Parenting issues Archives - Page 8 of 11

Can mums really travel without kids?

My mum tells me how lucky I am to have a job which I can come home on time on most days and do not need to travel. Although that usually equates to not being a high flyer or high frequency flyer, I am thankful for my job that gives me the precious time I need with my kids. So, when my boss told me to travel on business, my first thought goes to my kids at home. Who’s going to take care of them? What will happen to them when I am away? How will my kids take it that I am away? How shall I tell them about this without tears pouring over little sulking faces? Continue reading “Can mums really travel without kids?”

I remember the day my son got lost: Weekly Writing Challenge

I remember the day when my son, YH was lost in the shopping mall. It was a frantic search for him. He was only 1+ years old then.

We went to an arcade (an entertainment centre) in a shopping mall. My girl, XX, 3 years old then, was playing at some kiddie station. YH was stomping on some step-on-the-buttons station a metre away. We have 6 adults, kel, me and the 4 grandparents around these 2 toddlers. The adults were chatting away while keeping 12 EYES on the kids. The arcade was noisy as usual, a mix of lousy orchestra playing game station music. The little ones were having great fun hitting buttons and stepping on gears away with no tokens being deposited into the machines.

YH was walking about and running his unsteady steps from one station to the next. Everything seemed normal till I suddenly realized that in my sight radar, there was only one toddler moving about. Where’s the other one??

For what seemed like 5 hours, the next 5 seconds were a frantic scatter of all of us searching for YH. My first thought was to run to the main entrance of the arcade in case he ran out. But my worse fear was him being kidnapped by somebody. I imagined a man carrying him with one hand over his mouth while my boy struggled and cried. This thought made me crazy! Then, alas, kel came looking for me 5 minutes later, and told me YH was checking out some station behind a drop down curtain! Whew! I let out a sigh of relief! If you ever have such experience of finding your child lost, you would have been able to imagine my roller coaster emotions! Hearing the good news, I ran back to my dear boy and hugged him tightly. I fought back my tears.

The whole episode was only about 5 minutes but it could have been forever if he was really kidnapped away! Having many people around with 12 eyes on the kids is not as safe as you think it to be. I would have thought you are looking after the kids and you would have thought I am looking after them. In the end, nobody is actually paying attention to the kids’ whereabouts! This incident took place in our home country, Singapore which is one of the safest country in the world. Yet, as parents, we cannot let our guards down when it comes to kids’ safety. Even till now, YH who is already 6 years old, still wanders off in the crowd. It always drives me crazy to search for him. XX will always tell us where she is going if she is going to be out of sight from us. Boys being boys, will always need that extra attention, but I will not let my guard down for my girl too.

Have you ever encountered such a frantic experience of searching for your kids? Share with me!

This post is written in response to Weekly Writing Challenge: I Remember

Check out other great posts here:

What to consider when choosing a childcare centre

The first time I decided to put my girl, XX, in a childcare centre, I had lots of mixed feelings. On one hand, I know she gets to interact with new friends of her age, she gets to learn new things, learn to share and build up social skills, enjoy art and craft, speech and drama and music lessons among other things.

On the other hand, I couldn’t bear the thought of sending her away from the house for such long hours, couldn’t bear to imagine she had to bathe and sleep there together with other kids on the floor mattresses. It just seemed cruel and sad. Or maybe I should have just left her at home with the grandparents.

But, I knew and we all knew, if she had stayed home, she’d probably do nothing much and watched tv the whole day without me in the house to play with her or guide her in learning. She would have wasted time and learnt nothing. Since I had to work full-time, I had little choice but to enrol her in a childcare centre where she would have plenty of adult and children interaction.

Choosing the centre was rather easy. There weren’t much choice in my neighbourhood. There were only 2 to choose from. I wanted somewhere near our house. So, kel and I went to check out both centres together one day.

There’s a few things that we looked out for to determine which centre is suitable for our dear princess.

1. Distance
Proximity to our house is top priority. I have to think of the person who’ll be fetching her to and from the centre everyday rain or shine.

2. Speak to the principal
This is important to check out what are the principal’s direction and beliefs. The principal is the one who steers the school to its mission. We have to judge if that is in line with our expectations. We asked many questions including teachers and staff experience, curriculum, the daily meals and even asked about their approach to welcome kids on their first day.

3. Facilities
We asked for a walkthrough to check out the centre facilities. Most childcare centres have an indoor playground, music room and individual play areas for pretend play. We also noticed the centre was not air-conditioned, except for the music room. We preferred a non air-conditioned centre as we knew that germs spread easily in the recycled air. Kids do fall sick easily in childcare centres.

4. Observe the curriculum
On the day we visited the centre, there were no children except for the principal and teachers. The centre was closed for 2 weeks due to exceeding number of hand foot mouth disease (HFMD) spreading among the children (in Singapore, it is common for centres to close for 2 weeks due to HFMD). The teachers were sterilizing all the toys, utensils and seen preparing for curriculum activities. Hence, we asked to bring our princess XX again on another day to join in the nursery 1 class so that we could observe the curriculum and her response.

