Weblog of Wang, a homemaker

Whenever we eat out, I always have a zipped-pouch containing a stack of worksheetsr,some crayons, eraser in my tote.

When we are busy ordering food,waiting for the food to be served, or when my daughter has finished her meals but we have not,these worksheets will keep her occupied and seated.

A search of say,free worksheets on the internet will have lots of links to web sites for worksheets. This is cheaper and more convinient than buying activity/assessment books.

We started with something mind-stimulating yet fun like mazes,dot-to-dots,coloring,number and shapes patterns.

At  4 years old now, my daughter has progressed into criss-cross puzzles,spot the difference,spatial skills,secret codes,simple reading comprehension, phonics,additions,count by 2s/5s/10s. My source of free worksheets suitable for her age and competence level has almost exhausted.

 

 

A friend brought her six-year-old to the "Development Assessemnt Unit" of a hospital for assessment. The Senior Consultant concluded that the boy is a slow learner and advised the mum to defer his Primary 1 registration by a year.

The mother panicked after hearing that. Though she knows her son has a bit of learning difficulties, but never expected it to be so serious. To defer a year, has a lot of implications for the poor boy.

I strongly advised her to seek second opinion. Personally, I feel that the consultant is not being fair to give such advice after only one session with the mother and kid.

Forget about "Senior Consultant". I  came across a VERY Senior Consultant who told me "Even if I explained to you, you wouldn't understand", when I asked her about my blood test result.

My GP could at least tell me," Normal white blood cell is ?, yours is ?, higher than normal, but not to be overly worried. For this particular test, Normal people has positive result, but yours shows negative, indicating some problems, that require specialist examination." 

Yet the Senior Consultant, who is also the Head of Department gave me that kind of answer.

 I found the young doctors at those 24 hr clinic, a lot more attentive than the older, more experienced ones. And they really took the time to explain to the patients the illness, symptoms,treatments etc. Some even give copies of extracts from their medical books for our information.

 

 

 

 

I used to think that parents who sent their children to many enrichement clasese such as piano,ballet,speech and drama, art and crafts.... this list goes on, are typical "kiasu" parents.

I change my view nowadays, after obeserving my daughter, and notice that she enjoys theses classes very much. She thinks it's fun, keep her occupied and she loves the company of the young friends in her class. The only class she dislikes is a Chinese Speech and Drama class. We let her took two trial classes, she didn't like it so we didn't sign her up.

A mother of my daughter's friend commended  sarcastically that my girl is a 'busy' kid. I have learnt to ignore this kind of remark. As her mother, I should know her better than anyone else, at least for now. She is a sociable girl who enjoy talking to anybody, even strangers in restaurants, at playground. At home, she constantly asked "Mummy, what can I do now?" She always wanted to occupy herself with some activities.

So, the most important thing is whether the child enjoy the class. If he/she doesn't like it, don't force him/her.

There are many language classes boasting about "knowing" thousands of words within a short period. Is it really necessary to "squeeze" so much words into the tiny brains? Why the hurry? There are still many years ahead of them, they could pick up the words progressively, isn't it?

 

 

 

It's been 4 years since I quit my job as a Finance  Manager to take care of my daughter.

Many people couldn't believe when I resigned, they all thought I'd lied to my boss. To them, I am a typical career woman, they could not imagine I would quit my job to bring up my child.

The decisison wasn't too hard. Being the only child from single-parent family, I got to see my mum only about once a week, therefore, my relationship with her was never close. I definitely wouldn't want my relationship with my own daughter to be like that!

The thought of leaving my daughter with a foreign domestic helper, even leaving her with my conservative,supertitious, dominating and not every hygenic mum-in-law also freightened me.

I wanted my child to be brought up with the right value, happy,well-mannered, sociable, have interest in learnng, and most importantly, to have mother always there for her.

It also helped that I have non-family friendly bosses at work, to affirm my decision to quit my job.

Financially, I am lucky that my husband earn enough for us to live on only one income, And he volunteerily agreed to give me some pocket money, in addition to paying for the household expenses. (Though, there were some strains in the later years, but that's another story.)

That's much better than when I was working, I didn't get a single cent of allowance from husband for household expenses despite him earning at least 2 times more than me.