How many of us flash cards to our babies before age 1? Or bring them to extra classes by age 2? I'm sure many parents in Singapore do. It's become second nature to us to be kiasu for our children, trying to give them what we perceived as advantage.
I'm guilty of this myself. So when a friend linked this blog post call What Should a 4 Year Old Know? by A Magical Childhood on Facebook recently, it felt like someone hitting my head on the back saying, "What the hell were you thinking?".
I have re-posted it as it such a good read for parents, especially Singapore parents. We live in this society that is so competitive that it consumes us. It seem inevitable that we as parents behave this way. So sometimes its good to just take a step back, take a deep breath and have a look at what's going on.
I believe that every kid has their own learning pace and it is important to let do them do things or learn at their own speed. Right now I'm just concentrating on teaching him the rights values. Just today when Lilian was trying to apply moisturizer to his feet, he used my name to reject Lilian. He actually said, "My daddy say cannot put cream." I was right outside and came in after hearing it, gave him a very hard stare and told him off.
Anyway if you are a parent of a young kid, I strongly encourage you to have a read at the blog post.
I'm currently dealing with the same dilemma with my son's nursery:
ReplyDeletehttp://dear.xander.sg/what-society-wants/
While I am taking a cold hard look at the local education system, my immediate concern is how to manage the school's expectations of my child and still give him a childhood.
After reading your post, I'm glad I'm not the only one.