Namie:

My son is hopeless. I told him a Down syndrome boy will do better in PSLE than him. He is not someone who can do his parents proud. Bring shame to us only. Told my husband I cannot live with the shame of a non-performing child.

Oh my! These are words from a defeated parent! Whatever happens to good parenting?

Don't say or do hurtful things to your child even when you think they are too young to understand. Believe me, these acts will come back to haunt you in your later years when everything starts to fall into place. Bad conscience will tug at your heart and the feelings of remorse and regret will make you weep.

If a parent is feeling this way about his/her own child, then the child will definitely fulfill the negative expectations about him because he grows up in 'that' kind of climate his parents have set for him.

If someone or a teacher tells you that your child is so bad in his academic achievements that he has hit bottom ground and is beginning to dig, how does that sound to you? Will you let it pass? Surely it also doesn't give you the right to say the same things to your own child. Imagine how the child will think if he doesn't even get an ounce of emotional support from his own parent. His self worth and esteem will be brutally battered. By his own parents.

Yes, nobody taught us how to be parents and we learn by trial and errors. Many times, we lose our self-control when things are not happening our way and we begin to think of the worst and become hard on ourselves and our kids. That's where the conflicts start and escalate into a tailspin. The pressure to succeed in this mad paper-chasing society is just too great to handle.

How to get out of this trap? Stop making incredible demands on your kids to perform. Do not pressure your kid to perform so as to make youself look good in front of friends and relatives. That's not love. That's putting yourself before your child. Your self-interest has become your priority.

Yes, relationship is more important than issues. Remember, we are raising children, not flowers. Nurture your kids' interests, not yours. Focus on their strengths and work around their weaknesses.

The PSLE definitely brings out the monsters in some parents. The kids face pressure to perform and the parents are stressed out. The fear of not meeting expectations grip us like a vice and we become over controlling and over demanding. We cannot afford our kids to be second best. Our egos won't allow it. We set the climate in the family with fear and guilt. That's not right. Nothing will flourish in such a family setting.

So parents, stop focusing on the negatives. Give your kids positive strokes. Affirm and encourage. Love love love your kids unconditionally. Confident parents breed remarkable kids.

\" To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.\" - Josh Billings

bebebub:

Jennifer:

http://i65.tinypic.com/2zp89w4.jpg\">

No queue to get in when I first arrived. Queued slightly over an hour to pay. The queue to pay was snaking and messy. By the time I left, there was a queue to get in. The hall was simply too small for the crowd that turned up. Very happy with my purchases, but :moneyflies:

Prices can be knocked down by 70%....:shock: Goes to show Le Creuset merchandise are grossly overpriced to begin with. :siam:

I am eyeing on the grill pan. Bro-in-law has one and he grills the best premium steaks ever with it!

When it comes to choosing schools, parents need to be radical and understand that they should be choosing schools that fit your kids, and not the other way round. It is precisely the latter that induces uncalled stress to both parents and kids in their desperate attempts to meet cops and when expectations are not met, it can be rather devastating.


Take a good hard look at your kids’ academic ability in general and focus on their consistency in performance. That should be a good and realistic way to gauge where they stand and then work towards schools that have cops that fall into their fits. Anything higher after release of results is then considered bonus. Do not hanker on schools that are beyond their fit just because it is branded, popular and so and so goes there. These may be good schools but are you sure they are appropriate fits for your kids? Trying to get into popular schools or ip schools even if you fall short of their cops is like making yourself and your kids perform for the moment. Hence the psle stress. Good results is attained from daily hard work and consistency in performance. It’s the secret of top academic performers.

So, it really depends on how you want to look at it. Do you want your child’s education journey to be a stint or a marathon? Do note that if you take it as a stint, your energy will be sapped fast and you will not last the marathon.

So go with the flow. Your child can do reasonably well in his own/her capacity to get into the schools that fit him without your undue worrying and fuss. As long as both parent and child do not covert on schools that are beyond your reach just to make yourselves look and feel good, you are on fine track and everything will fall into place.

One thing to note about making a difference in Psle scores is writing skills. Everyone has been training hard and excessively on the core papers but hardly anyone can write or speak well. Although marks on writing and orals are small components of the overall score, that’s exactly how most students lose out to those who can write well. Also try to get your kids to take charge of their own studies and be responsible for the end results. That teaches independence, responsibility and accountability which are exactly the required attributes to last their education marathon.

Peace.

