Parenting on Nick Wang

Can We Teach Children to Become Empathetic Leaders?

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 01:47:00 +0000

Ever since reading about Pauline Hawkin’s Animal Farm Lessons, I’ve had one of the outcomes stuck in my head:

“Every once and a while, I will have a student who stands up and leads, not as a dictator, but as a leader of the people. He will accept every suggestion and value everyone’s input, even if some of the suggestions are ridiculous. I’ve had only a few students who have actually led that way over the years, but I always hope that those few students find their way into politics.”

I had written about why I started 100 Village, later on, I realized that I wanted children to grow up with these qualities because I hoped they can become future change makers - do the right things and make the world a better place. Last week however, something very personal about my son’s behaviors really shook my world and gave me a sharpened focus!

Basically, Allison and Mabo at Mulberry Tree Unschool had identified that my son had passed the toddler, experimental stage of hitting and started to hit and to do things to hurt other people or make other people feel sad / angry / unhappy on purpose. After a sleepless night of reflection, I told them that I think the reason for such behavior was because I didn’t properly give him unconditional love. Last weekend, Luc locked me and his little sister out on the roof and proceeded to laugh about it. When I got back inside, I was angry and I brought him to the roof, locked him out and asked him if he was feeling happy or not? Then I held him in my arms and I said: “I’m always doing things that help other people and make people happy… but I see you doing things that make other people sad… I’m worried about you. I love you so much and I wish you can also do things that help other people and make people happy.” I was crying as I said those words. I can’t help but get very emotional when I think about how my lovely little boy is “turning to the dark side”, in Mabo’s words.

This brings me back to the Animal Farm Lessons. If I want children to grow up to become change makers, then more than just the qualities listed on why I started 100 Village, they need to have a “good heart” - to be considerate and empathic. This became my newfound focus for 100 Village -

Can We Teach Children to Become Empathetic Leaders?

Young Children and Screen Time

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Last week, the advocacy group “Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood”, whose allegations against “Baby Einstein” videos eventually led to nationwide consumer refunds, declared in a complaint urging federal regulators to examine Fisher-Price and other companies’ mobile apps like “Laugh & Learn”, “Baby Hear and Read” and “Baby First Puzzle”, which claim to help babies learn. The Boston-based group says developers are trying to dupe parents into thinking apps are educational for babies, which researches have proven ineffective. This reminded me of the discussions I had on a Facebook parenting group.

Some parents said they were worried about their one year olds staring intently at the iPads, iPhones, TVs… etc, and asked what other parents do with screen time. Most parents intuitively guessed that it’s addictive and bad for children, (“even adults are addicted to their mobile phones, so must be worse for the children”) while some argue that it should be treated like anything else, let them play in moderation.

Light emitting screens are really stimulating to a young child’s brain, according to brain research, it lights up all the pleasure areas of the brain, the pattern is the same as drugs such as cocaine! The trouble with that is the insidious nature of the pleasure areas, it’s addictive and the brain ask for more and more. There’s also the saturation problem, if video stimulation happens too early too often, then the same amount isn’t enough to satisfy the brain, the kick isn’t as strong and it’ll take more to satisfy the same urge. (JoAnn Deak, PhD of Psychology)

The brain is designed to do, to interact with the real world, during the formative years, and screen time is time taken away from real life experiences. For example, handwriting - the act of concentrating on moving a pencil, it improves the parts of your brain for very narrow focus. Children who spent too much time in front of screens develop issues with motivation in the future. We don’t have a TV at our home and we limit the time Luc is allowed to watch videos on our laptops. As with most things, the key here is to do things with them and in moderation. I often see parents use their mobile phones to play videos for their children at the restaurants so they would sit still, and then the parents would spoon feed the kids, nagging them to “chew and swallow the food”. It’s an easy out for the parents in the short term, but what happen when the iPads have to be taken away, are you prepared to be thrown off the plane because your child cannot calm down without the sedation of an iPad?

One more thing, the time away from real life issue is also true for time spent on transit to schools. For some children, it takes one to two hours sitting on a bus to get to school, that’s three to four hours taken out of their daily lives, time which they could’ve spent playing outside. I believe children deserve to have good schools in their neighborhood, so they can spend more time playing with their friends. I don’t see why we can’t make all pre-schools equally great so children don’t have to travel far to get to a “good” school.

