forming a stronger parent unit

On one evening when we were strolling around Popular Bookstore, I picked up this wooden multiplication table board for Rynus, as he's obsessed with the multiplication table recently. Yes when I say he's "obsessed", I really meant he is practising it a few times everyday! We are encouraging our 7 years old Renzo to learn his multiplication table and he's still not very fluent with it after practising for nearly a month, but to our amazement, Rynus has learned about 80% of the entire multiplication table up to 12x12 within about 2 weeks times. And by the end of 1 month mark, he's mastered the entire table.

For record, here's a video of Rynus reciting the full multiplication table from 2x1 up to 12x12. There were a few missing equations as the video exceeded its limit and I had to stop and retake while he's doing his 11x.

So to reinforce his learning, I thought this wooden board must be quite a good idea since it has the questions on one side of the block and the answer on this other side. When I presented it to Rynus that night, he shrieked gaily and claimed, "I love this present, it's awesome!!".

Rynus then spent his entire evening before bedtime exploring his new "toy". Instinctively, he flip over every piece of block before thinking about the answer, the moment he realised he could check his answer at the back of the block. Daddy Chan had to stop him from doing that and show him the correct way of "playing", which is to look at the question, give an answer and then flip over the block to check the answer.

At the end of his play, I was pretty certain that this new "toy" isn't a good idea anymore, because Rynus doesn't seem to focus much on giving correct answers, but instead, he's more interested in flipping the blocks for quick answer. And although I am very certain he can easily recite the entire 9x table, he paused many times and gave the "i-don't-think-i-know" look which left me thinking about keeping this board away, so not to confuse him any further. But I kept my thought under wraps since Daddy Chan was already trying hard to explain to Rynus about how this board should be played.

The following morning, Rynus started to work on the multiplication board again. But this time, he started off by stacking up the blocks and when being questioned, he said he's trying to build a tunnel!

After watching him playing with the blocks for a while, Daddy Chan suddenly turned to me and said, "Let's not control the way he plays with this board, it might not be a bad thing that he's treating it as a toy, maybe that's just the way he learns.". Phew, Daddy Chan surely has no idea what a relief it is for me to know that we are on the same page, again!


Yes it's our habit to share our parenting views, decisions and concerns regularly. During our lunch break or journey home after work, we often discuss about our kids' behavior and how to alter our parenting style in order to help them learn and improve. And of course there are times we agree to disagree. For example, Daddy Chan believes that gaming isn't all bad as kids pick up tribal knowledge through gaming, whereas I have totally zero, ZERO tolerance with kids touching digital devices, let alone games. So even though Daddy Chan plays games, he seldom does that in front of the kids.

I believe in gentle yet firm parenting style and do not encourage scolding and spanking, whereas Daddy Chan thinks that punishment is an inevitable, and necessary part of disciplining young kids. That's obviously the reason why the boys will approach me, who is the softer, more lenient parent to get permission.

So clearly we are different in certain ways. But I am glad that we agree on issues almost all the time, we just have different styles to deliver the message. I don't think it's totally bad for our children to experience that differences, it might help them learn about varied opinions and different ways to view the same situation.

But no doubt, the closer parents are united in morals, character, discipline and behavioral expectations, the better for raising happy, healthy, resilient and rational kids.