Hi Mummies,


My first son does not like to eat, number 2 likes to eat. But of late, Number 2 follows what his brother is doing. So if my eldest son is running around and not eating, number 2 will do the same. Both of them are very active kids who cannot sit down for more than 10 mins on a stretch. So in order for them to sit down and eat their meals, they are either watching their favorite show or playing wii. Its a bad habit to cultivate. Sigh what to do. Since my objective is to make them eat as much as possible. Its a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Mamalicious Alicia

Hi Mummies,


Yes saying please and thank you is such basic manners which makes everyone happy. It also encourages the person doing the act to repeat it next time. How we raise our children will have an impact on our society's solidarity because of our values and beliefs.

You don't have to be polite, friendly, or reciprocal to others to be successful in life, but you will become a very lonely person.

Its quite hard to teach my 2nd son and youngest daughter about manners cause its a concept which they have difficulty trying to understand. So i let them watch videos on youtube that teaches manners. Like this one,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaZ26-noUEc

Now they are singing the song the whole day....Now, I wonder if it was a good idea.....

Mamalicious Alicia

Hi mummies,


I agreed with verykiasu2010 mummy,
you need to pre-negotiate the time slot / amount of time allowed, and stick to it strictly, and that is it

Before any activity, it is good to talk to your child about the rules and safety issues. In this case, they need to stop watching TV after the allowed time. This will ease any troubles later.

If you keep practicing communication to them before any activity, they will learn to abide by the rules. Having said tt, you need to be

1) Firm
2) Stick closely to the rules, especially the safety issue

If they breach any of the rules, they will not be allowed to continue. i.e. playing at the beach---rule/safety issue: no swimming---if they go into the water, stop activity.

For our first son, we did not enforce these rules and it became very hard to implement them later. So with our second child, we train him young and he listens and abide by our rules (although sometimes he wines too).

Good luck. Be firm. if you need more ideas, you can read
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Stop-Your-Child-From-Watching-Too-Much-Television&id=3843965
or

http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Your-Child%27s-Computer-Addiction

-I like the 'Buy or download a program that restricts computer use' idea

Mamalicious Alicia

Hi mummies,


I agreed with verykiasu2010 mummy,
you need to pre-negotiate the time slot / amount of time allowed, and stick to it strictly, and that is it

Before any activity, it is good to talk to your child about the rules and safety issues. In this case, they need to stop watching TV after the allowed time. This will ease any troubles later.

If you keep practicing communication to them before any activity, they will learn to abide by the rules. Having said tt, you need to be

1) Firm
2) Stick closely to the rules, especially the safety issue

If they breach any of the rules, they will not be allowed to continue. i.e. playing at the beach---rule/safety issue: no swimming---if they go into the water, stop activity.

For our first son, we did not enforce these rules and it became very hard to implement them later. So with our second child, we train him young and he listens and abide by our rules (although sometimes he wines too).

Good luck. Be firm. if you need more ideas, you can read
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Stop-Your-Child-From-Watching-Too-Much-Television&id=3843965
or

http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Your-Child%27s-Computer-Addiction

-I like the 'Buy or download a program that restricts computer use' idea

Mamalicious Alicia

Hi sparkie0209,


I would not be too concerned either. Everyone is different. We should not be worried if our children are not behaving what we are expecting them to be.



P.s Jedamum, your kids are so cute…my eldest son behaves rather similar too. Cannot concentrate and easily distracted.

Mamalicious Alicia

Powerpuff Mum wrote:

We also encourage our children to read, expose them to alot reading materials and also educational softwares. We correct them as we speak on a day to day basis. It comes very naturally. We also encourage them to tell stories or describe places , emotions etc which enhance their vocabulary and confidence in public speaking. They write journals about their travels, daily experiences and fictional essays for fun.

Very good idea and stamina mummy, ICHIBAN! yes it has to be a constant effort put together by the parent and child.

Mamalicious Alicia

Hi,

Reading is a good way to improve your child's language skills. As a child is reading, their mind are forming sentences which will lead to speaking proper English. Hence it is important to buy good books (not singlish comics)

Personally i think the environment plays a vital role. If you want to master a foreign language, you go to that country and stay with natives. i.e learn japanese, stay at japan for a few months. Not only will you pick up faster, you will soon self-correct as the people around you don't understand what you are saying.

It is difficult to speak proper English here as Singlish is so common here and we use it to tone down and appear more friendly to others. The media also uses it to speak to us in order to bring our guard down.

So its hard when our children's friends in school speak singlish and somehow influence them. It has to be a constant self-teaching, self-correcting and self-improving journey for our little ones. For now, here's a link which i find useful and interesting.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/parents-help-speaking-english-at-home.htm

Hi Mummies,


My husband and i attended a talk on the topic,
‘Giving your child the excellence edge’ by Joshua Ng.

Speaker is very funny. His children have all grown up, so we felt that the talk was better for 6yrs and above parents. But we did take home some very good points he brought up.

1) Character flaw.
Which i think is the topic we are discussing now. He mention how he expected a student of his (secondary level) to excel in all his subjects but did not. He found out that the boy was playing computer games once he reach home till the next day. So it is this flaw that prevents him from maximising his full potential.

If he thinks that his children are smart, then he expects full marks for spelling. Only if they are dyslexic then they will be excused.

2) Raising a quality child
Expect quality in their work they produce. His analogy was mac donalds french fries. We all like good fresh french fries, and not the sloggy ones, so if we were to instill in our children to aim for good quality work, they will have an excellent edge over others. But not to confuse with being a perfectionist…

There were more pointers but these are the two which never cross my mind and made me think about.

Mamalicious Alicia

Blobbi wrote:

You can't over-water a plant in the hopes that it will develop faster.


Could not agree more.
Sometimes I look at my children and wish they grow up faster but then when I look at other children (infants) I suddenly miss their baby stage...


I suppose this is an endless debatable thread and posting more links to interesting articles or videos will help us decide better how to manage nurture our children! Thanks to those mummies who did.

Mamalicious Alicia

If you want to nuture another Bill Gate, can try reading this book,


Outliers: The Story of Success
written by Malcolm Gladwell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29