Two Year Olds Deserved To Be Tied Up, Continued

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about the 2 year old with hands taped together in kindergarten (http://pocket.co/sZerG) and how we need to ask ourselves questions about the effects on the children because our relationship with them and the experiences we give them directly shape their neural circuitry, for life!

In my research, I’ve found that many teachers and parents do not realize the significant consequences of their actions. Some of them publicly voiced their opinions with comments like “What’s the big deal?”, “All these uproar for such a minor incident, no wonder the world is full of spoiled brats.”

Those of us who know a little about the potentially life-long ill effects punishments can have on our children, we are on the other extreme of the spectrum. We worry about whether or not we have ruined our children for life. For this specific incident, I’ve inquired Dr. JoAnn Deak about whether there will be any long term ill effect on the child, her response was as follows:

Your question is hard to answer because ‘it depends’ on many little details surrounding the incident. How harsh was the conversation, what was said, what kind of temperament does the child have, etc. Every incident is processed differentially by each individual. In general, the fear associated with such an event can wane with good care afterwards. It would be important to not have a continual layering of such events over time. - Dr. JoAnn Deak

So generally speaking, as long as these events don’t constantly repeat and the child is given good care, he should be able to recover without much long term harm. I hope that was the case with this child but if what I read in the comments were true, then this wasn’t an isolated incident. I’m guessing quite a lot of teachers repeatedly use corporal punishments. It makes me worry about all the children growing up in such an environment.

Now how should we deal with what some would call a “naughty child”? That’s a long post to write but the two words summary is this: Stay connected! (If you get it, feel free to elaborate in the comments.)

2 Year Olds Deserved to be Tied Up

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, a picture of a 2 year old child with both hands tightly taped together (http://pocket.co/sZerG), kneeling on the floor in an activity room of a famous kindergarten in Hong Kong, surfaced on the web and caused quite a controversy. While lots of the comments are from parents who detest such atrocity, it’s unfortunate that I still read and hear comments like these:

“Bad kids need to be taught like this, so that they will learn to behave.”

“I need to send my son to this kindergarten so they can discipline him. May be not that extreme but he definitely needs to be disciplined by a teacher.”

“Is it really that big of a deal? It’s not like the teacher had beaten the kid till he was bruised and bleeding. You can’t even tell if he was kneeling or sitting either.”

Seeing these comments made me realized that there are still a lot of people out there who don’t understand child development or simply why children do what they do. There has been decades of scientific research on child development and with the latest brain imaging technology, we are knowing more and more about what a child’s brain is doing. Much of these information is in English and I feel that perhaps they just need to be translated into Chinese and other languages so everyone can learn about them.

One key thing about this incident that all early childhood educators need to be aware of is that your actions, your relationships with your students directly affect their brains for the rest of their lives!

“Education is a key component of a child’s development. The relationships that teachers have with their students and the experiences they provide for them directly shape the neural circuitry of the next generation.”

We know from 50 years of research in neuroscience that an infant’s experience can have permanent effects on the wiring of the brain. Neurosurgeons know there are truly critical periods—stages of development—in which the brain needs certain types of experience, or the circuits don’t get put together properly. Babies’ brains need stimulation to develop their full potential. Their best learning is from being highly attuned to human stimuli—interacting with your face, voice, and touch. If children have stressful or impoverished early environments, there will be long-term implications for the building of the brain.

Eliot, L. (2006). Experts’ opinion, nurturing brain development National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2006). Early influences on brain architecture

I think we can safely assume that by binding this two year old’s hands, the teacher’s intention was to punish him for a certain behavior, thereby stopping him from doing it again. Do you think the teacher’s intention was achieved?

Certainly, you can teach a two year old to stop doing something by inflicting pain, fear and shame on her. However, she has only learned to stop doing what she wants to do out of fear of punishments. What we want in our children is for them to have an internal locus of discipline, and you can only achieve that by having a warm relationship with the child. Calmly but firmly communicate to her your expectations and boundaries. She will keep pushing those boundaries again and again, that’s natural for a two year old. You just need to stay consistent and keep reminding her your expectations and boundaries.

There are so many questions we parents and teachers need to ask about in this incident. How would it affect the child? Will there be any long-term effect? How would it affect other children? Their relationship with this child? Has the teacher set up an example for other children to bully and ridicule this child?

