood pressure skyrockets equally, whether it stems from the lackadaisical attitude or the uber anxious one. They make me worry in different ways.

4. It's definitely much more stressful to have my own children take exams, despite the fact that the twins' exam are no big deal and my work kids' exams are national exams.

So how have I been coping and how have I helped the twins to cope with mommy being replaced by a stern taskmistress?

1. There has to be mandated play time. It gets counter-productive, despite the fact that holidays and weekends seem the best time to force them to do more work, free of school homework and whatnot. But at some point, it stops working. We'd go out, either in the morning to the park or to lunch with friends or to swim dates in the evening. Wherever possible, we would break the monotony. It ensured that everyone, myself included, kept our sanity intact.

 

2. Work has to be done in short periods of time and the amount of work has to be realistic. My mother, who was way ahead of her time, believed that keeping a child seated for too long was just not healthy and I grew up being reminded of that. We took breaks at the hour mark and I declared ihandstand/ Potter breaks as well as scooter races up and down the corridor.

3. Keeping the goals short-termed. Long-term goals are abstract to the twins. They cannot fathom that they are working hard now for a 'better future' or whatever. They cannot even fathom how their actions now will impact something next year. Furthermore, if the goal is too complicated then they give up. They're realistic. They know they can't get to it, so why try? We've done them in baby steps.
a. Finish this paper and you get ten minutes out on the corridor.
b. Finish by lunch and we'll go out in the afternoon.
c. Complete all your tasks and you get to pick what you want to do after.

4.  Keeping to the schedule.
It is very tempting to ply the twins with more work once they are done, especially when they are all bright-eyed and chirpy after. But the reason why they cooperate when it comes to doing what they needed to do is the knowledge that when they are done, that's it. If I keep slipping them more work, I am not keeping to my end of the bargain and there wouldn't be any incentive for them to finish up because they would just get 'punished' with more work. That would just be plain sneaky.

5. Managing the stress.
Managing my stress sometimes meant ceding the revision to Packrat. It would do no one any good to have a screaming and crazy parent.

Managing Evan's stress (his stress comes from not being able to do what he wants) means using the 'sandwich' method. First, commend his effort on something he's already done well (i.e. handwriting, evidence of checking, attempt at employing something we taught him before). Second, highlight the problem of the moment "Look at where you were careless!". Third, assure him that we aren't angry with him even if he just got a earful. Point out that it's what he did rather than what him personally that we had taken issue with. We also encourage him to try to see beyond what he feels is a 'gulag' existence right now. He cheers up at the prospect of no more work in exactly a week's time.

Managing Jordan's stress means using the sandwich method with different ingredients. First, acknowledge her fears (failing is scary and failing is bad). Second, ask her what we can do to help her not fail ( she needs to come up with this herself i.e. help her with spelling or run through her multiplication tables with her). Third, explain to her that there is nothing wrong with failure, if it actually does occur, because then she'll know what she needs to pay more attention to. That too, is rapidly followed up with the exhortations that our affection and love for them is not grade or achievement dependent.

We don't know how the twins will do in the exams but it is an experience for them, needing to work for something and having it long drawn. But how they do doesn't matter, what they take away does.   When a blood vessel in my head is threatening to blow, I am comforted by the knowledge that in the larger scheme of things, no one really cares about how they did in Primary 2. These achievement milestones are artificial. And that thought, among others, helps assuage the blood vessel and prevents me from losing my remaining marbles.

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Captain Kantang

Kantang means potato.

Evan is a total kantang. In every sense of the word.

We met with his teachers today and no surprise that the subject he struggles most with is Chinese and the teacher basically told us that his biggest problems are comprehension and sentence construction. No surprise once again. We're told the old adage; read to him, expose him, speak to him, let him watch Chinese stuff. Basically, as the teacher very succinctly and hysterically put it, 'no input, no output.'

Basically, he's living up to the expectations of him being totally anglo. In other words, kantang.

The local phrase for someone who is Asian but is totally anglo. Because the anglo-white stereotype is one where many potatoes are eaten.

And once again, that's Evan, described to a T.

He does love his kantang. If I let him, he would eat it every meal of the day in any form. Shepherd's Pie, hash brown, mashed. Cubed and fried Asian style with carrots and minced pork atop rice.

There's no convincing him that it's high carb and he should cut down on it.

It explains the chubbed up version of Evan.

And since he was home today while we were waiting in the sweltering heat to see his teachers, it was perfect time for him to learn to cook his favourite kantang dish.
 
Happy is the boy who has his kantang.

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Exam Season

The question I'm getting asked most often this week is "Do your kids have exams?" followed by "Are they/ you stressed?"

