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.

independent reading - tips on how to teach your preschooler

Preschool is a great time to spark curiosity about reading in your young child. With Rynus finally started reading relatively long stories independently at the age of 4 years 4 months, we can proudly say that we've taught the Chan brothers to read before they enter K1.

Renzo first started reading simple books independently when he was 2 years 11 months (refer to the video below), and moved on to rather long stories like what Rynus is reading now, when he was 3 years 8 months old.

Honestly, we didn't put in a lot of efforts in coaching Renzo to read. It seemed all natural, after reading to him daily for 2 years, one day he suddenly started reading all by himself. Till we had Rynus, we realized his independent reading journey doesn't seem to be as smooth. We questioned ourselves, will the method we used on Renzo work on him too??

The answer is, YES, despite that the two brothers have quite different learning patterns, they both learned to read without the need of attending any enrichment classes. The only thing is, it seems to take Rynus a little longer, nonetheless, slowly but steadily, he's there...

So I feel that there are certain tips we can share here with fellow parents. We jolly well understand that every kid is different, but what we are sharing here, are probably going to work for every child, sooner or later..

First of all, before explaining more about our method, here are a list of blog posts on Renzo's blog, where I shared quite a lot of tips on reading:
Foundation - phonics
Simple 3 letter words reading
Crucial Skill - Blending
Cultivate habit - Reading with kids
Cultivate habit - 5-a-day-books 

Reading involves much more than just decoding a few clumps of letters. What's more important is that the reader is able to understand the story and enjoy while reading it. So I am not trying to pressurize fellow parents to expect a 3 years old to start reading (by the way, they don't). My purpose is just to share some tips which we found useful with our preschoolers, with those parents who believe their children (at all ages) are ready to read, so that they could enjoy the process together and have more fun!


Tip 1: Create the environment for reading
Some friends ask me for advice on how to encourage their kids to read, usually my first question to them is, "As parents, do you both love reading? Do you read often in front of your kids?"

And when I say to read in front of kids, I am not referring to reading paparazzi news on your iphone or ipad, in fact, not even e-books on kindle, you can search on scientific proofs about why printed paper books might be better than e-books. Frankly I am not an avid reader, luckily Daddy Chan loves books so the whole family has been more or less influenced by him. Our most important piece of furniture in the house, is indeed our bookshelf. Just 2 years ago it was extremely hard to get Rynus to sit through one story, but after replacing a comfy sofa with this huge bookshelf in the living room a few months back, he slowly started this habit to grab a book and flip at times.

So don't wait till your child grows up, start building your "home library" once you have /or even before you have a new born, they need different types of books at different stage of life.

Make it a habit to bring a book along whenever you are out with your child. Have a trip to library and bookstore on a weekly basis.

Tip 2: Read to your child everyday (from age 0)
Have a fixed time to read to your child every single day. As we both are working parents, we have one hour from 8pm to 9pm every night, to bond with our kids. And reading is probably the one and only one compulsory activity we've been doing with them.

Pick those books that are relevant to their favorite toys, or TV programs so to keep them interested. Or read books that preschoolers can participate in by joining in on repetitive phrases or familiar rhymes. There are books that encourage "read aloud with parents", where the words appear in the sentence which parents need to read first, repeat in the next line which the child needs to read.

With Renzo entering Primary One at the beginning of 2016, we often have to guide him on his spelling or term test during this one hour, while Rynus has his free time to play. Daddy Chan pointed out a few times that he feels, the very reason why Rynus couldn't pick up reading as early as Renzo, is because we didn't spend enough time reading to him. Whereas for Renzo, he could remember how devoted he was, reading to him every single night without a fail since he was born. Hence we quickly made some arrangement to ensure we could spare at least 15 to 20 minutes before bedtime to read to Rynus.

Reading to young children who don't seem to show much interest in books can be quite demoralizing. Do not give up just because they don't understand you, or because they couldn't recognize even a single word. And even after your child picks up the skill of independent reading,  it doesn't mean you  have to leave the reading all to your child. You still can read to him/her daily, or read whenever you are asked to do so. Children enjoy the bonding and interaction from listening to parents, even though they've mastered the skill.