There are several topics here that I want to get to - learning to be a social being, anti-social behavior, socially acceptable behavior, an 80 years longitudinal study of Harvard men, self-worth, but probably the most relevant and urgent of all, how do you deal with a “terrible” two year old who “just don’t listen”, do the exact things you tell him not to, making you so mad you’re yelling at him at the top of your lungs? (I faced this issue with my son when he was 2 years old.)

Diary - Roll back, rest, roll forward… and get picked up from behind

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:16:00 +0000

Sept. 7th

Just now, I was playing with my son Luc and my daughter Sel on the bed. Luc was doing his usual jumping around, I have to keep reminding him that I don’t want him to jump on the bed when his sister is lying here.

Sel actually really enjoys watching her brother jumps! Recently she had started turning onto her tummy, at first she would cry as the new position was unfamiliar to her. Later on, she could stay on her tummy with her head up for a while, until she got tired and couldn’t hold her head up any longer, that’s when her face will plant straight onto the bed / carpet and she would cry for help! I would gentle touch her and tell her that I’m by her side ready to give her a hand, it doesn’t seem like I’m getting through to her as she just continue to cry hysterically, but I believe she’ll understand me eventually.

The 2nd time she cried in this position today, our helper came over and said 1 of the 2 things she always say: “Your diaper wet mui?” (“Mui” means little sister in Cantonese.) She stuck her hand inside Sel’s diaper and then picked her up from the back. Sitting in front of Sel, I could see her facial expressions as she was being lifted up. Even though she was in the middle of crying for help due to her facing down, she still had a look of confusion rather than relieve from being “saved” from the face down position.

In RIE, it’s suggested that you talk to your babies and do things with them rather than to them. Personally, I haven’t seen concrete evidence of 6 months old Sel understanding what I am saying to her, but I have no doubt that this kind of in context communications is not only one of the best ways of training your baby’s ear for verbal communications, but also great for teaching them from day one that their body belongs to them and others need to have their permission to do anything to it!

Diary - Diaper Change, Taking Medicine and Giving me a Kiss

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:50:00 +0000

August 27th, 2012

Somedays, when you are all charged up, you have so much patience you’re like Buddha! It is at these times that you’ll see the miracles of RIE!

Today, the kids left with mom early in the morning so I had a bit of time for myself, then I went to a meeting with an angel investor friend of mine. It just so happens that he has a 10 months old daughter so he’s new to this baby thing as well, so we had a long, interesting talk about parenting! As you may know, I’m very passionate about raising creative thinkers who can think on their feet, and that if I can help other parents learn about RIE and the Reggio Emilia Approach, it has the potential to create such a big social change that will really disrupt the broken system that enslaves us today. However, I’m not very good at monetizing the work that I do! This is where my friend really helped out today, he gave me a few great ideas that kinda clicked in my head, so hopefully, I’ll be able to implement something that will enable me to sustain myself while continuing to create social change via 100village.co

Anyway, the main story starts at 5 pm when my son L came back home. I was invigorated by the talks with my friend earlier so I was in a good place mentally. Meanwhile L didn’t get enough of his afternoon nap so he was a little cranky. He played with the trains, I sat by him and watched him play, then I smelled something funky so I asked if I could check his diaper, sure enough, he pooped, so I said “Oh, you pooped, can I change your diaper? (No) Do you want to change it now? Or do you want to wait and change 3 minutes later?” He said “3 miniits”. So I went and set my timer and showed him “OK, we’ll go change in 3 minutes.” When the alarm went off, of course, he still wouldn’t go. He was tired and laying there on his side, pushing the train back and forth. I calmly lay in front of him and just said “You said we can go change you diaper after 3 minutes. It’s ok, I can wait here with you, but you know you have a full diaper, and you’ll feel much better if we change it.” After may be another 3 minutes of my nagging, finally when I ask if he was ready, he said “Ready”, and we walked to the bathroom together. He was most cooperative throughout the whole thing! This was soooo much better than forcing him to “hurry up and go the the bathroom”, picking him up and forcefully bring him there, and then fight with him to clean his behind… (not gonna describe what could happen next, I’m sure you can guess! :)

A slight scare took place when I played “Pom Pom” with him. Pom Pom was this panda character that got sent flying from a see-saw in one of those Disney World Family videos. Basically, I repeat the lines from that scene and throw L onto the bed. It’s a little rough play that he likes. This time, I threw him face down and he landed with his hand a little bit twisted. He laughed as usual, but he just stayed there in that position, and slowly, he turned around and said “Hurt”. I already knew something went bad, I said “Oh no, where does it hurt?” and he pointed to his arm. I hold his arm and carefully pressed and checked for anything broken. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be in pain anymore. I kept him immobiled in my arms for a bit longer just to make sure, and I said “I’m sorry I hurt you.” while hugging him. All was well 2 minutes later.

