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Do Our Kids Really Need Tuition?

Do our kids really need tuition? If you ask me, I would say maybe out of 10 kids, at least 5 may not need it at all. And then we have the other 5 who may really need it due to perhaps, a disengaging school teacher who kills all the passion in the subject, the child’s slow learning pace, lack of motivation and more reasons. So for the 5 who may not need, what is the compelling reason to take extra classes at all? Are our school teachers so incapable of teaching a child such that he or she does not understand the subject well? Is it that we want our kids to be able to answer every single question, problem sum, leaving practically nothing to be wrong?

When our first child was born, certainly the thought that we have to set aside funds for extra tuition classes never ever crossed our minds! However, we did secretly hope that we need not spend money for extra lessons. We wished that our children can perform well in school. We know how tuition classes are like from friends and media. And we do not want our children to spend their after school or weekend hours to sit in a class again to understand the same topics. Maybe it is just that we are selfish, we do not wish to ferry them back and forth classes. We certainly would be happy if we can save the money and time on tuition and better allocate them to playgrounds, building sandcastles, picnics, nature or even one or two expensive toys. If you have followed my PSLE series post, you would have known that Missy belonged to the average student and now that she has completed primary school days, my verdict is that I am glad I did not send her for tuition.

Many have asked me how we can go the No Tuition route. The answer is really very simple. Lower our expectations of our children. If you really want me to say the true answer, then it will be:

Have NO Expectations of our child

But how many people can do that? Don’t we all wish for our children to be top 3 in class? For some, getting our children to be top students may be fulfilling what we could not achieve when we were students ourselves. Maybe the real question to ask ourselves is: Why do we want our children to be top students? Can we accept Bs and Cs and why not?

With the pursuit of academic excellence, there are bound to have some opportunity costs. I think these are heavy costs.

Doing well by own efforts

We take away the chance to do well academically by our children’s own efforts. By enrolling tuition from as young as kinder or lower primary, we have never given our children a chance to prove to themselves that they can do it without additional help.

You are no good

We are telling our children that your results are no good, and that is why we are sending you for extra help so that you can improve. If your child is good enough, it is good enough, why do we want them to get the extra marks or even pursue for perfect score, not tolerating even one or two marks loss? What is life all about? Being perfect and always on the top 1% no matter where you go?

Nothing else matters except Ace

Our message to our children is: Academic comes first and anything non-academic or non-competitive do not matter. Is this the right message that we want the children to receive? Childhood life is just that: Ace Ace and more Ace?

No chance to fail

We deprive the children of a chance to fail. They grow up in a world of excellence and In their dictionary, it is missing the words “FAILURE” and “RESILIENT“. We should worry for the day when we no longer can help them achieve excellence and should they fall down, they cannot stand up on their own.

As parents, we all want the best for our child. Apart from basic morals and values, I find that having no expectations on our child is perhaps the best present that we can give them. When we do not expect anything, we allow the child to develop on their own, take charge of their own learning, take responsibility for consequences. By not expecting anything, does not mean that we are totally hands-free and let the child swim on his own. In fact, we can give help, guidance, and if really beneficial, send the child to tuition because the child needs it and not because WE want it. We can give moral support, and all kinds of help but let’s not expect anything in return. Our job is to do what we can to arm the child with the right tools so that he can walk on his own, grow on his own, not dictating which path he must take.

I am all for parents who send their children for tuition because they see the need to do so to help the child. But I wish that this post can remind parents whose children who are already doing well academically, that there are many other things in life that matter more. Some children mature slower, and a less than average results may not determine the child’s future. Some mature in Secondary School or later part in life. Children who are already doing well, let them have the time to play. Children who are doing average, it may just be a time issue. When the time is right, they will do well eventually. It may not be doing well academically, but it may be other non-academic talents that we should nurture instead of focusing on what they are no good in. What for focus on something that you are no good in and struggle to better it in unhappiness than to focus on something that you are good in and better it in happiness?

There is no intention of stating what is right and wrong in the decision for tuition in this post. As parents, we are the best persons to determine if our child needs that extra help in academic. However, before we sign up for that expensive tuition class, we may want to revisit the opportunity costs that I mention above and if this is really necessary or we are just afraid that our kids will fail our expectations.