Getting the elder sibling to read to the younger one is another great option. Recently I've noticed that whenever Renzo is reading, Rynus wants to join in too and he's proud and confident about himself when he's able to read. He even told us, "I am able to read by myself, just like Renzo korkor right?!"

And here's an old video of Renzo at 4 years 4 months (Rynus' current age) reading to Rynus when Rynus was a baby. 

Tip 3: Get the foundation right (age 0 - 2)
I know there are a lot of debate around when should children start watching TV. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under 2 years old not watch any TV and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming.

Let me be honest, I made the decision to expose the 2 boys to TV when they were about 10 months old. I don't want to justify my reasons, but the truth is, they've been watching no more than 3 different educational programs on DVD and they've learned a ton!

Our family's favorite educational program is none other than Leapfrog!!

I've recommended this set of DVD to many friends, and some told me it's not effective for their toddler, so I still have this feeling that it's better to expose kid during their infant stage. Because the older your child is, the more distractions he or she will get. Imagine if your child has been watching different cartoon programs, learning series like Leapfrog might appear rather dry and boring. But I've read countless successful stories about how this series worked on younger kids below 2.5 years so I just think that it really works like magic.

Leapfrog is so far the most effective, interactive and structured educational material we've tried, to teach children the basics of phonics. Start your little one with this set of DVD in the correct order:
- Letter Factory
- Let's go to school
- Talking words factory

We've bought probably the entire collection of the Leapfrog series, the above 3 are the classic. If you start your child with Leapfrog early enough like us, by the age of 1.5 - 2.5 years old, your child will definitely be able to recognize 26 letters and know all their phonics sounds. That, is the 1st step to independent reading.  
 
Tip 4: Start with 3 letter words (age 2 - 4)
Once your child has mastered all alphabets and their phonics sounds, move on to 3 letter words. Leapfrog's words factory introduces basic word building, rhyming, vocabulary which helps your child to read and spell easy words like CAT, BAT, PAT, BEG, BED, etc.

Or, if you notice your child likes to tell stories based on the books he/she reads, then it's a sign that your child is ready to learn how to read independently. 

As I mentioned in my post about our experience with "I CAN READ" school when Renzo was young, majority of kids at the tender young age of 3, are better at identifying first sound, some can recognize last sound, and a few advanced ones can even recognize middle sound. Renzo was able to identify middle sound, which is the reason why he could read early, in my personal opinion. Because with such skill, he could easily decode the 3 letter words, sound out the 3 individual phonics sounds and blend them together again to form the word independently. Rynus was only good at first sound, sometimes he could identify the last sound but most of the time, he's pretty lost with the middle sound. So we knew we need to give him longer time, while at the same time, explore other methods to inspire him.

Rynus enjoyed playing with his Leapfrog cards to form different 3 letter words, before he started to show more interest in books.

Tip 5: Focus on high frequency / sight words (age 2 - 4)
True enough, the two brothers have different learning patterns.
Renzo:
Verbal (Linguistic) – These individuals learn best through words, verbal and/or written
Rynus:

Aural (Auditory) – These individuals learn best through sound and music

We realized it's pretty difficult to teach Rynus how to read by showing him the word, and expect him to decode it like what Renzo used to do. But interestingly, he is much stronger at recognizing sight words, those words appear frequently such as YOU, ME, HERE, AROUND, WHO, TODAY, MUST, WITH, etc. And because he learns really fast with sound and music, and such kind of words appear very often in nursery songs, he was able to read them before he turned 3, although he couldn't really read a story. So we tried to look for books with more sight words, or read together with him, pause at sight words, and encourage him to read it. It's important to boost their confidence level and keep them interested in reading.

Tip 6: Decode words (age 3 - 4)
Once you notice your child is able to read simple sight words and some of the three letter words, you can try to help them "decode' the word, by sounding out phonic sound of each letter, and blend them together.