8:30 pm, L was so tired he didn’t protest when I said let’s pick our books and go to bed. We were laying on the bed, exploring Thomas the train engine and Danny & the dinosaur when I suddenly remembered he hadn’t taken his medicines yet. I opened the door to ask my wife and we decided that since he was so tired, he would probably be extra difficult if we tried to feed him his medicine now! And since his cough was almost all gone, we agreed to just skip it. Well, L decided he wants to go out! So, I told him “If you go out, you’ll have to take the medicine! Are you sure?!” He nodded. I made it extra clear by repeating the medicine consequence again, then I said OK and opened the door. He went to play with his train while I prepared the medicines. When it’s ready, I set them on his table and called him over. To my surprise, he came over by himself, and once again, extremely cooperative! I couldn’t believe what a difference my being patient and setting expectations up front had made! The last few days, my wife had to basically force the medicine down his throat, with L spitting half of it back out! At that point, even if I butt in it was too late.

Surprise #2, after the calmest medicine taking experience ever, we got back to bed and I picked up the dinosaur book again. L slowly made his way up, then he came over to me and gave me a cheek-to-cheek, which is his version of a kiss. Aww… it was so sweet! I said “Thank You” and gave him a big hug.

I think as we grow older, it gets harder to express our affections to our parents / children. This is especially true for Asians. I would love to be this affectionate with my own parents but I’ve yet to be able to give them a big hug like this! Here’s where Reggio Emilia Approach’s documentation really shines! I hope that in 20, 30, 40 years, my son will be able to pick up this diary and see how much we love him! (L, please feel free to come give your daddy and mommy a hug whenever you read this!) This is also why I want to build and share this tool with other parents, because I want everyone to be able to treasure their love between parents and children.

Diary - Fake Sleeping

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 06:21:00 +0000

Diary - Aug 25 - Fake Sleeping

My son L is only 24 months old and already today he gave me a fake sleeping response to my long winded explanation of why I wanted him to wash his hands. Great!

So the story was, L had just finished his snacks - a little bit of boiled egg and a piece of bread, and he wanted to go back to play with his trains. I told him he needed to wait for me at the table while I go grab his towel. He left, I took the towel to him at his train set, sat down and started telling him I could see food crumbs on the floor and that’s why we need to wipe our hands and mouth clean after eating. As I was saying that, I put him on my lap and started to wipe his hands. This was where the surprise act happened.

He closed his eyes, but not completely, tilted his head back, and then said: “Sleeping!”

Cheeky little 2 year old bastard! LOL! He is my son after all. :P

Holding a 5 months old and watch TV

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:19:00 +0000

I just saw our helper holding 5 months old baby girl S, sitting on her lap watching TV!

Here’s another example of different of opinions between my wife and I. While I think it is horrible holding a baby up, not to mention watching TV!! My wife thinks it’s OK, because “she’s not doing anything anyway.”

Yeah, when you hold a baby on your lap, she really isn’t doing anything! You’re robbing her of precious play time she could be having if she was laying flat on her back. I realize it’s a weird thing to say, but leave the baby alone! I’m definitely the weird minority here, not only because of RIE but also because I’m a guy! For us, reading other RIE parents’ struggle is a helpful reminder that we’re not alone! Just read this on Janet Lansbury’s blog yesterday – Parenting Against The Grain – One Family’s Personal Struggle and Triumph

Having said that however, I am encountering a contradicting problem. S has gotten so used to being held, being put into the stroller and rolled around, and soothed by the helper’s rocking and putting a pacifier in her mouth… she doesn’t seem to enjoy laying on the floor too much. Well, she enjoys it, but not for long. I’m afraid the same “lack of patience and perseverance” problem is already being manifested in her! What should I do?!

Diary - Sharing Toys with New Friends

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Aug 18th

Today we have a new family joining our playgroup, mom Marta who’s another Reggio Emilia Approach inspired early childhood educator, sweet natured 2 year old boy T, and dad Andy who brought T to the playgroup. We had some good talks about parenting and lives in Hong Kong. T is really awesome for his age, I think it really shows what a big difference being a RIE / REA parent can make!

