I believe that upbringing does matter. Too much of anything is bad, so moderation is key. The biggest key actually... because life can be good if we are less anal about the nitty gritties. Besides... a cyber friend's surgeon hubby clarified that gaming is fantastic for eye-hand coordination and that quick steady moves are crucial in op theatre. No kidding! C'mon now, this way we can complain less that children don't get to enjoy childhood.
Study hard, play hard. If they study harder, then must play harder to destress. 
The part about success stories and inspiration....
While the part about some children just not getting it can be true, it doesn't mean we should just stop sharing about these true life encounters do we? They may not be mature to understand it now hence may not appreciate and so it fails to inspire them to do better. It's ok. As parents, we can share as many things about the ways of the world.. about life's riches and rags.. about successes and failures. It's ok to share right? Not necessarily must get anything out of it aye? Can treat it like a good to know kinda thing.
We are not a well to do family. My children know hardship because we've been there. I've been there myself growing up. Likewise for hubs. My pocket money for school since forever has been only 50 cents. My Daddie was the sole breadwinner. Not highly educated but an extremely thrifty man and back then i also thought he was too much of-an-annoyingly-practical man. But now i know why.
Myself and hubs worked when we were still schooling. Explains why we weren't scholars as survival was more important to us. How our families could cope better, depended on us. For hubs... his family's survival depended on him. But what we lack in papers, we more than made up for it with sheer hard work. We are both not so much academic-oriented peeps but we did better than some of our peers. While today, perhaps we may think we could have done better if we pushed ourselves... we know we tried our best the way we knew how... and we had the best times of our lives for our childhood was extremely colourful and carefree.
We had peer pressure. Yah! Even back then right? Hubs and i... We smoked. We played truant. Got into fights. Stayed late-night outs with friends.. Sigh... those were the days huh? No regrets. Now, we are empowered for we can see it coming before our kids do but we let them come to us first.
Because we were not too sheltered, we survived the harsh realities of the world. Saw the downs but hey, came back up. We hope not to over-protect our children so they get to see/experience some sides of the world we did.I also used to volunteer. I volunteered when i could while i was still working up till the time i had chubs... my #3. My children would want to follow on and off. I never asked them to. But i let them come too if they wanted to. They enjoy helping other children like themselves in ways they could. They value the fact that they can make a difference in the lives of others in need. They also enjoy knowing the people we helped have achieved greater heights either in getting back with their families.. doing well in school.. staying out of trouble.. (etc) when we get in touch with them.
Compassion for others comes from within, likewise for motivation to succeed regardless of what background we or our children come from. If these traits are within the child, half the battle is won. Lucky for us. If not, no biggie. We still share. It is good to know there are other kinds of families other than ours... the one that we live in. In so, we learn to appreciate what we have or work harder for the things we ermmm yet to have. Children are motivated by varying ways. Some are motivated by success stories. I'm not sure all of mine are but i pray they can find success (by their own definition of it) in their own ways and be happy.
This year's sudden info blackout (no published names of PSLE toppers) has resulted in some sort of a withdrawal for most i know (not sure where their children fare.. not sure how to select schools effectively.. etc) and also for me because i love to share the joys of other parents even if i don't know them personally of how they or their children have travelled the psle journey together. I am also inspired when i hear of families with stay home parents like myself who have children who excelled and how they did it.
I hope to find confidence that i too *gulp* can do it.
I love to learn from the success of others on how i could perhaps be a better parent for my children and if they want to, my children too can look upon the success stories of other children as inspiration. Because everyday is a learning journey, hence i am still learning. Which is why i am a member of KiasuParents.com.
So, publish these names i say! We can all celebrate the successes of our children, our future generation and all in the name of meritocracy. These are children who can.. who tried.. who scored! Why must we hush until liddat like somebody died and worse like must guess WHO died?! Aiyoh!
For the love of God, after a few hundred days of waking up so darn early (my girls rise before the rooster crows! to rush for transport) and coming home in the evenings only to still have homework to do!...... I think the children at least deserve this. My girls were puzzled too... why cannot say. Is it supposed to be a secret?
I shared that the minister supposedly shared it is to reduce stress from this supposedly bad exam with the four letter that children have to take at 12 years young. DD2 replied. "Stress?" "Who is stressed about the scores? You mean the minister?"
No comments:
Post a Comment