There's also a tip here, if your child can make the phonics sound of "H", "U', "G" individually, but cannot sound out the word HUG, then try "H", "U", "G" first, then "H", "UG" because some kids might find it much easier to blend the middle and last sound together first, then sound out the first letter, and add on the "middle+last" sound as one sound.

And from the video below, you can see how Rynus "decode" his words by covering part of the word with his finger, and sound out the letters one by one and blend them together again.

"An early walker isn't destined to be a great athlete, and an early reader isn't destined to be more intelligent." But as parents, reading with our children is one of our greatest passion. They boys are having so much fun reading and learning at their own pace. These experiences are treasures that hold the key to becoming successful learners for years to come.

a guilty mum's confession towards my 2nd child

Daddy Chan: "Mummy, mummy didi is calling you..."
...
..

Daddy Chan: "Mummy are you busy with something, can you play with didi??"
...
..

Daddy Chan: "Mummy I noticed you've been checking your phone all the time...."
...
..

These, were what I've been hearing from Daddy Chan throughout the last day of our long weekend holiday.

YES I AM EXTREMELY GUILTY....

Let's face it, I am not trying to paint a perfect picture about how awesome a full time working mother's life is. My friends all know that I've been sharing a lot on my facebook account about my family, my kids as I enjoy tracking down our daily memories in chronological order this way. It also helps to update the relatives, most importantly the grandparents, about our little ones' growth.

And I am not kidding, those moments where we have peaceful afternoons with both boys working on their own stuff quietly, those moments where the whole family plays board games after dinner, those moments where Daddy Chan talks about science with Renzo and I hug Rynus to read Thomas storybook in one room, those moments where Renzo practicess his piano and Rynus watches his Leapfrog DVD side by side and not get distracted in the living room, are 100% for real!!

But sometimes, just sometimes, we do need our "ME" time to enjoy some privacy. We have already formed a habit to attend to our own stuff only after kids go to bed because after work, we have about 1 to 1.5 hours of bonding time with them so we do treasure that a lot. But things get a bit tougher during the weekends, when kids occupy every single minute of our time. For the fact that I need to wake up before 630am and prepare 3 meals for the family, I am cutting myself some slack and thinking there's nothing wrong to leave the kids playing on their own. Of course I am feeling the immense guilt from spending too much time on my own stuff, and neglecting the boys, or rather Rynus in this case for the past few days. I do give Renzo a lot more attention more because he has more worksheets that require parents' signature each week, if not everyday. He has bitesize tests to go through starting from P1 term 2, so getting him ready for his tests is my priority as compared to watching Rynus tracing his letters. We mentioned not once, not twice, but many times about the 2nd child syndrome, and inevitably, poor little Rynus seems to have became the victim.

Rynus has all along been a very sensible boy who doesn't seem to seek for much attention from us. We are truly blessed that he's independent and understanding.
But...

Each time I see Rynus singing along with his Leapfrog DVD, not bothering about whether I am busy on my phone, or cooking in the kitchen, or sitting next to him singing together... it hurts!

Each time helper mentions I am doting on Renzo so much and poor Rynus is not mummy's boy but aunty's boy... it hurts!

Each time I chat with Renzo about his daily life in school, Rynus skips to me like an eager beaver and asks: "Mummy, ask me, ask me how's school!??"... it hurts!

And I have absolutely no excuses here, my boss allows me to have work life balance and I don't even need to worry about work stuff once I am home. So it's often just whatsapp messages or facebook updates that keeps me occupied. Ironically, when many other parents are struggling with kids spending too much time on electronic devices, worrying about the effects on them, and wondering if too much screen time will slice-and-dice their attention spans, change their brains, hamper their social skills, disrupt their sleep and affect their learning. We don't have that concern at all as the boys do not touch any gadget, but I, am the one whose face is buried with touchscreen rather than my kids.

"To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today." - Barbara Johnson

To my dearest Rynus, I am sincerely sorry for those instances of ignoring you by staring at my phone. When I tell you I love you, I don't say that out of habit, or to start a conversation, I want you to know that you are the best thing ever happened to me and you deserve all my time, efforts and attention. It's not just about feeding and caring for your physical needs, but also to ensure that you are looked at, listened to and understood. I will change for better, for you my dear son!

