Parenting issues Archives - Page 9 of 11

Deciding when to get married

You will never imagine how life will be after marriage. Loving a person and staying together are two very different things. You think if you love that someone, you will be able to accept his or her everything, including weird or intolerable habits. But when the wedding fanfare is over, and both of you start to stay together, reality kicks in and you will regret not having written more of “I shall do this and that for my partner” list before your partner signs on it.

Life after marriage: fantasy

1. “Clink” your glass of wine with your partner as you seep slowly, looking into each other’s eyes with soft music in the background.

2. Your partner creeps up to you from the back and gives you a surprise kiss while you are cooking a lovely candlelit dinner.

3. Watch a favourite movie as both of you sit back and relax into the designer couch.

4. Before your partner goes to work, plant a kiss on his cheeks as you see him walks out the door OR hug her when she is back home from work.

5. Both of you finally can see each other everyday and be with each other till death do you two part.

Life after marriage: reality

1. Household chores – Dishes pile up in the sink; floor full of dirt and fallen hair; laundry basket overflowing with unwashed or washed clothes – both of you fight over who wash what and who “won” the toilet bowl brush stick.

2. Household bills – who pays for what, who pays utility bills, groceries, children’s school fees, tuition fees, school bus fees, who tops up car fuel, and… the car ends up in the car park and you’ll rather take the public transport to work.

3. Home-cooked meals – You cook, he washes, or he cooks, you wash up, in the end both of you decide to eat out and no dishes will need washing = peace

4. Time after work – each will be looking at your own smartphone, checking out other people’s lives. What was that about seeing each other everyday? Checking out what you wife bought during sale? You’ll rather “like” your ex newly bought Hermes bag.

5. Chilling out – “What??? You’ll be back late? I make the kids sleep 4 nights in a row!” The 5th night will be your turn to “revenge” on your partner.

Oops! I must have made marriage sounds lousy. But reality is reality, you’ll never know until you stay together as a married couple, with responsibilities over your love nest and eggs. Cohabitation will not be a good practice session because simply, it doesn’t have the responsibility in the equation. So, why would anyone get married in the first place? It has to be L.O.V.E. that brings both of you together to want to grow old together. Only a mature and responsible attitude towards your partner will see you through a happy marriage.

Being married to each other = Being married to each other’s family as well. You have to be prepared that your actions and considerations include parents or even extended families. Learning to live with each other is already an uphill task, let alone learning to live or understanding each other’s parents. Just remember, both of you come from different backgrounds with different habits and upbringing. It will take some years to understand and compromise to staying in harmony.

Before you get worried about all these talk on responsibility, ask yourself if you want to grow old by yourself? Can you picture living alone in a nice home but with no one to talk to and just watching tv alone, sleeping alone and walking alone in the park? When you want to find someone to talk to, everyone is busy with their own families and probably can spare you some minutes on the phone or if you are lucky, few hours over coffee, but definitely not everyday. Which gets you more worried? Married with responsibilities? Or loneliness?

When you find that someone you love, you will want to be with him / her forever, nurture your little ones together, have emotional support during life’s ups and downs and grow old together, hand in hand to the park. And I always believe that when both of you go through life’s predicament, and stay by each other steadfastly, this relationship will emerge a tough and loving one. So, before you decide to get married, mentally prepare yourself for the not so lovey-dovey part, face what may come with a positive mindset and handle them responsibly and patiently. Life has its ups and downs and so does your marriage. If you truly love your partner, everything is worth it. Lucky for me, Kel and I still do ALL the “fantasy” part of the marriage I mentioned above. We have our share of the not so lovey-dovey part like the household chores of course. At the end of it all, we still love each other very much to make all the effort worth all the more.

What’s your take on marriage?

Sibling Rivalry – an important phase of growing up

My first 2 kids, XX and YH, are 2 years 2 mths apart. They are of opposite gender, they do almost everything together. They play together, eat together, snack together, sleep together in the same room, bathe together (sometimes), go to same pre-school and next year, same primary school, learn the same instrument (piano), watch the same cartoon, etc. This may sounds like they are the BFF (best friends forever) and you would have thought they are the perfect siblings anyone would love their kids to be. However, the truth is, they are just like any other siblings, they squabble most times too!

Because of their close age gap, they quarrel over almost anything. They fight over who has the bigger cookie, whose cup has the higher juice level (adults would never have noticed such microscopic difference). They fight over who sleeps beside their mummy or even which direction my face turns to while I sleep beside them! They fight for the same toys. You would have thought they play different nature of toys because they are not of the same gender. But apparently YH likes pink, likes Hello Kitty, likes girlish plushies or whatever his sister likes. That irritates XX and there it goes with complaints and squabbles. They fight over who play the piano first, whose turn to give their baby brother biscuit…and on and on they go.

