Raising Independent Kids

I have not been feeling well for the past 3 weeks. First I was down for two weeks with some virus that my son passed on to me. After recovering for 1 day, I fell sick again. This time it was chicken pox, passed on from my dear daughter to me. I had adult chicken pox.

It has been a tough 3 weeks. Despite being sick, things around the house still needed to be done otherwise there will be no meals to eat and the family would not have clean clothes to wear. The kids have been good. They have been helping me to cook the rice, to wash the dishes, hang the clothes, wipe the tables and shelves, sweep and mop the floor.

I realized that the trick to raising independent kids is to close one eye. Being sick and down with fever, I was too tired to hover around them checking their work so not only did I close one eye, I closed both! All I could do was lie down and give instructions and to my surprise, it was done. They helped with the housework and did their own homework without fuss and they did it rather well too.

When I was down with really high fever, I closed both eyes as the man and the boy pottered around the kitchen to make fresh juice and cook porridge. Of course, they left a wet mess on the kitchen floor but I was too tired. I didn't see it, not with both my eyes closed.

I only saw the cute things they did. Like when the boy asked me "Mummy, can I button the clothes so it will look nice?" when he hung it up. "Sure", I said and the next day when he was in school and I was keeping the clothes, I had a big smile on my face despite the fever when I kept the clothes and saw one little school uniform hung on the clothes line all nicely buttoned up from top to bottom. That's so sweet.

That is how I discovered how to raise independent kids. The trick is to give them small tasks they can handle and then leave them to it without hovering around giving instructions. Trust them to do it and they will. 

Supersized or Undersized Clothing

Do you ever have a problem shopping for clothes that fit your size and frame? Once, when I ballooned during my post pregnancy days from size M to size 2XL, sometimes I had trouble finding nice clothes to fit me. It made me irate to see all those lovely clothes for women advertised for small sized people only. Plus sized people should be able to wear fashionable outfits too. Why ever not?

So, I am so happy to come across G&L Clothing. It has a very wide range of clothes sizes for people of different frames and sizes. Small and petite or big and tall, you will be able to find something that fits you there. Their bottoms are for people with 26 to 80 inch waist lines while their tops cater for people who wear S sizes to 10XL and 5XL tall. Wow! What a variation. I like that a lot in a store.

I also like the ability to be able to mix and match my clothing. I am pear shaped, so sometimes I fit into X sized tops but I require XL bottoms. I prefer to buy my outfits separately and it is great to be able to find a store that has sizes for everyone.

Kids Activity - Planting Broccoli From Seeds

One of the easiest Science Experiment to do with kids is to plant a vegetable or flower from seeds. That is real life science. Kids can water and watch the plant grow. A real life 'experiment' like that teaches young children about how plants grow much better than any interactive game, educational app, TV program or computer software can ever teach.

Practical and day to day Science for Kids projects like planting seeds are simple and not time consuming at all.

So, when my kids picked up some seeds at the hardware shop, I couldn't say "No" when they said "We want to plant broccoli, mum." We bought them the broccoli seeds and allowed them to plant them into their own pots and this is what we got.

Now, will the real broccoli please stand up? We had two different types of plants growing from our broccoli seeds and I don't know which is the broccoli. Does anyone know?

I searched google images and saw that most of the broccoli plants look like this

So, what is this mystery plant? Can you tell?

Other Fun Things To Do With Kids
Home Science Experiment - Germinating Bean Seeds
Home Science Experiment - Growing Plants From Stem Cuttings

Surviving Chinese School Without Tuition

My daughter is in Primary 4 in a Chinese School. Recently, she told me that her teacher had singled out the Chinese Essay she had written during her mid term exams as the best in the class. She was very excited to tell me about it.

"Mom, teacher even remembered how many marks I received when she was telling the class and she knew exactly what I wrote, mom!"

The teacher had informed everyone that she comes from a home where her parents do not understand nor speak Chinese. Teacher said 

"If she can do it, you all can too!"

I'm really happy for her. It is mostly her own effort. We do not send her for any tuition. When she was in Primary 1, we did get one of her kindergarten teacher to come in to converse to her in Mandarin. This was to ease her transition to school so that she would understand what the teacher was talking about. We instructed the teacher NOT to give any written homework. The 'tuition' was on conversational Chinese and a little bit of reading because we did not want to burden her. The teacher would sometimes give her 'assignments' like "go and make two new friends today and find out their names for me for the next lesson. Then they would talk about what happened in school ... in Mandarin. No English is to be used during the class accept a little for explanation if my girl did not understand. However, the teacher was not punctual and always cancelling classes so eventually we stopped after half a year.

We decided to let my girl go for the school tuition in Std 3. She would stay back in school for 2 hours once a week. However, we found that it only added to her homework burden with an extra workbook and additional hours spent in school. There was no value added, only time wasted so we stopped that after half a year too. 

I must say that deciding to stop was very hard. Always on my mind was, what if. What if I made a mistake. What if she needed extra help and there is no one to give it to her. What if? 

We went ahead and stopped the tuition classes and I am glad we did. She is still burdened with lots of homework but we saved 2 hours a week. 

I started learning Chinese along with my kids when they started kindergarten. I was able to guide them along by studying along with them using an electronic dictionary. However, I am able to do this up to Std 2 and a little Std 3 Level. The Std 4 Level is beyond me now. So many difficult words, phrases and idioms to learn. So my girl has to rely on herself now.

During Parents Teacher's Day last year, her teacher advised us to let her copy a lot of essays. "It's okay if she does not understand the words yet, let her copy as many as she can to learn. Get her essay books to read." The teacher has been doing this as well. My girl has to go to school early twice a week to write 2 essays. She said she used idioms and tried to incorporate everything teacher thought into her 'winning' essay. I'm really proud of her. She did it on her own without help from us. Every time she comes to me for help, I have to say "I'm sorry, this is too hard for me." It is really tough not being able to help your child because of the language barrier. I try my best to help her using my trusted electronic dictionary. Sometimes I am able to but most of the time she has to do it herself. 

I hate this idea of rote learning, of copying essays but perhaps her teacher is right and this is the way to learn Chinese? First familiarize yourself with the terms and the way of writing and then later on you will be able to write on your own. Anyone has any thoughts on this, feel free to share. By sharing, we learn from each other. 

No Flowers For This Honey

My birthday's just come and gone. I had won a room stay and a free spa and had envisioned going there to be pampered for a day. The plan in my mind was to go pick up the kids from school, then drive straight to the hotel to surprise them. We would then have a swim in the pool and then have complimentary cocktails since the room I won was an Executive Club Room. The next day, we would go cycling and relax before returning home.

However, the man was too busy, the kids had too much to do and in the end, I had to buy my own cake and wrap my own 'present' which happened to be a souvenir we had bought from our visit to an aquarium during the school holidays. Nothing for this honey, not even flowers from a quebec florist. I wanted a tablet computer to go with those flowers but the man said, "Not this year." I wonder why he even bothered to ask "What would you like to have for your birthday?" when he didn't plan to get anything! Last year, I wanted the same thing and the reply was the same. The year before that I wanted a WII Fit but I'm still waiting. However, he did get me a piano one year and another year, the kids persuaded him to get flowers.

Oh, well, a girl can still dream can't she? Maybe, next birthday....I'll get my flowers and my massage and my tablet computer delivered into my Executive Club Room. However, my free hotel voucher would have expired by then. I wonder if I will ever get to use it.