5. Bring your kid to open house or join in for a trial
On the day of the trial lesson, XX held my hand tight as we entered the class together. We knew she was really nervous. I went in with her and allowed her some time to warm up to the new environment. Kel stood outside the classroom and observed from the window. 10 min later, with the encouragement of the teacher Mdm Chia and some outgoing kids, she became more at ease much to my relief. Her feelings about the centre were important to us. Although she did not show much enthusiasm as we had wished, she did not show any averse reaction. That, confirmed our decision in enrolling her in this childcare centre.

6. Fees

This is an important consideration. There are many childcare centres out there that charges from $500 to $1800 per month. There are definitely differences in what each centre offers. As there were only 2 centres in our neighbourhood, and we were not prepared to go a distance for probably a better one which may include Montessori teaching, we were happy with the fees. In fact, after the working mother subsidy of $300, it was really a bonus to us.

Fast forward 5 years now, we are happy with this childcare centre. XX had graduated and gone to Primary school. Whenever she meet the teachers in the childcare, the teachers always welcome her with warmth and enthusiasm. My boy is in K2 class and will be “graduating” this November. In fact, I wrote a thank you letter (you can check this out in my previous post) to all the teachers who took great care of my kids. On top of the above considerations in choosing a childcare centre, I would say my guts feelings do come into play. Always trust the mummy’s instinct.

What factors do you consider in choosing a childcare centre?

I want to stop hurrying my kids

After reading through the handsfreemama post on “The day I stopped saying ‘hurry up“, I felt so guilty and upset of frequently saying “Hurry up…” to my kids. I am one who is impatient, and one who want to complete many things in my limited time spent with my kids since I am a working mum. The post resonates so much with what I am experiencing, I decided to check myself on how I can right things and stop uttering the “H” word so frequently.

On Saturday mornings when the kids have piano lessons, I hurry my kids to brush their teeth, eat their breakfasts, and change their clothes. When time is running out, I hurry them out the door, ignoring complaints of little feet hurting because of some blisters or dismissing their remarks of forgetting to do their piano theory with “I told you so…” or speaking at top speed of “There’s no time to tie your hair in pleats now. We’ll have to do that in the train or while waiting for the lift. If you had stopped watching tv, your hair would have been tied by now!” all under one breath. It is usually these stressful, late for class moments that the kids will start to go back in the house to find their animal kaiser cards, story books, little pet shop toys, erasers, etc, etc. It gets on my nerves and I’ll be off shouting “1,2,3 out the house” commands, all the time carrying baby YT in the baby carrier. The baby must have felt all the anger, his mummy’s fast heartbeats thumping against his head and the negative ions in the air. At such times, the papa would start to pour in some oil to the fire by criticising my time management.

On weekday evenings, we have dinner at leisurely pace. However, halfway through the meal, my 6 yr old YH will start to leave his chair, walk about, sit or stand (I can’t make out of which is which), and it is this time, Kel and I will hurl out the “H” word to command him back to the dining table . After dinner, during piano practice, YH will dilly dally about. He can play one song, walks about, plays with his dinosaurs, goes back to the piano again, and bangs the keys. At such trying times, I will “coax” him back to proper practice by using the “H” word. I said, “If you quickly (a synonym for hurry) play the pieces well and practise seriously, you can master the pieces quickly (2nd time usage here) and we can go on to do other stuff together earlier (another form of hurry up).” See! I have used the “H” word in different forms here, 3 times in one sentence! Not to mention, I said it in a hurried way too.

As the evening is so short, I try to squeeze in lots of activities into the 2 hours that we have. It became a habit to utter the “H” word conveniently, add in the “H” mood, it truly is not the kind of relax evening I would love to have with my kids.

Then, I decided, to make an evening happy and relax,

I need to slow down my pace.
I need to speak at a slower speed.
I need to forgo multi-tasking to some extent.
I need to plan and prepare earlier for outings.
I need to target arriving at all functions 10 minutes before start time.
I need to stop using the “H” word or its synonyms.

On many occasions, if I can allow more time by planning in advance and like what kel said, to better manage time, or allowing an extra 10 minutes, I need not use the “H” word 9 out of 10 times.

I decided to slow down my pace this week and check on myself for uttering the “hurry up” words. I begin to observe many things that I have never seen before, or rather have forgotten. My boy, YH has such beautiful eyes when he smiles. When I stop myself from interfering with the way he plays with his baby brother (he can be violent sometimes), I realize he is very conscious of whether the baby smiles as a result of his funny actions. He beams with his crescent eyes and toothless grin when YT smiles or claps his hands. When I allow him tantrums during piano practice and do not hurry him, he goes back to the piano on his own after cooling down and plays smoothly without hiccups. When I do not hurry him for bedtime, he produces beautiful drawings and little crafts. He is slow in writing, yet, when I sit down beside him and look at him, forcing myself to throw out hurrying thoughts, I find that he writes with such moving intensity, I could have cried.