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This post is the first post of the No Tuition series that I am starting to work on. I will be sharing how we go about our journey on No Tuition and the revisions that we did at home to help our child in the next few posts. My objective is really to hope more parents will focus on a happy childhood instead of feeding the billion dollar tuition industry.

Train the kids to handle failure? Let them be raised by the Dad

A few weeks back, I attended a parenting talk by David Seah, Family Life Educator and Counsellor, engaged by my kids’ school for parents. The topic was on IQ, EQ and AQ. I really took away some very interesting points that made me think hard about our parenting style at home. He said,”If you want your kids to have adversity quotient (the ability to deal with failures), let them be raised by the father.”

Before you go all out to protest against this seemingly racist statement like how we mothers felt at the talk initially, you must give a chance for the humorous speaker to make his stand.

1) Mothers are protective by nature

Have you seen mothers throw up babies in the air for fun? Usually the image of fathers doing it will surface when you think of it. In fact, we mothers are good in churning out academics due to the fact that we are competitive by nature. Think of how we react to exam results vs the fathers. Once the child comes back with less than 100 marks, mothers’ first reaction is probably to furiously flip through the pages and scrutinize those questions with marks deductions and then do a fast calculation and conclude that without such CARELESS MISTAKES, the child could have gotten so and so marks. So well-observed and that’s ahem saying about me too…

When our child runs or cycles or moves at fast speed, or any actions that risk falling on the pavement, we are the ones who shouted instructions from behind like “Watch out for the pillar!”, “Beware of that little dog’s tail in front!” Fathers are rarely the ones who shouted warnings or maybe they do, under their breath. But you get it, the Fathers are usually the cool ones. They are less inclined to fret over small injuries. Similarly, kids’ cry harder when they see Mothers rushing to their aid than when they see Fathers strolling towards them.

2) Fathers are natural risk-takers

Get Dad to be involved more if you wish to instill some toughness and the ability to handle adversity in your child.

I guess this is hard for mothers like me to teach adversity toughness. When I saw how my son at the age of 1.5yo, my hubby allowed him to walk up and down the overhead bridge by himself with him being an arm’s length away, I almost freaked out but decided to cross my finger and watched in fear. I trust my hubby to be taking controlled and supervised risk but I definitely would not risk it myself. I am often been chastised for doing too much for the kids. Hence, I certainly agree that with the Dad around, Continue reading “Train the kids to handle failure? Let them be raised by the Dad”

5 Reasons Why My Kids Do Not Have Tuition

I know this topic on tuition is going to have 2 camps on it. Hence I need to put a disclaimer that this is not a post to say having tuition is a bad thing but what I feel how a child’s precious life should be. If needed, I may send my kids to tuition, but, it must meet some consideration criteria before I will do that. I will address my take on this later.

My eldest, Missy 10 is in P4 and No. 2, Master 8 in P2 and No. 3, Master 3 going to pre-school soon. From birth till now, all 3 of them have not had any enrichment classes and I hope to keep it this way for as long as it is possible.

There are many parents who send their children for tuition or enrichment classes at a tender age. There is no right or wrong. These parents usually want their children to have a head start in life and be high achievers in their adult life. It may be for the reason of learning things ahead of other peers. It may be due to some children need tuition for extra academic assistance or just want to be ahead in the syllabus than others. And it could be due to the reason that some parents do not want to leave to chance and cannot imagine failure to happen to their children.

For me, I feel that a child’s life, which I am defining here as the category of zero to 16 age of life, is too precious to spend too many waking hours on academic stuff. Formal education can last for about 16 years from P1 to University. Some spent 20 years of their life in academic. Our Missy 10 spends about 6 academic hours in school + 2 hours of extra academic classes which totals to 8 hours on studying, and I have not added the time she spends on homework and assessment. If a child goes for tuition after school, that would mean spending another 2 more hours, not inclusive of the school homework and tuition homework that a child will need to do when he / she gets home. Oh, and the travelling time. Nowadays academic pressure is everywhere and our poor children are subjected to all these stresses at a tender age. They should be enjoying their rightful childhood, doing simple things like play. I wonder how these children will look back in life with not much memories of being a child except going for tuition and studying.

5 reasons that I am putting off tuition for as long as possible.

Continue reading “5 Reasons Why My Kids Do Not Have Tuition”