This sibling rivalry can start early in the morning when they are hypersensitive to slight disturbance (or not). They kick up fuss on the slightest increase in decibel when the other kid talks, on the slightest touch on their body even though it may be just touching the hair ends. It got worse in the evening, especially if they miss their afternoon nap during the weekends. These squabbles get on my nerves particularly when I am busy with the baby or just got home from work. On days that I lose my cool, I will shout out from wherever I am, and sometimes, that doesn’t work as my shouts got lost as my voice travels across the house.

I have tried many ways, from shouts, punishment, trying to find out whose fault it is to following parenting advice of bringing myself down to their level, look them in the eye and let them feel I empathize with them. Although some of the ways above may work, I cannot keep up with the speed new squabbles start as soon as the previous one ends.

My takeaways from handling years of sibling rivalries:

1. Leave them to solve the squabbles themselves

No matter how hard you try to listen and be fair, you will never find out who started what. So, it is best to leave them to solve the problems themselves, provided the problem is not a serious one, like attacking the other kid with a sharp object. You can suggest ways to help them work it out themselves. For example, asking how they can resolve the problem, whether taking turns will work, or throwing dice to decide who goes first.

2. Acknowledge their bad feelings

This works quite well as far as I have tried. When your child comes running towards you, stop whatever you are doing, look them in the eye, show him that you are really listening to what he has to say / complain / pour, and tell them “I know you are feeling upset because your sister did not want to share her toy……” By acknowledging how upset he/she is, this would help to end the bad feeling fast and the child would be in a better mood to handle the conflict, or divert to doing something else.

3. Re-visit the squabbles after the incident

I don’t do this frequent, partly because the kids are not interested and the incident was over and they forgot how they felt earlier to want to hear much about it. But for those that warrant high attention like hitting or kicking or attacking as a reaction to solving the conflict, I would need to reiterate my point and discuss ways to prevent such things from happening.

4. Controlling emotions

Sometimes one kid can be so emotionally overwhelmed, he may resort to hurting the other sibling with violent means due to loss of control. This happened a few times with YH, which started as young as when he was only 2 years old. It is not frequent, but at times, he finds it hard to control his anger and can act out really badly. It is important for me and his dad to recognize this as not a case of naughtiness, but a reaction which he cannot control. When this happens, the first thing to do is to hug him tight, really, really tight to calm him down. It works all the time. And then come the part of soothing him, acknowledging his emotions and then letting him know we object to such behaviour and help him learn how to manage his anger.

All in all, I feel XX and YH, at this age, are BFF. They learn more about each other, care for each other and grow up with each other through “fighting” it out. I am sure as they grow up, they will fight less, each living his/her own life as they get busier with school and all. At least, they will look back and laugh at their childishness and reminisce their childhood days spent together be it happily or angrily.

Oh dear! My boy likes pink!

Prior to YH turning 6, he has been liking everything his sister likes. Ranging from the colour pink to Hello Kitty toys to cute girlish plushies. His sister XX pulls a face every time he follows her in choosing something she has chosen, which is usually something girlish.

Since he was a baby, many strangers would mistook him for a girl. The last we heard such comment was when he was already 3 years old! It doesn’t help much that his lips are red and always wet with his saliva. His kisses are wet too. That probably explains the misunderstanding.

At school, YH plays mostly with girls. He says the boys are too violent, which puzzles me because he can be rough too.

While YH insists on wanting the same girly thing as his sister, most times, we let him be. Kel and I are not overly concerned as we believe that such a phase will eventually pass. We do not make fun of him nor discourage his preferences. Pink is just a colour and a sweet colour too. Only social norm defines such colour to belong to girls, and blue to boy. That does not sound quite fair to designate a colour to a gender. Why can’t boy likes pink and girl likes blue?

As for liking Hello Kitty and plushies, who can resist the cute cuddly cat? It’s just a preference.

Now that YH is already 6 years old, he sheds off this preference of pink and Hello Kitty gradually. He likes to play with his favourite mammoth and dinosaurs, and recently, plays transformer toys and chooses an “Iron Man” shirt. He even said to me just 2 weeks ago, that Hello Kitty is for girls! (It was just last year that I bought a Hello Kitty for him!)

It’s interesting to see this change in him and it just goes to show that his earlier girly preference is really a passing phase. He still prefers to play with girls in his pre-school. His teachers even feedbacked that he is a “ladies man”. Apparently, a few of his female classmates have gone to express their love for him! Haha! Yet, he only has his favourite “girlfriend” and it has always been this girl since Nursery 2 (4 years old).