I do not tend to hurry my girl, XX, so much. She is more disciplined and independent. When I plan things in advance and remind her from time to time, she does things responsibly and timely. I have learnt to look at her and observe the things that she does. I learn to listen to her with full attention. When I allow her to bathe the baby (with help of course), she can do almost everything that I do, although with double the time I spent. She can wash the baby’s hair, body, change the diapers and help the baby wear his clothes, etc. She loves to have me say goodnight unhurriedly and have me on her bed beside her while recalling what happened in the day. When I stay around in her room for a little while, she flashes her sweet girlish smile and speaks in babyish voice. I love her voice.

My kids tend to sleep late and have a thousand and one things to do before lights out. I used to hurry them to dreamland so that they have enough sleep and so do I. Now, when I do not hurry bedtime so much, they settle down better and I got to enjoy the perfect bedtime ritual of kissing them goodnight before I leave the room in peace.

I love my kids. I want to enjoy time being with them while they still want me by their side. The dishes can wait, the dirty floor can wait, even the me-time can wait. My kids are growing up everyday and soon, I will have lots of time by myself and probably too much time on hand to spend. When that time comes, I wouldn’t want my kids to hurl back the “H” word to me. I would equally want them to enjoy time with me at a leisurely pace.

(Thanks to handsfreemama Rachel whose beautiful write-up causes me to stop and re-look at my hurried pace. You can check out her blog here, she writes beautifully and so true to what we parents experience.)

Deciding when to have kids

Many friends whom I know, including myself, would love to start plan B (B for Baby) after they have enjoyed their marriage for about 2 years. That’s a reasonable time before committing themselves to parenthood for life. Well, statistics show that many are putting off marriage till early 30s or mid-30s. That could only mean that plan B will start mid-30s and late 30s and there comes increasing complications, particularly in health. Not to mention that waiting for a successful pregnancy may be longer.

What is in store for those who start plan B late?

1. Fewer kids

If a couple were to have their first baby at the age of 32, they will be less likely to have more than 2 kids. It is more ideal that there is a space of at least 18 months between 2 pregnancies for the womb and body to recover from childbirth stress. Family planning will see that the 2nd child be delivered at the age of 34 and beyond, and the 3rd will be over 35 which the woman will fall into the high risk category. Exceptions will probably be those delivering twins or triplets.

2. Energy level goes down with age

Those who have children will know that children’s energy levels will always surpass that of their parents. It’s tiring to keep up with the kids’ energy level. From day 1, they demand night feeds which really zap energy like a thirsty hippo. In toddler days, the wobbly walking and head over heels running will keep you on your toes behind them, back bent forwards with arms outstretched to anticipate falls. When they master running, you wonder why they hardly walk anymore. I often imagine XX and YH’s feet fitted with rockets. Whenever we return from my parent’s house for dinner, we have to walk through this long corridor at about 830pm. Then their “rockets” start to propel them down the corridor despite countless fore-warnings to walk quietly. Kel and I wonder if the opposite would happen if we have shouted “RUN! RUN FASTER!”.

3. You may be mistaken as your children’s grandparents

Unless you upkeep your image, you may be mistaken for your children’s granny or grandpa if you are not careful. By the time your youngest child reaches 20 years old, you could be near 60! My parents were already grandparents when they were 50 and 55 years old. But those were the generation of early marriage and parenthood. This would only get worse with each generation procrastinating plan B.

4. Complications in pregnancy and health

There are many risks with getting pregnant beyond the age of 35. Rates of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy go up with age. In fact, these women will have to go through genetic counselling and genetic testing to screen or diagnose for birth defects. Of course, all pregnancies may come with birth defect risk, but age factor raises this risk substantially. The older you are to get pregnant, the higher the risk of getting chronic disease, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. You can visit babycenter for more information on this.

5. Better handle kids when you are older

This is perhaps the only positive reason I can think of for having children at an older age. Being older may mean that you can handle babies and young children with more patience compared to when you were in your mid-20s. You may be at a more matured mental state to handle crying babies and demanding children and you’ll be able to enjoy your children more. I find myself handling my 3rd baby better than I did when I had my first child. Experience plays a part, but I am calmer and more at ease to face the challenges of child-rearing now than before. Financially, you may be more stable and that eliminates one major stress factor, making plan B more affordable.

Considering the above factors, I think it is good to start plan B as early as possible into your marriage. When I delivered XX, my first child, I was 26, YH when I was 28 and now YT when I was 33. I could feel lots of difference when I was pregnant in my 20s compared to my 30s. The greatest difference was my energy level. It was much lower when I was pregnant with my 3rd baby. I got tired easily and was sleepier than before. I was not as agile as my first 2 pregnancies and walked with much difficulties during the last 2 weeks before I delivered. Even the delivery saw me push 4 times before the baby was out compared to 2 times with my other 2.

Have children early and never think that you are not ready for them. The moment the crying newborn is put into your hands, you are a MUM or DAD. There will be no doubt that the baby trusts you entirely for his happiness. If such a little one can trust you, you can do it!

What’s your ideal age for having kids?