12 Wishes For Christmas

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Blessed Christmas to all parents and students!

This morning I woke up .. reflecting on the God’s blessing for 2010.

I am thankful for lots of advices from families and friends before my dd started P1 this year. So I decided to compile those valueable thoughts and made them into a mini 12 Suggestions for parents (for 12 days of Xmas? )as Xmas gift

  1. Values
    • If LOCATION is the most important word for buying a property, I believe VALUES is the most important word for raising a child. I rather my child grow up with good values in life rather than with the most intellectual mind
  2. Reading
    • Cultivating Interest in Reading is the first step towards knowledge acquisitions. Read to them, read with them and they will start to read by themselves. Choose books of their interest to cultivate their interest in reading.
  3. Knowledge
    • Acquiring Knowledge is critical to learning. A strong interest to acquire knowledge will generally produce a passion in learning. Do not teach based on what we think they can understand but rather what they can absorb. Sky is the limit, but remember to pull back when they express difficulty in understanding. You will be surprised … sometimes 3 months later they will be able to understand the same concept that they do not understand 3 months ago.
  4. Benchmark
    • Never use our primary school experience as a benchmark for our child’s experience. Society changes, demographics changes, standard living changes over time. What is a norm previously might no longer be a norm today. Yes … the pace of learning has accelerated since our times.
  5. Monitoring
    • To outsource or not to outsource is secondary. Parents involvement is PRIMARY. Parents need to monitor their child’s work consistently. There are many SAHM/SAHD that help their children successfully produced good results without external help. The key is in being involved intheir children’s school work and in monitoring their progress Likewise, for parents who are both working, school work can be "outsourced" but without monitoring, the money and time will go to waste and the result will not be what you are looking for.
  6. Affirmation
    • Affirmation for a child helps in the self-esteem when the child is growing up. Most kids grow up wanting to be like their parents. A word of encouragement and affirmation is like "power boost" to kids. Though some kids might show a "couldn’t be bothered" look, such words of affirmation does get "etched" in their heart.
  7. Trying their Best
    • I once pondered what is a good target (in term of score) for my dd. The final conclusion is that there isn’t any. Always encourage your children to try their best. That means if they finished a test or exam without careless mistakes, but make genuine mistakes, it is ok. All kids made careless mistakes, but with proper checking and "stamina" to keep re-checking, they will overcome it.
  8. Their Interest, not ours
    • Apart from schoolworks, it is also good to expose kids to other area of interest. However, most parents choose what they think is best rather than observe their children’s interest inclination. Remember they are the one learning, training the kids in their respect interest will definitely yield better results.
  9. Performing Arts
    • Speech & Drama, Dance, Acting and Music enrichment can be a great help to boost self-esteem. Someone once said … Performing Arts, especially music, helps to stimulate the brain and helps in learning. In fact more than half of the "gifted/bright/smart" children knows how to play at least one instrument.
  10. Visual Arts
    • Art and Craft allows a better understanding of one’s inner self. Many kids draw to express themselves knowingly or unknowingly. Besides, these are good llife skills that goes a long way. Projects work will be mor emanagable with such skills
  11. Exercise
    • I am not talking about exercising 3 times a week for 20mins each. Kid’s exercise through fun. Bring them out to the park, go for a swim, visit the nature. They will run around, have fun and indirectly exercised.
  12. God
    • Lastly, for Christians, let them know the important of God in their life.  Afterall … it is Xmas today.

Blessed Xmas everyone and have a wonderful day.