Whatever you do in life, do it in moderation. Too much of anything is always detrimental.


An interesting read here. Is cow milk meant for humans?

http://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth/

To me, the burning question now is, did the dead boy molest the young girl?


If yes, why did the boy tell his mom that he didn’t although he had confessed his misdeed to the police during interrogation? What EXACTLY happened during the interrogation at the police station? Why did the boy say that he did it because the police said he did it? It seems to me he was resigned to accept what the police had claimed!

Why as a parent, who has just found out from the police that your son had molested someone and with his act so-called captured on CCTV, was denied the right to view the video? Shouldn’t the police substantiate their claim that their son was indeed the perpetrator by showing his parent the video? It leaves me wondering whether the police had actually nabbed the right person to the molestation case. I reckon only the young girl victim can attest to that.

The TOC report also wrote that the boy’s parents found the police arrogant and irresponsible. They had many questions left unanswered by the police and seem to be clueless of what’s going on. The next thing they knew their child was dead. Even then, they are still left clueless why their child had died.

After this episode, it also sets me thinking that, does a school have the right to release a child from school without the parent’s consent on the pretext that the police want your child for investigation? Shouldn’t they at least wait for the parent to arrive at the school before taking the child away?

Not trying to play police myself but based on what ensued after the police had walked into the school, there are just some things that do not click or make sense. Now, I am just as clueless as the dead boy’s parents.

I do not know if the parents had communicated more with the boy of what had happened and gave him emotional support and assurance. Misdeeds are forgivable and the road to repentance will definitely not be lonely with their unconditional love. Perhaps things may have taken a different turn from this tragic end.

My deepest sympathy to the bereaved family and to the boy, RIP.

As reported, those affected kids who are reposted back to their originally allocated schools which I reckon is about 10…does that mean it could probably be 1-2 kids per school. Surely MOE can make allowance to keep these poor kids in their successfully appealed schools to save them the physiological trauma. Why single them out? After all, it’s not those kids’ fault but the fault of miscommunications between MOE and the principals from those schools. I truly feel for the affected kids and parents. They bear the brunt of MOE’s inefficiencies in communications.

alng:

Some sec schools accepted students with t-scores below their COPs during the appeal phase and MOE asked these sec schools to rescind the offers. These students have to be re-posted back to their original schools after one week of orientation.


http://themiddleground.sg/2016/01/13/32110/

Can't help feeling really sorry for these affected kids....it must be traumatic for them as their lives take a different turn.

They sure need loads of assurance and encouragement at this juncture.

This is a great wake up call to us, both adults and kids, that indeed you don’t always get what you want in life. Appeal or no appeal, people just need to learn to accept the word ‘No’. Yes, dreams may be shattered and disappointments hard to be stomached. Hard truth is we still need to face reality, learn to manage our expectations and live with it.


If the kids can’t get into their choice schools by a miss of 1-2 points (it could be as bad as mere decimals), then the next choice of school is still ideal and workable for them considering they made those choices themselves. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts - Sir Winston Churchill

So, drop your unhappiness like a cloak and move on. You can still discover new oceans even if you lose sight of the shore.

All it takes is courage.

StillThinking:

Fresco:

That's what I mean when I said they are being practical if they want schools in close proximity to home. Not everybody covets top schools.

They likely still wanna go to those top schools, but it may be far for them or maybe they can't afford because they do not have that money at all.

It could be a lot of reasons. It will be interesting to find out from them though.

StillThinking:

Fresco:

[quote=\"anxious.dad\"]Isn't COP a direct result of supply and demand? A high COP merely means that the school is in high demand though many choose to associate it with prestigue and \"顶尖\". Isn't the aim of education is to eliminate illiteracy and to shape character building?

What's interesting is no matter how 'prestigious' or 顶尖 these top schools are, somehow they still fail to attract a good number of high psle scorers. Look at the various neighbourhood secondary schools like Nan Hua, BPGH etc. They have students scoring as high as 27X and these students choose to study here instead of the much coveted top IP schools. With affiliation or not. They must have their special reasons or are just being practical in their choice of schools.

Perhaps these people are wiser in their choice.... Big fish in small pond and need not worry about cop. That's really a load of headache and anxieties if they were to compete for placements in the top-tier schools.

Not true, these are usually because of distance reasons or family reasons.[/quote]That's what I mean when I said they are being practical if they want schools in close proximity to home. Not everybody covets top schools.