During my course of work as a tutor, I came across such incidences as well. What I did was to let the parent sit in together with the kid during the first trial lesson. The kid will feel comfortable with the parent around and after the first session, they will realise that their fears are usually unfounded.


You can try talking to the tutor for such special arrangements.

Don’t waste your time and money on sending your kids on an "Improving your memory" course. They will teach you specific techniques to improve your memory, but the real challenge is how can the kid apply the memory techniques back to the school work, its not an easy process.


Personally I’ve spent alot of money going for these memory courses, hoping to train my students, but realised that its hopeless. Later to my astonishment, I found out that I can find all these memory techniques from books in the library.

I realised that the best "memory technique" is to understand, especially the maths topics. We need to train the kid how to "think and understand" when they see certain questions, memory doesn’t work in maths.

I do agree that "verbal" bullies are more difficult to detect, and I’ve learnt a new way how to handle the situaton from my DD.


She had a "verbal" bully in her class when she was in P1, constanly putting other kids down through verbal abuse. One day, the bully forgot to bring his pencil case and approached my DD to lend him a pencil. Guess what my DD told him. She said that she will only lend him the pencil provided that he promised to be her friend. The bully agreed and he stopped the verbal abuse on my DD from there onwards. Because my DD told him that since he promised to be her friend, they must be good to each other.

This method may not apply to everybody, but self esteem is definitely the passport in reducing the bully cases. And yes, I’m afraid that the kids will be exposed to more bullying cases when they are in P1. We just have to teach them how to stand up for themselves.

Thank you for all the heartwarming welcomes from everybody!

Frankly, I personally do not like the "an eye for an eye" approach in handling bullies, but as the telling teacher technique didn’t seem to work out, guess we have to try other means. But from that experience, she has learnt to stand up for herself.


My DD had an even better "technique" when she was a newbie in P1. There was this older primary boy who snatched her water bottle and hid it away so that she couldn’t find it. My DD located him during the school assembly, went up to him in front of all the teachers and students and asked him at the top of her voice to give back the water bottle to her. Thereafter, some other P1 girls went up and joined her as the bully had apparently did the same to them too. Needless to say, all the P1 girls got their water bottles back and the bully was reprimanded by the teacher.

My kids are girl 8yo and boy 2yo. What prompted you to make the decision to leave your job and be SAHM? It wasn’t an easy decision for me. But now, I felt that it was the best decision that I’ve ever made in my life.

Hello to all the kiasu parents out there!


I’ve left my full-time managerial job of more than 10 years to become
a full-time tutor, so that I can work from home and coach my two little
angels. Hope to be able to be in touch with like-minded parents who have gone through the same experience.

Halo, I’m new here. Glad to join in the North group, as I’ve been a Northlander for most of my life.

Just would like to share my experience on how I taught my daughter, currently 8 years old to handle her first bully case 4 years ago.


When she was 4 years old in nursery, a girl kept hitting her. Initially I just told her to report it to the teacher, but thereafter the girl simply hit her when the teacher was not around. Finally, I told her to confront the girl directly and told her right in the face that she will hit back if she ever laid a finger on her again. The girl was taken aback by her sudden courage, and guess what, they became best friends.

I guess we have to teach the kids how to stand up for themselves as the teachers and parents cannot be constantly by their side to protect them. The "bully" will usually target the "weaker" kids who do not know how to stand up for themselves.