The short answer is no, they don't have exams. But the long answer is that the short answer is a load of crap. Any test that we are informed of at the beginning of the school year, has the children bringing homes files for revision and has a mock test before the actual one is an exam however they try to couch it. Mini-test, Bite Sized test, Continual Assessment, Holistic Assessment; all exams by another name.

Are we stressed? A little bit. The twins are resentful of the sheer amount of work they have had to do in order to revise and be prepared for the test. But a contract's a contract and they're very admirably sticking to it and living up to their part of the bargain.

There are a few things that have helped me and them keep sane. I know the pressure and expectation intensifies as they get older. But here are some things that have been doing the trick this time round.

1. The aforementioned contract: Now, knowing that Packrat is dead serious and knowing what they have to lose if they slack off, both Evan and Jordan have been remarkably on task. Of course, there is complaining and mistakes but the earnest attempt to actually complete their work is more visible. That helps because I don't need to come home to a pile of undone, messy work.

2. Planning: I sit with all their stuff and schedules open and look at what needs to be done and whether it is realistic in the given time frame. Then I work backwards from the number of days I have, the number of pages they can realistically complete and date the pages. I don't spring anything more than the stipulated pages that I had already dated. That way, they know that once they are done, they're done and they can play.

3. Have good support: I am thankful I have good support for the twins. They have a brilliant Chinese tutor that makes learning fun. She has squeaky hammers and tennis balls as part of her bag of tricks. I do the boring stuff with them like make sure they finish whatever revision papers she sets them and I try to go through as much of it as I am able to (ability here plays a huge role). I sat with the tutor before the test season and discussed how we were going to do it. I told her specifically not to have the twins sit there and do papers with her but for her to just focus on the bits they needed help with.  So she does just that and I pick up the slack on the bits that the twins need less help with.

On top of that, the twins are still at BlueTree. And once again, while their teacher is strict with them and expects quite a bit out of them, she revisits old topics as she moves ahead, making their understanding of multiplication and division, for instance, more malleable. She intersperses the table work with games and physical math. So the twins came home declaring their ability to use the measuring tape and regaling tales of the various things they subjected to the measuring tape. So, while she keeps their noses in the grind with homework, the twins are willing to do it. It also has got to do with the amount of scaffolding she gives them. Making them not fear Math, just like the Chinese tutor that makes Chinese fun for them is truly half the battle.

If I hadn't been blessed with having these teachers around to help then I think I would be spending much more time making and looking up resources so that I could replicate these things at home though I'm not sure what degree of success I would have with them.

4. Mastery: The biggest thing that is keeping me from losing it and taking it out on the twins is the constant reminder that these tests really aren't about the grades and an end in themselves. Whenever I feel the urge to let rip a roar of frustration, I remind myself (to varying degrees of success) that it's one test and it's not what matters. I'd figured out that a lot of the stress comes from my expectation of what is good for them. Having been brought up in the Singapore education system, it's easy to say that the best thing for them is to be in the top class and in the top school. I constantly have to fight that voice in my head. In the last few months, there is another voice; softer at times, not as confident but gaining more each day, that reminds me that if the twins are truly struggling, despite all efforts then perhaps the top class isn't where they ought to be and what I think ought to be re-looked. The semi-epiphany that I came to is that eventually I want JED, Muffin included, to be able to grasp the concepts and be able to use them. In one word, mastery.  So then, what we should be working  towards  isachieving that mastery and I've tried to shift my focus towards helping them attain that.

I'm not sure if I'll still be singing the same tune next year or this year end when the stakes are raised. After all, I am fighting a rising tide that is our ridiculous education system that epitomises academic inflation. But framing testing in this light does seem to have given me a little bit less to yell about.

All that being said, I really cannot wait till next week is over and everyone gets some much deserved rest and play time. Even as a teacher, I don't know if I looked forward to school break as much as I have in the last 18 months.

On that note, here's a little bit of a shout out, for those looking for something for the kids to do during the holidays. The twins saw this mailer from BlueTree- an Art-Science camp about the feathered friends and have asked to do it. It's two days at the beginning of the holidays and since I'm going to be at work, I figured why not. And the best thing about it is that after having fun at BlueTree, they're still going to have the rest of the day to play!

There's an early bird special going on, so catch it before it flies off. (Bad puns intended!)

BlueTree Education is at  271 Bukit Timah Road, Balmoral Plaza #02-15 Singapore 259708. You can call them at 91064702.

 The twins' Math class for the term are being sponsored by BlueTree Education. If anyone is keen to try their stuff, they offer free trial classes. I love what they do at English, Logic and Literacy (which sounds way fun!) and Current Affairs Club too but for now, the twins need more play time than classes.

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