All good...?

Master Prince has just completed his tests. He was happy and we (adults) were even happier. As a caring and concerned parent, I call him up every afternoon to enquire how things went for him.

I get the same monotone response every time, "Good, all good. It was good."

What does his "Good" mean?

Good...

....I finished the paper today, good?

....It was excellent, good?

....I don't really know and don't care but just to stop you from quizzing me, good?

To me, 'Good' represents a pretty high standard aka 'Excellent' as compared to 'Not good' or 'So-so' or just plain 'Bad'. *Dreading the day I get presented with the report card and MP's 'Good' translates to Cs or Ds. You can feel my confidence can’t you?* Ha ha I'm not expecting straight As but I do expect MP to put in some effort and do his best.

You can tell that MP is not a talker. Well may be that's because he is not interested in this topic and hence can't wait to end it!

I remember as a child when my parents asked me how my test or exam went, I would be cautious and give a non-committal shrug or answer so that I would have some buffer just in case I didn't do well - 'OK' or 'like that lah' would be my usual response. Hm...pondering on my casual response, I wonder if they too were at their wits ends and tore at their hair trying to understand what I meant by 'OK' or 'like that lah'???? Even I can’t understand myself!! Lolz

I know I sound like an over worried kiasu parent, a person I had declared that I would not become. But its hard not to be concern when you know your child is the 'over' playful type.

Is it wrong to ‘push’ your child? I mean not the extreme kind of pushing until the poor kid is scolded, abused and stressed out but little nudges to rub back the over-playfulness. Is there such thing as: Spare the 'push' rod and spoil the child?

Is it a boy thing? Or just a child thing? Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe in the power of play, through play children learn and discover things. After all if children didn’t play, what would you expect them to do? But when it becomes a little excessive and uncontrolled, it becomes a worry.

As I was pondering over this post, I came across what Edith wrote. I totally identify with her that when your children are having exams the parents are even more stressed than the kids!! As much as I love my son, I just dread revising with him. He definitely knows which button to press to make mum boil and steam! Sometimes I think he press those buttons purposefully just for kicks I suppose??? Grrrr…!!

Why can’t we cooperate with each other? *Oh dear, I’m definitely ranting now!!*

Children hate to study because they rather play. Yes I can see that point but if you do it quickly it would not be a torture for everyone. If they can only focus, concentrate and quickly complete their task which takes a short 10 min compared to dragging it out to 2 hours for the same thing, I am sure that they will realize that studying isn’t all that bad and not a torture. Let’s do some quick maths here. 120 min minus 10 min – you have remaining an extra 110 min of play.

So why can’t you cooperate? Isn’t 110 min of extra play enticing enough? As much as I try to explain and MP tries to understand, it never sinks in. Like a broken recorder I then turn into….a nagger!! And kids wonder why some of their mom nags, well that’s because they don’t listen!!! *Vicious cycle, hello…*

Anyway, extracting from Edith’s post she shared her friend's sms:

"My mum is uneducated and that is one of the greatest blessing for me and my siblings because she always tells us that she cannot help us in our studies. Only we can help ourselves. So she transferred the responsibilities to us. The greatest handicap for us as mothers now is our education. We think we can help and took over our children's responsibility of wanting to study on their own."

So am I 'handicapping' my son by helping him study rather than nurturing a habit?

You know, I confess that to prepare him for his current test, I not only summarized each subject but also typed out a pre-mock test for him. I thought it was rather time consuming flipping through his many school books for each subject. Ideally, he should have done this himself but now I am considering whether I am handicapping him in the future – that he will need want the same reliance and dependency from his concerned and loved ones to help him get through his next hurdle? *shuddering at the thought* Anyway, go figure.

I think as parents we cannot help but be concerned (ok I confess that we may go overboard sometimes). We love our kids and want only the best for them. But the journey and life is still theirs to shape and each step or choices, theirs to make. I only hope to be there to nurture, guide, support and encourage them. Love can come in many ways, forms and shapes.

I hope in time to come, he will be responsible for his choices and decisions. Even for mistakes or failures, they should not be shunned or protected, but learn and grow from them…after all isn’t that what is life is all about, learning and rising from mistakes or failures and being stronger to get up and move ahead, hopefully wiser and sometimes more humbled. To us parents, this can be very heart breaking and frustrating infuriating – after all which parents in their right mind to see their kids hurt or miserable or heading in the wrong direction?? Probably easier said than done! *Can only pray and wait for them to reach a quicker sense of enlightenment and realization.*

There is no right or wrong answer I suppose. We can only do what we think is best and so much, the rest is and will be up to them.