Today’s story is an embarrassing one for a lot of parents, a child who simply won’t share! L has a hard time sharing his toys, especially with new faces and when inside our own apartment. Today, he was being very firm on not wanting to share! Not only the toys that were already in his hands, but basically anything our new friend T touches. Whenever T got a hold of a train or a car, L would stare at it and say “No!”, then he would escalate to hitting the floor with his hand, then finally throwing things. One time he threw a little train at his mom’s direction and it hit mom on her chin. T was very sensitive to these aggressive emotion, he would drop whatever he was doing and go hug his dad.

When two toddlers want the same toy, I see a lot of parents telling their kids “Sharing! Sharing!” and forcibly take the toy from the child’s hand, giving it to the other kid. I’ve always thought that was a bit ridiculous! I can almost hear the child’s mind asking “What the hell is sharing?! All I see is you taking the thing out of my hand and keep saying this word! I lose whatever is in my hand to other kids when I hear that word!”

As a parent, when my child doesn’t want to share his things with others, I feel obligated to “teach” my child to share in front of the other parent! It’s like I have to at least say something to my child! Sometimes, I wish I could just shut up and let my son deal with it himself! Since starting the playgroup with Sarah, I’ve learned to model it after her, which is to simply state the situation and the feeling involved, “Hey, it looks like the other boy would like to have a go at this train you’re playing, would you like to take turns with him?” (I wonder if we should even leave out the suggestion!) For me, my son’s answer to that question is an absolute “No!”, which makes it even more embarrassing for me, but I think I’ve to just communicate with the other parents up front, that my son is still learning to share and I’m not forcing him either way. (For a really good guide on what to do to make kids learn to share, see the link to Magda Gerba’s post below.)

The funny thing was, when it was T’s lunch time and his daddy brought out some sandwiches, L decided to offer one of his trains to T… in return for a sandwich!

Fair enough.

May I interest you in this train?…

On and related to this topic, there are a couple of articles that can help ease your anxiety when dealing with your child’s anti-social behaviors:

How Can We Help Them Learn To Share?

Hi, Bye and Thank You – Babies and Manners

Diary - Train Tracks (and What We Parents Should Teach)

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Aug 12th

About a month ago we bought a wooden train set from IKEA for L, his first train set. He loves it! At first I didn’t want to show him how the rails could connect, I sat beside him and watched him play with the trains on the floor as if they were just cars. After may be 10 minutes (probably less), I caved. I put 2 pieces together while he wasn’t looking, and then 2 more, and then connected the bridge… but even after seeing the pieces joined together, he still didn’t grasp the concept. By the next day, my wife or the helper had “helped him” put the whole track together!

July 19th, box of trains just opened but too busy playing with clay on a mirror

Daddy secretly pieces the rails together, L starts playing with trains on rails.

Not much “trajectory” schema the first day, still big on “transportation” schema, putting all his toys in one place.

From then on, he played with trains everyday, slowly trying to connect the tracks himself, at first he saw that the plastic knob needs to go into the “ditch” but he didn’t see that tracks need to go straight so he would sometimes be able to connect and sometimes not. Today, everything clicks finally! He built a whole track by himself!

Aug 3rd, played with rails for almost the entire hour at Playscope, this made me realize how much he’s into rails now!

Aug 4th, a friend helps build the tracks, but something’s not right

L, so far we’ve helped you build the tracks in numerous ways, but I think there was none better than this one which you did it by yourself! To me, I see unhindered, unplanned train tracks, much freer than those calculating ones built by me. Yours just seem more “artsy” some how :) I’m so proud of you! (Once again, you didn’t even stop to celebrate this victory in the adults’ eyes, to you, being able to play with your trains is the more important part!)

Aug 12th, completed whole track by himself!

Now, one thing that kept bothering me was, should I have waited and not put any tracks together for L? I try to imagine if I hasn’t put the tracks together for him, would his discovery be far more dramatic and memorable? I think it might, but I’m guessing the majority of us parents can’t help but at least do a little bit of something to get them going!