My #EpicFail at #Epic Kidzania Singapore

For Mummy Chan and myself, every weekend is a where-to-bring-the-kids medley of brainstorming, idea throwing and internet research. But 9-Apr-16 was a different one. Through a wonderful friend, I managed to get my hands on 4 preview tickets for the Chan Family to gain access to Kidzania Singapore 3 days before its official grand opening and for once, I told myself that I'd blog the most fantabulastic review of the much anticipated kids theme park!


The day came and I must say, the kids enjoyed themselves very very much and so did Mummy Chan and myself :)
From fire fighters to pilots to lab scientists to window washers to store cashiers, Renzo and Rynus role played to their hearts' content. One particularly interesting experience was that after his 20-minute stint as a KFC chef, it even inspired Renzo to want to make a burger dinner at home the week after.

So yeah, at the end of a rewardingly exhausting 7 hour stay at Kidzania, I rested myself and days later when I was ready to pen down that informagical review that I promised myself to the world, a quick search on the internet revealed more than a handful of top-notch blog posts out there (most popular being cheekiemonkie) have already done that.

So instead of sharing what's at Kidzania like all those posts have already masterfully did, I'll share with my #epicfails (and by epicfails, I mean my fails, not Kidzania's... they are just too good) and what tidbits of information that might help you prepare better for your kid's (kids') Kidzania trip~!

#1. Bring along your jacket and wear your socks and shoes!
Yes this is more like an indoor theme park, don't get me wrong, you do not need to wear socks to enter Kidzania, it's just that the air conditioning inside is pretty strong. Kids are pretty okay as they will be busy carrying out their tasks and at certain point, the boys did complain that they feel hot and requested to take off their jackets. But for adults, true enough we need to follow them around, but once they start their job, we just have to wait, and it can get a bit chilly there. Especially the play area for kids below 4, that place is freezing cold! I guess they do not want 1 kid to occupy the entire ball pit for the whole day, so switching on stronger air conditioning is the right strategy. I thought Rynus could be playing inside while I rest on the couch and watch for the entire afternoon, but we "escaped" after less than 30 minutes playing there.

#2. Decide on the must dos and waste no time once you step in.
We are not referring to the activities yet. But here's 2 things you need to know about this place. First of all, if you have been to Kidzania in other countries, then you would know that there's this thing called a Kidzania Pazzport, which costs SGD18 per child. Your child will start as a Neutralized Citizen with benefits like earn/save 2 extra Kidzos for their participation in activities. They receive stamps for each activity completed and with collection of 30/60 stamps, they will get upgraded to Distinguished / Honorable Citizen for unlock even more benefits. So decide before you go, and proceed to level 2 to apply for the pazzport if you want it. I do think if you believe this is a place you would come back for sure, then just get it. Another thing is, the currency used in Kidzania is called Kidzo. When your child works and earns their money, it's paid in Kidzo (cash) or credited to their ATM card. So if you would like them to be paid cashlessly, then activate the card immediately when you enter. The queue at the bank is pretty darn realistic (long and slow). And only kids can bring their card in so do prepare them for this task if your child is too young to handle it independently. Obviously Rynus' card has not been activated, he can do that if he's joined the queue with Renzo and with korkor's help it should be much easier, but too bad, he didn't even want to join the queue.

#3. Try to show pictures or even videos to your kids before going there
I am sure they might get too excited to even fall asleep if you were to show them anything before hand. But I would highly suggest you to do this. Kids like Renzo who needs more time to warm up, was rather lost for the first 30 minutes inside not knowing what to expect. And it totally didn't help when Mummy Chan and myself were mountain tortoises who don't know anything at all. Their staff were friendly and were trying hard to invite the kids into their station without noticing that the kids haven't settled into the environment yet. So it took us a while to figure out exactly what to do inside and how to do it. As for Rynus, it's even tougher, he said "I want to go home" more than 5 times through our stay there. Most of the activities are for age 4 and above but that doesn't mean he's able to understand what's going on. So places that require more action, like the fire station, attracted his attention immediately when he heard the siren from the fire truck. And only after trying that out, he's more willing to explore other activities.

