A week or so ago, Jakjak called me from our home phone. Casually, he asked me where I left the PSP. Then I told him it was probably on his mum's dresser (which he could not reach). I heard him shout through the handset, asking his mum to get it for him. After a brief pause, probably with the lack of anything else to ask, he mumbled, "So Dad, what's up?".
It was as casual as my wife talking to me.
He does this to us. Talking like he knows what he's talking about (although, most of the time he does know what he's talking about). There was a time on the bus that his teacher happened to be on board with us and he saw a bug. "Teacher, that's a moth ..." (When I was 5, I thought everything with butterfly wings were, well, butterflies).
And during one of their field trips (Singapore Duck Tour) which takes them across the Singapore river, he kept interrupting the tour guide. He would explain what the landmark that they were seeing was and then he would tell them about the things that he saw there.
Once, a kid took his toy from him without borrowing it (although they had been playing for a while already). He went to the kid's mum, told her about what the kid has done (mind you, he was not cross or anything), and he talked to the mum like he was the dad of some kid that had been bullied. Once the mum understood what he was trying to say, she told his son off and asked him to politely return the toy. On a similar occassion, he found another kid with the same happy meal toy that he had just gotten earlier (and one that we had patiently put the decals on). He went to the kid's mum, told her that the toy had stickers to be put on, got it from the mum and patiently stuck the decals on the toy (all the while explaining how we did it for his own toy). He casually did so, like somebody's big brother.
But at the end of the day, he cuddles with his mum, asks for his bedtime stories, drinks his milk and says his good night prayers. As casual as a 5 year old would.
We all know that kids grow up eventually. There is pretty much nothing that can be done to stop the cycle. And there will be a time that our kids will ask for their independence in full. We get hints of it in the childhood years, and I'm sure I'll be hearing more about it when Jakjak hits puberty. But as a parent, how much independence would a child actually need?
Personally, I let Jakjak do pretty much a lot of things that kids actually do. On the back of that, there are rules and guidelines that we have set for him to follow (no violence, no lies, no porn, etc.). He's doing pretty good at it, and so are we (as best as we know). We call this, trust. We believe that we should give guidance for Jakjak during his formation years. We believe that we are helping him build his character, his morals, his spirituallity. And we believe that we should be doing this without being too restrictive or too strict. We opted to have a democratic family relationship. If happiness is the only indication of success, then we can all say that we are happy.
But happiness is not the only measure of success (in bringing up children anyway). It is, by our calculation though, a big factor but not the only factor. Happiness can come from a lot of things. But from where I stand, it's coming from contentment, peace of mind, harmony and a little bit of financial freedom. It's taking effort, it's not easy. But with everybody contributing one way or the other, it looks like it's going to be a good journey ahead.
The Asian Civilisations Museum at Raffles Place, plays host to numerous Asian exhibits all year round. There are regular exhibits that reside there, but the real draw is always the feature exhibit which only stays for a couple of months. The feature this time around, was the Terracotta Soldiers from China.
These guys have been a famous attraction for a long time. In fact, we would have loved to see them from the dig site, all lined up and arranged as to how they were when they were built to protect the emperor (in the afterlife).
We always bring Jakjak to the museums. Because contrary to popular belief, museums are not actually boring. Not here anyway. There always seems to be something interesting for kids to do (the mummy making from the mummy exhibit comes to mind). And because kids become interested, I'm almost sure that at the back of their minds, they absorb some of the exhibit's information and knowledge. Given of course, that parents talk their kids through the displays and not merely stare in awe all by themselves (and leaving the kids in the activity areas). We always make sure that we give Jakjak accurate information when we look through museums. This keeps him interested and informed. And when we don't have the answer, we tell him that we would look it up on the Internet when we got home. In this way, we don't fabricate stories and he gets information that is valid. Of course, there are times that some information are not suitable for children, in these cases, Jakjak gets a toned down version of the facts. This has never stopped him from watching Nat Geo TV and Discovery Channel with us though (in HD, of course).
The good thing about Jakjak is that he retains information in chunks. Somehow, he has a storage area in his brain for information. He remembers things that we (his dear parents) have already forgotten, yet he would remind us with every minute detail that he can think of. So, while he enjoys his dig site and his toys, we feel confident that at the back of his mind, the knowledge that he gained is still there and hopefully would be useful to him in his future endeavors (perhaps he might decide on making his own army of Terra Cotta soldiers).
It's a satisfying feeling, especially for a parent, to see how your hard work has paid off.
I can only look back and reminisce at some of the things that we had to go through to bring up Jakjak. There are things that you do because you have to, and things that you do because of the choices that are presented to you. And sometimes, the results of those choices would only be realized in the near (or far) future. And most of the time, you can only hope that you are making the right decision.
Take for instance our decision to teach Jakjak English as his primary language. When we decided to do this, we were thinking "we live in our country, our native language would be easy enough to absorb". We had never considered back then that we might be living in some place other than our homeland all those years ago. Today, we find comfort that Jakjak can speak fluent English, as if he were born English (we have Maisy Mouse to thank for that). Because of this, he is quite comfortable in dealing with people of all ages who can understand him. And in Singapore, English happens to be the school's main language.