So, while leaving it 100% to the kids is ideal, when we must provide a bit of guidance, I think it’ll be good to show them the process rather than giving them the end results! For example, instead of piecing the rails together, pretend to test your hypothesis with what the pieces could do! Fail at it and try again with another hypothesis. Leave, come back at it again later. Repeat these processes for any new elements we would like to introduce to them! So not directly teaching “What”, but indirectly showing “How”! (Animals do that in nature a lot!)

instructions… WAIT, WAT?!…

In the Reggio Emilia Approach, we are suppose to do scaffolding which means when the children are stuck, we give them a little help to help them get pass the hurdle and climb to the next level. I think showing them the processes will be a great way to do scaffolding!

Am I still teaching too much? Should I really just leave my son alone? What do you consider good / bad teaching or is all teaching bad? I’m interested to know.

My 2 year old said Sawwy…

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Aug 8th

A couple of weeks ago, Janet Lansbury reposted a story from a RIE parent, the gist of it was, the mom calmly sets boundaries and consequences, when her 2 year old son threw sand at her face, she acted, allowed him to cry and released his emotions, and then took him home. 5 hours later, after he had slept and was all rested up, he came to apologize to her out of the blue.

It was unbelievable! My son is also 2 years old and he definitely isn’t as eloquent in his speech. Now I had only started this RIE thing with him a couple of months ago, but still I can already see that his whole personality is different when he’s around me Vs. when he’s around his mom or the helper. Through learning the RIE’s way, I’ve definitely learned to read him a lot better now. For example, yesterday, we were riding in the car when he wouldn’t stop moving around, hitting the windows, throwing things from the backseat pockets, etc… His mom tried to offer him food, drinks and other things to calm him down, but I could see that he was tired and needed an adult’s help, so I set the boundaries and when he broke it, I calmly told him: “I can see that you’re tired and you can’t control yourself anymore, so I’m going to hold you in your seat by my side.” He stopped acting up immediately and sat there in my arms, leaning against my body. Within 2 minutes, he was asleep. I told my wife that I’ve learned this from Janet Lansbury’s blog. At times like these, they’re telling us to please help stop them, and we need to change from offering them more choices to removing them.

Similarly today, when he began to get tired before noon, he started acting up again, his mom was losing patience with him and I knew I had to set the “go to bed” consequence. So I calmly told him that if he threw the hard toys again, I’ll have to take him inside the room. (Actually not a good, related consequence. I need to find a more natural step in here.) Sure enough, he threw one on purpose, and I told him “OK, I have to take you in”. He started crying and throwing a tantrum as I tried to pick him up. I let him lay on the floor and said “You can cry, I know you’re upset I need to take you away, but I already said I didn’t want you to throw the hard toys, it may hurt your sister if you threw it at her. How about this? Would you like to bring a book to bed with you?” Once again, he responded calmly, picked his favorite book and walked into the room with me. Within a few minutes, he was asleep!

The big incident was he threw and broke his glass bottle while mom & the helper were busy attending to his sister. We were all startled by the sound of broken glass, I was pretty calm but I think my tone of voice still had a little bit of “annoyance” in it. I told him I didn’t want him to throw glass and food, this broken glass is dangerous… bla bla bla.“ Unfortunately, I think I broke his concentration on the situation at hand. He started wandering off while I was “nagging” him. Still, I put on a sad face and when he talked to me, I told him I’m not happy because he broke the glass bottle. And then we parted ways, he left with his mom and I went out to work.

When I see him at home after dinner, we played with his trains for a little bit and then went to bed together. While in the room, he needed help opening the water bottle, I asked if he needed help and then helped him. He then took the bottle, drank some water, and then said to me: “Daddy… Sawwy” (Sorry).

I said “Thank you” and give him a hug and a kiss. I actually have no idea what he was apologizing about, but just the fact that he knows, and didn’t needed one of us adults to force him to “Say sorry!”, made me so happy :)

Diary - Domestic Helper induced Angry Kids

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Aug 5th

Today, we went to a birthday party at ART JAM, a kinda snobbish painting studio in an expensive mall! Like, why let your kids paint at home when you can pay 10 times at much to come paint at ART JAM and feel like an artist? Anyways, it was actually a great event! L was asleep when we arrived so we let him sleep, when he woke up, we let him wander around before he finally showed interests in what everybody else was doing – painting! We helped him get some paint (he chose the colors) and then just let him do whatever with the brushes, sponges and paint. (Except we had to stop him from painting on the window! Not too much anyway :)

Do I really have to paint here?

The colors do look so much prettier on the window…

While we were walking around with L, I saw other parents helping their young children paint and it reminded me of a blog post I read about “Why Not Draw For A Child?”, it gave an example about a family who went camping and while all the other parents help their children paint and in the process made the children lose interests in painting, they just let their child do it by herself. She spent hours painting and afterwards was extremely fond of her own creation.

