Change is in the air...

Boy, am I challenged in these recent days. I was just about to discipline my child regarding her deceptive behaviour. I was about to blow as this was not the first time and previous time was a really strict consequence. Was trying to get her to understand personal responsibility for change.

As I was about to implement yet another round of consequences, I am reminded of change. Prompting is just that she has reached an age of a change in my parenting method. Come to think of it, she is already almost 9 and I have not have any major changes in my parenting methods. I decided to rethink my entire parenting approach.

1st major shift must be in the form of punishment and consequences. Extrinsic negatives need to make way for more intrinsic ones as she has definitely moved into her abstract stage of cognitive development. The new approach would be on intrinsic ones (both negative and positive). More needs to be done in getting her to take ownership of right behaviour and less dependent on external reminders.

2nd would be the approach. More gentle talks to encourage openness and honesty. This is to set the stage for teenage years which is fast approaching. To let her know we are there for her and not against her. Approaches like "How can we help you to..." will be taking a bigger role.

Lastly, focus needs to be more on thinking. How would that make people think of you? Is that how you want others to know you? Is there a better option? These must be the more frequent discussion then why it is wrong.

Father's Role is Bigger Than Providing

The myopic focus of a secured and established lifestyle has become the OCD of men. Our roles are much greater than to make sure we provide for our family a comfortable life. However, due to our nature of being very focused in what we do and a problem solver able only to handle them one at a time, we are locked in this one compartment determined to make sure this is done before moving on. This in my opinion is the great determinant of how strong the family is.

One one denies that a Father's duty is much more than simply providing for the family. It encompasses spending time with spouse, bringing up our children, head of the household. Yet, we are overwhelmingly focused on only one aspect of this and are trapped in it.

Lets learn a lesson from the life of the most successful man I know...King David the first king of Israel. He amassed treasures beyond measure, yet, his family is a mess. He had a superb successor in his son Solomon whom history states to be one of the richest kings on earth. Too many only see this and did not notice his failure as a father. He have two sons Absalom and Adonijah who both tried to dethrone him. Both shown signs of the King being too busy to bother to interfere with whatever they want to do...in simple terms, they grew up as spoilt brats.

Lesson to learn...

• Building up affluence does nothing to build a strong family and might do great detriment to the next generation
• Do not be too myopic in looking at our responsibilities and look in totality the responsibility of a father.

Dear fathers,in this father's day, reflect and thread carefully.

A New Beginning

From here on, this will become my airing ground for some of the concepts that I am now struggling with and would welcome loads of ideas and talk.

I finally gave in to letting my daughter stop her abacus. Simply put, there is now not much benefit to it and her attitude has somewhat changed towards putting in the hard work. The lesson on perseverance has partially been learnt. That brought me to my point for the day...I am too much a perfectionist.

I was looking for lesson learnt and learnt well to last a lifetime. That's a tad too high an expectation isn't it? Realizing this, I simply milked the situation for all its worth and gave her a good talk on the value of working at something with all you have even though it is not something you like. Asking her to store it up for future reference and celebrate!

That left me with one unresolved issue...Chinese. She is super lacking in chinese language exposure and this is not resolved by spending time at abacus with the chinese speaking teacher. I think she is somewhat better at listening for instructions but weak at speaking and writing. Can't have one stone killing so many birds.

Right now that is still a challenge and with that lies the challenge of getting her to embark on the learning journey without killing her joy of learning.

Its a really long time since my last post...how time flies...I re-entered the work-force and was hit FULL force with work. Being back in the teaching line is a never ending experience of learning and re-learning and I simply got so caught up in its suction that I no longer have the time to blog.

SOUNDS FAMILIAR??

That is sometimes how we deal with our family and the close ones of ours isn't it? Thank God, I have not lost myself...yet. This post is a reminder and dedication to never let the family down and there is no such thing as LATER when it comes to time with our love ones. Agree?