We had to be patient when we started teaching Jakjak about the basics. Letters, numbers, colors, shapes. All these things that we are so accustomed to today, were things that a child has to absorb in order to learn. And we trained him not by simply jumping the gun on him. It took studying and research on our part to assess how best to approach the teaching method we would employ (yes, it's not rocket science, but it shouldn't be taken lightly either). It was a chore to be constantly monitoring the toys and the tools that are supposed to help in the child's development. The stages of learning was different if you considered emotional, physical and intellectual growth. It was not a "one fix fit", as we found out. And while we juggled about the stages, Jakjak had been on his merry way growing up at his own jolly pace.
But all these things have been good for him. He is growing up to be an inquisitive little man. Anything and everything that attracts his curiosity warrants a question. And there were days that he bombards us with questions on the who, what, when and where along with the how. It tries your patience sometimes, it truly does (especially when the questions become repetitive), but again, we employed patience rather than frustration. So now he knows the color teal, aquamarine and periwinkle (honestly, I don't know many parents who teach that to 3 year olds). He knows about axles, driveshafts, shift knobs and mufflers (only gear-heads like me probably teach these things when a child turns 4).
Perfectionists may say that there is still room for improvement. For us, we are happy, Jakjak is happy. There is no stress, no tension between what we want and what Jakjak is. He has achieved something that we always knew he would achieve. In some areas more, in some areas less. He continues to surprise us with his wit and cleverness. In every aspect of his childhood, Jakjak has grown. And we have learned to grow with him. We are what we are because we managed to grow and improve together.
The other night, I may have made a costly mistake.
After reading a bedtime story to Jakjak about a brother who promised his younger sister an ice cream treat if she could read ten words, I challenged Jakjak to the same. I told him that if he could read one "green back" book from his Dr. Seuss books (classified as such for children just starting to read), I would buy him ice cream. This would already be easy for him, and I knew he would be able to do it (albeit rather slow on the more difficult words). But I challenged him anyway because sometimes he can be just as lazy as his dad.
He did a one-up on me by saying he can only read a "pink-back" book, for which I agreed. The only thing is, there is no "pink-back" Dr. Seuss book! He meant his book about "Matter" whose front to back cover was pink. It only had simple one-liners on each page and, I found out shortly after he finished reading, that he had practically memorized the book (this, according to mum).
He then did another one-up on me by stating the obvious, he has a cough and ice cream would be bad for him. So he asked if he could get a toy car instead, to which I agreed, since it was true that he has a cough. In the end, the toy car ended up being more than twice the price of the ice cream (not that I'm complaining, but he's been getting the upper hand on me).
After redeeming his prize, it made me realize that I needed to re-think my strategy. It's cool to do this as a sort of motivation, but like any in-store promotion, it should be of equal value. Somehow, my love for Jakjak simply overtook the objective part of the exercise. I'm not complaining. There's always a next time, for both of us.
Jakjak has been on holiday since Monday. School holiday that is. For him, it's a hyper-extended weekend of playing and lounging around the house and even more playing. That's all good for him, but it has become stressful for us.
When he had not been going to school, we had already accepted the life we would have at home. Noisy. Messy. And I meant both of those in a good way. When he started going to school regularly, mum had a short window to clean up, look after the house and sleep (although the sleeping part had never really become a problem even when Jakjak was not in school). So, with Jakjak being home for the holidays, the house, well, let's just say is a "little bit" messy.
Life is never a bore though. Even way back when, Jakjak seemed to have a little surprise lurking at the back of his head to entertain everybody. It could be a new dance move (which is either weird or uncanny), it could be a new song he had just learned (we had a week of Singapore NDP songs just before the holidays), or it could just be a witty remark here and there. Whichever surprise he may have concocted, it is magnified when he is on holiday mode. Maybe because he has all those extra hours to think them up, I don't know. But one thing I do know, is that his head is full of surprises. And coming home to him is like coming home to a party. Noisy. Messy. But always a charm.
Jakjak had never been interested in stickers. Not those kinds with characters or shiny slivery borders or chameleon like colors. He played with price tags and sticky tape, but that was about it. Until recently anyway.
In school, whenever somebody had a birthday, they would be bringing home treats like candies and little trinkets. There was one birthday where the goodie bag happened to contain a bunch of stickers. He started with one small heart which he stuck on his notebook. Since then, I see a few difderent kinds of stickers that were stuck on his other notebooks.
He then had this Cars activity book that came with stickers of eyes, mouths and car decals. The point of which was to actually design your normal toy cars to make them look like characters from the movie. He managed to do some of them pretty good. Then suddenly, our weighing scale had eyes (scared the bejeezes out of me).
So now, every once in a while, I see stickers all over the house. Cars, stars, rainbows, hearts and cartoon characters. Tinkerbell now sits proudly on Jakjak's bike. There was a price tag on the TV. a butterfly on the bookshelf. And I think there will be more nooks with even more stickers. Sigh.