L happily exploring the spaces

But that’s not the main story today. The main story is about a young boy whom I recognized to be a cute, sweet natured baby before. I haven’t seen him for a long time and now, he has turned into a mad kid! His facial expression is almost always mad, and he runs around like a mad man! I don’t know how other parents think of this kid but when I see how his family’s helper constantly stop him from doing anything, I picture him as a bird in a cage, trying hard to break out.

Here’s an example of one of the things the boy was stopped from doing. The shop uses metal bars with painting hung on them to act as dividers between outside and inside. The space between the bars are large enough for little children to slip through. Naturally, kids see that they can pass through it rather than using the door to enter into the other space! They love that stuff and instinctively will try going through these “gateways” to different spaces. There’s no harm in letting them climb through the bars but his helper tried to stop him from doing so! Immediately the boy growls back, dashed for the opening and jumped through like mad!

Climbing through the bars, jump into another space!

It’s so painful for me to see all these domestic helpers, working for what’s basically slave wages, while both parents have to work to sustain the family in this crazy economy and are forced to forego the most important time in their kids’ lives and leave them in the hands on the helpers! The helpers’ priority is to keep the children from harm, so they constantly stop the kids from doing anything! I honestly don’t blame the helper, but I do feel sorry for everyone involved! What has our world turned into? Aren’t family the most important thing in our lives? This is something that needs to be changed! It’s part of the reason why I’m doing this, I imagine a future where parents can band together to raise their kids, and we only have to work 4 days a week so then we can take turns at being the caretaker. I think our lives will be so much better that way!

This I told L I didn’t want him to do. The wooden board might break and then the sign will collapse. L never climbed onto it again!

One other story happened to L. While he was happily climbing and jumping through the bars repeatedly, mom kept telling him to be careful, and then one time, she hold L’s arm while he was about to jump. This caused L to lose his timing and balance and his leg bumped into a metal stand when he landed! He cried.

I could easily see that other parents might say “See, I told you to be careful” to the kid at this point, but I told my wife it was because of her interference that caused L to get hurt! I’ve always trusted L to sense his own ability and dangers, I’ve witnessed him consistently making careful evaluations before he tries something new! So I know that he’s capable of climbing and jumping through those bars no problem! My wife and I don’t agree on these safety issues… and actually some other RIE ways of parenting. It has caused some arguments between us, and I think addressing these differences is an important topic for many of us! May be that’s a post when I successfully deal with the problems.

Montessori Vs. Reggio Emilia Approach in Hong Kong

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:46:00 +0000

Montessori is a popular education system developed by Maria Montessori in 1897. It seems to be gaining popularity here in Hong Kong, many parents know about it but very few know about the Reggio Emilia approach. Recently, the Montessori playgroup L goes to started to have troubles with him, and it made me think more about the difference between Montessori and Reggio. I thought I’d share a bit of my own experience in the two in this post.

My son has been going to a small Montessori playgroup since he was 1 and ½. I used to like it there with their specially designed toys that train toddlers’ motor skills. Now that he is 2 however, I begin to think that some of the materials and their ways of teaching are not so appropriate.

First of all, because L is old enough and “ready”, we agreed to move him up to the big kids group, (L was really starting to get bored with the little kids group anyway,) but problem with the big kids one is that parents are supposed to leave the kids by themselves. L isn’t ready for this and he cries. The teachers would hug him and tell him to stop crying because “he’s a big boy and everything is OK”. Well, obviously everything is not OK. What’s even worse is that when they see that my boy won’t stop crying, they’ll use me as a condition / threat, “if you stop crying, I’ll ask Daddy to come in, but if you cry again, I’ll have to send Daddy away!” Through RIE, I’ve learned that we shouldn’t stop toddlers from crying. Crying is how they express their feelings, and we shouldn’t prevent them from doing that! And from Reggio Emilia’s Diary of Laura, I’ve learned that separation is an extremely sensitive matter for toddlers that must not be taken lightly! We adults don’t think twice about it, but for a 2 year old, separating from his parents to stay at a relatively unfamiliar environment, e.g. school, is a big fucking deal!! (Sorry!) It’s not something to be forced onto them!!