#4. The ATM is for checking account status (not for depositing)
Why must I mention this, isn't that common sense? We were caught by surprise when Renzo went ahead to activate his ATM card, but didn't get to deposit any money through ATM machine. Right so we told him to join the long queue and get his card activated, we gave him 20 Kidzos to deposit while activating his card, thinking that the rest of the money can be bank in at later time through ATM machine, since there's not much queue at ATM so we could just do it at any time. But nope, those machines are just for checking bank record! Isn't that weird? But I guess the idea is to activate the ATM first thing when you go in, it has 30 Kidzos on the card and kids have 20 Kidzos in cash. So deposit that 20 Kidzos at the same time, from then on, just use the ATM card to pay / earn inside there. We did everything the opposite way. Because the queue was too long when we first step in, we went straight with cash. So end of the day when we have lots of cash in hand and didn't deposit them in while activating card, the only solution is to queue again. By the way the bank queue is long throughout the day, so just be prepared, to queue.

#5. Bye Bye Data Plan
Not too sure if this was intentional but the 4G/3G/your-G signal there is pretty bad. So please stay near your family instead of relying on your phones to gather at a certain "meeting spot". If you absolutely must, there is WiFi on the 2nd level lounge (but really, power off the mobile, this is a day to be with the kids)

#6. Aviation Academy Alert
One of the main attraction (at least to my boys) was the job as a pilot at the Aviation Academy. But with great attraction comes long waiting time. For me, the wait in line was about 30 minutes, after which the kids will be brought to a secondary waiting room where parents are not allowed for another 30 - 50 minutes. Do the maths and you'll get 1 hour waiting time for 20-30 minutes of aviation fun. Not the best ROI for time (but I'm sure it was great fun). Remember to bring your kid to the restroom before embarking on this hour-long waiting journey.

And also, because almost the plane is restricted to kids only, your wonderful picture of your smart looking kid in pilot uniform would most probably come from one of the assigned Canon photographer instead of your shiny new camera, of course that definitely comes with a price, SGD$20 per piece if our memories serve us right.

#7. Save the food making activities for meal time

There are restaurants inside Kidzania and we had simple KFC meal while waiting outside the aviation academy for the boys. But for kids, plan your timing so when they get hungry, bring them to make burger, pizza, yakult or even icecream. But if your kid is as young as Rynus, then either the elder sibling will need to make double trip at the station to make extra portion of food, or you just need to bring along extra milk powder, if your kid is a milk junkie like Rynus.

#8. Let your kid go in group with their elder cousins or friends
We've seen many upper primary kids roaming around the place like pro, followed by some younger siblings, cousins of friends. Sometimes they discuss about the activities and those younger ones get encouraged to try out different things, even if they might not fully understand. But if your kid is there alone, or like Renzo's case although he's there with his brother, Rynus is much younger to be of any help. Renzo covered a total of 7 stations in 7 hours, Rynus didn't get to go in together for a few places like Yakult factory or Learning Lab which are meant for 6 / 7 and above. As it's a soft launch the crowd was still manageable, I believe now since it's already opened officially on April 12, you might expect less stations covered for same hours inside.

#9. Spend your Kidzos at the Department Store and/or Shopping Alley
Too much cash on hand or busting the binary limit on your ATM card? Unfortunately not all the establishments accepts Kidzos. You'll need to bring your kid to the Department Store or Shopping Alley where Kidzos in an accepted currency. This is especially true if you are not expecting yourself to be visiting Kidzania anytime soon :)

our little saving grace..

Yes "saving grace" is what Daddy Chan would call Rynus at home, whenever Renzo gives us a relatively difficult day, at times.