Well, Kel and I are not too worried about this “girlfriend” thingy. It might as well be another passing phase too. Err.. actually I have secretly done a screening of this “girlfriend” of his, she is a mature, caring young lady who passes her hanky to YH when he sweats under the sun. Kel and I wouldn’t mind if one day YH brings back a girlfriend who happens to be by the same name. 😛

Importance of Family Routines from young

8:30am – wake up and wash up

9:00am – breakfast

9:30 – pre-school

6:00 – free play

7:00pm – dinner

8:00pm – free play

9:00pm – practise piano

9:30pm – milk and brush teeth

10:00pm – story time

10:30pm – lights out

The above is the daily school day routine for YH, 6 years old and also for his sis, XX in Primary 2 from dinner time onwards.

Why are routines so important?

Children need to be living predictable structured lives. They will encounter fear if they do not know what is happening next. Implementing routines in the daily lives of little ones enable them to expect what is to come next. They feel secured, knowing what will happen at certain times of the day/night. They can look forward to a certain activity. They can be independent, knowing what to do after dinner, and carry out activities on their own.

Research has shown that families with good family routines have healthier, happy and better behaving children. In fact, they tend to do better in school. Good routines, may sometimes come with some flexibility. For instance, a special night out to visit grandma or a newborn nephew may disrupt the entire evening routine, yet, is seen to be a welcome disruption.

If you have watched the Super Nanny series on television (click on the link for good parenting advice), you would have noticed that one of her favourite ways to “rescue” families with misbehaving kids is to implement routines.

Family routines in our house

1. Mealtime is a family time

We aim to eat together for dinner daily. This is relatively achievable since our children are young and always by our side. At times, daddy is not able to join us due to work commitment, but we’ll definitely eat together on the weekends for most meals. Kel and I place importance in family mealtimes and hope to continue this even when our children get married and hopefully they come home for dinner with us every weekend.

2. Bedtime story-telling

My kids are young and they enjoy the nightly bedtime story-telling. One day, they are going to grow up into teens and may find bedtime story-telling childish. I am trying to prolong this as much as possible. I love reading to them. As long as they still want to hear me enact the stories in the books, I will do so happily. My hope is that they will take this enjoyment with them as fond memories when they grow up and do the same for their children.

3. Groceries shopping

I love groceries shopping. On most weekend evenings, we push the baby’s stroller with the baby inside, with his elder siblings running along or scooting along to the neighbourhood supermarket. I love to see the kids talking and laughing and running up grass slopes along the way. I love to see the baby with arms out-stretched and laughing along. When we reach the supermarket, the kids enjoy weighing the greens and putting milk cartons into the trolley. After Kel’s wonderful skills of packing a full load into the “car” (you guess it right! It’s the good old stroller), I carry the baby in the Baby Bjorn carrier and we walk back home. These happy moments will definitely go to the fond memory bank too, that is, when our kids grow up.

4. Weekend family outings

My kids have only one enrichment class to go for the entire week, i.e Yamaha Junior Course on every Saturday morning. We find one enrichment class a perfect commitment that is manageable for them and for us, parents. Because we no need to ferry them from one class to the other (at least for now), we are able to schedule swimming, outdoor playgrounds, visit to the museums and enjoy a day with wonderful family bonding time. When our kids grow up, such outings may get lesser but till then, we shall enjoy while it lasts.

5. Weekly dinner at Grandpa’s

This weekly dinner at my in-laws place started way way back to the times kel and I were in courtship. Now that we have 3 kids, we still make an effort to free up Sunday nights to go to their house for dinner. They always cook sumptuous dishes no matter how tired they may be. Such family gatherings are important to us and important for our kids to bond with their grandparents. Again, we hope that they will continue this tradition when Kel and I grow old.

Do you have family routines too?

A little me-time for myself

I have always known that self-care is very important. But such is the way of life: the more you think you know it, the more you put it at the back of your mind. You find yourself running on empty fuel, and still stepping on the accelerator, bite your lips and continue on. Before you know it, parts break down, with the risk of running into accidents. As mothers, It’s a natural instinct that we put our children and family first and ourselves last. Even thinking about some possible me-time, we feel guilty. We have no time to sleep nor go to the toilet, all our waking moments, we think about our children, so what me-time are you talking about?