Next, they’re teaching the Toddlers to eat and drink by themselves by providing food and water with small size plates and utensils. This part I like, but I just heard about an ever better example from Sarah, which is to provide a day’s worth of snacks in a place accessible to them, not only can we provide good, healthy fruits and snacks, but it can also teach them to save their food for later. I feel this is a good way to introduce deferred gratifications.

Finally, my biggest gripe is about the structure of putting kids into age groups and designing tasks for each group. For example, the toys at my son’s Montessori place are designed in Korea and are meant to teach math & logic through games. I guess they’re good but I don’t really like them. They also have a set time to different activities, like at the end of each class, they’ll have singing time. It disturbed L’s concentration as he was testing his hypothesis on some new discoveries!

If you look at the key points of Montessori education, you see that last point – Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators… back in 1897!! Once again, I’m sure she did a marvelous job studying the children, but at the end of the day, it’s still giving kids a “choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options”, based on an adult structured curriculum, which means it’s still getting kids ready for the adults’ view of the world.

In contrast, Reggio Emilia Approach allows children to construct their own understanding of the world. Their own hypothesis. Their own interpretation. There’s no “One Right Answer” at the end of an activity. The children speak and see a hundred, and in Reggio Emilia, we adults do not take away ninety-nine! We learn to observe, appreciate and make apparent each child’s unique learning stories to their parents (and other adults)! The more Reggio “documentations” or “learning stories” you read, the more you’ll see how much your childhood sucked! :P You’ll realize children are far more capable than we give them credits for, and if you provide them with a good, open environment and respectful guidance, they’ll amaze you with things you didn’t think were possible! Honestly, once you learn to see your child in Reggio’s eyes, you cannot turn back to any other way, stuffing knowledge into their minds.

In short, Montessori’s categorized and prescribed approach is pretty good, definitely much better than the regular, traditional education system out there. Toddlers can learn from older kids and everyone “live” in a highly disciplined classroom, doing semi-free activities that have hidden agendas to teach them things we adults prescribed. Meanwhile, Reggio Emilia’s completely child initiated approach, where adults care deeply about the children’s relationships with their peers, their parents, teachers, and their environments, we may provide “seeds of knowledge” based on our limited knowledge, but what the kids make of them, how their path of learning goes, we do not limit at all! It’s a subtle difference but it means the world!

Or, to use The Matrix as an example again, you will raise a Morpheus with Montessori, but you may raise a Neo with Reggio Emilia! ;–)

Parents, domestic helper, child relationship dynamics

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:52:00 +0000

Recently, our 22 month old boy L has been throwing tantrums before meals. He cries and demands milk, and would throw away the spoon and swipe at the bowl if you try to force food onto him. Our helper doesn’t know what to do so she would promise him milk after the meal, give him fresh milk in a cup to go with the meal, and sit there painfully spoon feeding him! Trying to get him to eat.

A few days ago, he woke up late from his nap and we were having lunch already. Our helper immediately started talking to him and said it was lunch time. Like reflex, he started demanding his milk! I think that was the first mistake, we shouldn’t be constantly offering things to a 2 year old toddler, especially when he had just woken up! Now I hold no degree in childhood education, but I try to look at nature and how other mammals, (including earlier humans) raise their children. Parents nowadays shower their kids with attention, but in nature or in the old days, adults are predominantly occupied with work - hunting for food and looking out for predators. Although we don’t have to hunt for food any more, we should still be modeling ourselves for the children to follow and learn from!

As for dealing with tantrums, one thing I learned from a “daddy support group” is to face it with Zen-like calm. I told our helper to continue doing her work and not respond to my son, then I smile and calmly answer his cries saying: “milk time is at 3 o’clock, it’s lunch time now, Daddy needs to eat his food now and you can eat yours on your own table.” Of course, kids at this age don’t relent easily, they’ll try things to influence you. In this case, I believe meal time should be strictly observed so I don’t give in to his demands. Whatever he does, I simply smile at him calmly, sometimes repeating the “meal time, milk time” thing. Eventually, after he has tried everything he could, he climbed up the table and took a spoonful of his food! So I helped him bring his food to his little table and he sat there and ate all by himself! The helper was surprised and impressed!

If we just look back at nature, there’s so much we can learn about the adults children relationship dynamics. I think we just need to remember that parents should act like the alpha male and the matriarch, we need to become their role models instead of following their lead! Just by understanding this alone will make a huge difference in the dynamics in your relationships with your children.