By now we are fully aware that the 2 boys have very different characters and we, or rather say I, have almost, completely accepted Renzo's personality of being slow in doing everything, and often needs to be nagged reminded on every single task of his. Well I know that sounds pretty horrible but nope it's not really that bad honestly. He's a good boy in general, just that Rynus has never given us the same set of worries although he might give us equally frustrating moments,  make us feel like giving ourselves a double face palm and pulling our hairs out at the same time. But but, Rynus has this amazingly innocent voice, innocent look, innocent thought, innocent.. everything! that is pretty soothing, or probably hypnotic especially when we are at the end of the rope!

When Renzo gets disciplined by me for his mischievous behavior, Rynus is often seen sitting alongside me and making efforts to cheer me up. He would sing a whole list of nursery rhymes which he just learned at childcare; he would give Renzo a stare and tell him "Renzo you never listen, I listen, right mummy?!"; he would pat my cheeks, hug me tight and tell me it's okay don't worry mummy; he would do the sweetest thing I could ever imagine just to make me happier.

With Renzo starting Primary School this year, we've been putting in a lot more time and efforts to bond with him, be it to chat with him more about his school life, or to coach him more on his studies. Inevitably, Rynus has been neglected but he's never made any noise. Instead, he learned to keep quiet when korkor needs to practise piano; to play on his own when korkor needs to do his revision; to write every word he knows on whiteboard when korkor is preparing for spelling test.

If being the first child, Renzo has to live up to high expectations and set good example, which leads to higher chance of him getting an earful from us, then Rynus being the second child, is definitely our saving grace who often manages to make that "earful" a less unpleasant one for his brother.

Facebook's "On This Day" made me want to write a post!

Facebook's "On This Day" app has a lovely habit of digging out wonderful memories that were once the most excitable happening that were posted years back. Sometimes it may be silly cat videos that brought a tickle, other times, it may be a status update of a note-worthy event. But on some magical days, when the stars and moon align, Facebook gives me the most heart-warming picture from yesteryear. As it did this morning, when I came back from my daily chauffeur duty sending Rynus to school.

As I walked into the house, phone in hand waiting for the WiFi signal and junk mail from the mailbox in the other, I made my way to the sofa and started to go through the bombardment of app notifications accumulated from the night before (no, I don't check them at traffic lights when I drive). So one of the notification came from Facebook's "On This Day". Obligingly, I tapped onto it and was greeted by the sweetest smile :)

It was a simple, candid picture of Rynus from 2013. I loved it so much that, well, it made me want to write a post now about it! Somehow that little toothless smile warmed my heart throughout the day, even as I look at it now... heee

Cuteness aside, it made me realize just how little of Rynus has been documented as compared to Renzo. Living in my computer are endless folders of Renzo's pictures, videos and blog articles backups but seems like just one is enough for Rynus :(

Sorry my dear little Rynus, Daddy promise to take more pics and vids of you to show you how amazingly adorable you were when you were young okay?

Like when Daddy came home from work and the first thing you do is tell Daddy that Renzo poked your nose... left side...

And also when you insisted to play with mommy's hairband and makeup

Now Daddy has to go clear up some space on the computer to start storing all these pics and vids already... wheeee~!

ways to handle a tantrum or meltdown...

Like I've always been saying, if a kid misbehaves out of sudden, usually, there's a change in his routine. I can't emphasize enough about how important a routine is, for kids of any age, no matter he's 4 or 14. I've heard a different school of thoughts that routine is less important than discipline, as parents we just need to discipline our kids well, frequent changes in routine will teach them to be more independent and adaptable.

Well let me tell you (though I am not the expert), I am not saying my kids do not have random temper tantrums, but if "routine doesn't matter for kids" is what you believe, then be prepared for unexpected; and don't complain if your 6 years old whines and cries over dropped cookies.

