Back to School

The kids are back at school today. The boy is back after almost a month off school! He is anxious. "Mummy, so long already..." he said. I accompanied him to class although parents are not allowed in. I asked for permission. So that he won't feel so lost. When we got there, the children were busy sweeping the floor. One boy said to him in mandarin "Put up your bag! Put up your bag!" My poor boy could not understand him. Sigh. It is my fault, sending him to Chinese school but not preparing him enough in conversational Chinese.

His class has a few mat salley and Malays and Indians. About 10% of his class are non-Chinese. The thing is, these non-Chinese parents planned a long time ago to send their kids to Chinese school. So they compensated for it and prepared the kids by sending them for 2-3 years to a Chinese kindergarden. As a result these kids are fully prepared.

Whereas me, who did not believe in a lot of homework at a young age, allowed my son to be in a relaxed kindy and now as a result he is lost. I thought that he should be able to catch up once he is in an all Chinese environment. Unfortunately, he only attended 1 month of school and missed the entire 2nd month so now he is even more lost. Poor boy. Oh well, I shall just have to coach him harder myself with my just learned Chinese from teaching his sister before him. I shall rope his sister in to help once her tests are over because now her Mandarin is much better than mine.

I find that for Std 1 and Std 2, I am able to teach myself ahead of the kids and coach them myself even without knowing Mandarin myself but Std 3 is quite beyond me unless I "study" harder myself.

As for the girl, she missed about 6 days of school this month. Today she is back at school but she is having diarheaa. She went to toilet just before going out of the house and rushed to toilet again as soon as she reached the school. Poor girl. Perhaps we have to bring her to the doc again this evening. Sigh.

Enjoy the times when they are young

I have often said this and I have often said how time flies. They grow up so quickly. I can't stress this enough.

How simple life is when they are young. You can take off and go for a holiday whenever you want. You can sleep in or sleep late or sleep whenever you want.

Once they are in school, things are so different. There are so many new challenges. I feel it now, even more so. This month, my boy has only been to school for 1 day due to his falling sick. The girl missed 6 days of school. There is a lot of catching up work to do. Teachers to call.

Now that they are in school, I have to deal with school bullying, fears of school, fears of teachers, homework, waking up early, getting enough sleepy, juggling precious time, the list goes on. It is a whole different ball game.

So enjoy the times when they are young, when life is so simple and all you have to worry about is whether they are sleeping well, eating well and pooping well.