How to be a happy mum

I borrowed a great book from the library recently, it is “How to be a happy mum” by Siobhan Freegard. One of the chapters is “What About Me?” Reading it tunes in so adeptly with me. In fact, I should have seen all the warning signs coming:

Anxious

Edgy

Snappy

Tired

Exhausted

Stressed

Unfulfilled

Discontent

Resentful

You could be finding the above mentioned emotions rise up from within, and you push them away and continue to engage in more activities to get on top of things. You could be feeling that there’s no end to what goes on, snap at your children and feel guilty, at the end of it all, feel more tired and resentful. If this is what is happening right now, please hit the “STOP” button in you and seriously acknowledge that your plate is totally full and spilling out. You have to start putting yourself in FIRST priority. Just like in an airplane, adults should put on their oxygen mask before putting on for their children, we have to take care of our well-being before we can take good care of our children.

One of the quotes from the book:

“Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean you stop loving your children, or that you are a bad wife or mother. In fact, it will make you an even better one.”

Once your own well-being is being taken good care of, you will have more energy, more laughter and more joy to share with your children. Once you value yourself, your daughter will learn that one day when she becomes a mum, she will role-model after you and be better equipped to look after herself and her future family. Your son will have greater respect for and realistic expectations of his future partner. So, taking good care of yourself has its valuable effect on your kids!

How shall we start with having some me-time, now that we have forgotten how to think for ourselves? Think of what you do will make you breathe easier and have some calmness within you. Below are what I do for myself:

1. Exercise

One early morning after my baby’s feed, and he went back to sleep, I decided I shall not busy myself with house chores yet again on this particular lovely morning. House chores will never finish no matter how much time I invest in it. But feeling good is definitely worth investing time in. Hence, I put on my jogging gear and without pausing for a moment for fear I will back out again, I close the door behind me and jog all the way to the park. I love to exercise as I know it will clear my mind, and have me sort out my thoughts while I sweat it out. I just didn’t find the time for it! True enough, the morning ionized air energized me greatly and I felt the world is full of hope and everything to me seems beautiful. For the entire day, I did not feel as tired and the morning workout was enough to see me through the day without much snapping.

2. Reading in peace

I find solace in reading. I love to read magazines and a good book. Nowadays, I only have time for parenting books. It empowers me with knowledge and parenting tips that I find myself forgetting now and then. Perhaps, reading parenting books still have to do with well, parenting, it takes away some guilt while I indulge in this little me-time. Reading can only take place before the kids wake up or after they fall asleep.

3. Go out with friends

I look forward to all outings with my best friend. Sadly, we only manage to make time for this only twice a year. It’s something I need to work out with her so that both of us feel great with this me-time. An afternoon chat over a good meal and shopping revitalizes women magically. Even though we talk about kids too, we always take away good tips from each other and even solving each other’s problems. Most importantly, I need some good friends’ interaction other than just interacting with my kids.

4. Go out with your hubby

I look forward to this too as a revitalizing date with my hubby, kel. I can’t stress more about the importance of going on regular dates with your partner. Having a great relationship has a positive multiplier effect on the family. Kids strive in loving family environment and all the good behaviour, good grades, healthy kids come from families with parents who love each other very much.

5. Pamper yourself with a spa or going to the hairdresser

Going to the spa or to the hairdresser sounds such a luxury and to busy mums, a time-waster. I find doing my hair or simply having a hair cut, is so difficult to squeeze any time for, and not to mention going to a 2 hour spa. Kel has encouraged me to go for such luxury simply because he feels I need them and would feel good after that. With his encouragement, I would try to plan some time to go for it. Actually this is like a bi-monthly thing, or even a quarterly thing. So I really shouldn’t feel guilty spending that 2 or 3 hours once every few months.

6. Spend 10 min a day doing something you like

10 minutes sounds simple and achievable. However, it can easily be put off till mid-morning, till afternoon, and before you know, your energy level is left with 1% and you just want to hit the sack. Just like what you would draft out your kids’ time-table, put it in a time-slot that you know you have the least disruption. And make sure you stick to it just like you want your kids to stick to their time-table. You can use these 10 minutes to catch up on the day’s news, a chapter of a novel, to blog 2 paragraphs of an up-coming post, to buff your nails, put on a mask, drink a cup of good coffee, or a glass of wine while thinking of nothing, etc, etc… Start now, and remember, it’s just 10 minutes of the 24x60min in a day, which equates to just 0.7% of a day!

The challenge comes in doing all these regularly so that it is part of your home schedule. For me, it will be challenging to make time for myself during my work days. So, this will not be just a weekend thing, but an on-going time-table that I have to adhere to.

Wish me luck, I’ll be updating again on whether I can do what I preached!

You may like to read one of my earlier post that I almost forgot about: “Why it is important to be YOURSELF in front of your kids“.

Re-reading it allows me to re-look at the important things that I have forgotten after I have my 3rd baby, and thus, pushes me to indulge in me-time now.

Do you have me-time? How do you find time for me-time? Share with me!