So, a friend of mine asked me what to do with young toddler's meltdowns, or temper tantrums, yes I praise my kids often but that doesn't mean they do not experience such moments. Basically a lot of experts would suggest a few ways:
- time-out (usually most effective if your child is trained to calm down this way)
- offer alternative options (2nd most effective because kids are often easily distracted)
- use words (yes effective communication it is, but this might be the toughest one)
- count down (yes 3, 2, 1... shut up, oops no aggressive parenting in our house)
- offer a reward (as bad as giving in to their request in my personal opinion)

And in another post on Renzo's blog I mentioned about the 3 different ways of parenting, you can see the methods above are pretty much in alignment with those ways of parenting I mentioned there.

Of course Assertive Parenting is what we would love to cultivate at home, so I usually use a combination of time-out, alternative options/distraction and selected words. But just a few days ago, I spent more than 30 minutes (or at least it felt that long) to coax Rynus after he became distraught, the moment I told him to go to bed. Oh yes you might say, who doesn't struggle with sending young kids to bed??!! But nope, we don't. Our boys have a pretty standard and good bedtime routine which they could follow well since young. So I was pretty much caught off gaurd by Rynus' reaction that night. Because he snapped right after I turned off the TV and told him to go to his room. And before I did that, I've passed him my iphone, nope I do not allow kids to play with gadgets but Rynus recently has this habit of watching his concert dance video clip right before he goes to bed. And since it makes his bedtime routine easier, I am pretty cool with that fast 2 minutes clip. I thought that's enough prep considering usually he doesn't fuss around even if I off the TV without prior notice. That made me believe that his sudden change in behavior, might be due to the change of routine recently, since his elder brother Renzo, has just started Primary School this year.

Time-out method has not been effective to him since a couple months ago. He has developed this new emotion that whenever we mention about sending him to thinking corner, he feels ashamed and simply refuses to go for it each time. It's a method I still believes in strongly, just that it doesn't work on Rynus now and Renzo doesn't need it anymore.

So up next, it's about using the correct words to distract him with other alternatives. But trust me, it's not as easy as what experts advised. The "I know you are upset because mummy does not allow you watch TV anymore.". "I understand your feeling and why not we go to the room and watch your concert dance together?" kind of "model" questions suggested by experts, totally didn't work on him! Right, at that very moment, I was wondering, do those so called experts who studied kids, raised up any kids of their own successfully??!! How is that possible that their advice sounds so straight forward but it doesn't seem to work on every child??!! And Rynus just made it tougher for me when he changed from crying to begging, "I want to watch TV, I don't want to sleep, please mummy, let's go! Please I want to watch TV mummy please...". His voice sank to a whisper, misery was written all over his face, tears blinded his eyes and choked his voice as he begged again and again, my heart was broken. But I know once I compromise, the next time he's just going to act out this way to get what he wants.

When I continued to stay calm and press on, while accepting his 50 shades of emotions at the same time, it caught my attention that whenever I mentioned that "I understand you are upset", he seemed to settled down a little. His eyes softened as he gave me a tighter hug. So I decided to add that liner in front of every single alternative option that I offered to him, from my iphone to watch his concert dance, to his milk bottle and pillow for comfort. He refused to budge. But trust me, I know all I need to do at that moment, was just to repeat what I did again and again, till he finally got the idea that no, mummy is just NOT going to turn on that TV for the rest of the night! Keeping him comfortable definitely helps throughout the bargaining process, and as soon as he allowed me to hug and kiss him, I know I've won my battle.

Boy it's a super tough 30 minutes, probably this has been the biggest ever emotional meltdown I've had to handle so far. But the good thing is, I've learned about his limit, 25 minutes is probably the maximum amount of time needed to win over him.

So again, I do believe Rynus will get better slowly, after all, it's only been 2 weeks after he switched to this new routine of staying in childcare, without his brother's presence. Like my favorite quote from Gary Chapman, the famous author of The 5 Love languages series stated:
“Inside every child is an ‘emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally, but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty ‘love tank.’” -Gary Chapman

We did neglected Rynus' feeling a bit because we are too busy chatting with Renzo about Primary School life on most of the nights. I know it because Rynus took his own initiative to speak Chinese, sing National Anthem every now and then, in order to catch our attention. Those are things he seldom does at home. So time to work together and make daily family bonding before bedtime more fun and engaging for Rynus as well!