Happy New Year 2024!

 Hi everyone!  I have officially abandoned this blog for over 3 years.  I am not sure what are the plans for the future, but at the point of time, there are no plans to continue writing.

Been very busy with life, busy with my daughter, busy with her ongoing classes.

But I just want to share something to anyone who happens to read this today.

My daughter is now 7 going to 8 years old.  There are certain things I wished I have done a bit differently.

1. I wish I have gotten her a sibling.  If you read this blog, you would know I have struggled to conceive.  It took me 2 years to conceive my daughter after a miscarriage and by the time I gave birth, I was 37 years old, considered old.  But I should have immediately tried for another child, but I didn't because I was quite traumatized by the whole birth experience.  I had natural birth, but my cervix didn't opened.  So I struggled for 36 hours before my daughter came out.  I was induced, took epidural and she was vacuumed out.  I had hemorrhage and loss quite a lot of blood.   My husband is also not very helpful and financially we are very tight.  In the end, I told myself, let's just have 1 child and be happy with it.  But now as she is growing older, I can see she can be quite a loner.  She is not short of friends, she has cousins to play with almost on a daily basis, she has very good friends in school, dance class and at our meditation centre.  
2. I wish I have left my job earlier and jumped to another job when I could.  But thinking back, I trusted my current company a bit too much, feeling very comfortable here, enjoyed the company of my colleagues.  But there is nothing new for me to learn now and no chance of promotion.  I tried to get a new job since the start of the pandemic and seriously applied for more than 10 jobs last year, but either not shortlisted or failed at interviews.  So bear in mind, being younger you can do a lot more.  
3. I wish I haven't rented out my condo.  My tenant refused to leave because he is so comfortable there.  No doubt the rent are paid promptly and he fixes the condo and deduct from rental, however, I wish we have a place called our own.  Where we can live our own lives without being determined by others how to live.  

Now, I cannot change all that has happened in the past.  But I do wish I have plan more ahead and made better decisions.  However, not all is lost.

1. Despite my daughter being the only child, she is not spoilt.  We live with my parents and since I am a full-time working mom, they helped to babysit and transport to school.  In terms of mobilisation, it's very convenient.  Everything is nearby and easy.  And because she is sometimes alone, she explores her own talent in a way that I have never imagined or thought of.  I will elaborate on that later.
2. Although I didn't and couldn't leave my current job, I am secured here despite the low pay.  Company has never done any lay-off and kept all staff since the pandemic.  Very grateful for that.  I do wish can earn a bit more for the comfort of my child.
3. Because I have rented out my condo, I am getting additional income (though it's not that much compared to the home loan I am paying).  But it helps to reduce my burden.  Also my condo is in a place, where traffic jam is massive, so staying with my parents helped, especially for No.1.

Now, let me elaborate more on what my daughter has been exploring, her own capacity and talent without me knowing.

As parent, we only want the best for our children.  Some parents will sign up their children for all kinds of classes.  Some parents, like me, will choose only selected ones.  Also because financially tight, we can't afford every classes.

Since I have piano background until Grade 8, I can teach her piano if I wanted to.  However, she hasn't shown any interest, despite asking me to teach her but I haven't seen her automatically playing on the piano (we have one piano sitting at home, untouched).  So no piano classes for her.

From the age of 3, she has shown great interest in dance.  When we were in India for a retreat back when she was 3 and before the pandemic, someone was playing some music from the phone and all of a sudden, my little 3 year old started dancing in front of everyone else.  Not coaxed and not forced.  Just spontaneously and confidently.  She has not taken any lessons prior and I was caught by surprise how she explored her talent.  Since then I have signed her up for dance classes and she has stuck on to that class until now.  I have noticed that the dance class has helped her to gain confidence and faith in herself.

When she was about 5, we found that she sometimes stutter when she talks.  As if cannot decide what to say, and cannot get the words out of her.  Because of that, I signed her up for public speaking in hope to help her boost her confidence in talking.  We signed up for only 2 levels and sure enough, she became better.  However, we stopped the classes after that because it was online class, and I found that she was sometimes not doing what the teacher told to do and teacher doesn't realised.  But the classes were so good that my daughter signed herself up for public speaking competition in her school when she was in Standard 1.

To date, she has only 1 class that is permanent that is her dance class.  And one day, all of a sudden, she said she has inspiration to make some handicrafts and started making busy book.  And she has been promoting her busy book to her friends and received few 'orders' which my daughter is only charging them for love and not money.

One day, I saw how the inspiration at work and what happens when the inspiration comes.  It's so amazing.  I bought a black passport sling bag.  It's absolutely black and I felt it's too manly.  So I told her to please draw something not too childish.  The bag is quite cheap so I am willing to sacrifice in case she made a big boo-boo to it.  

I was in the bathroom when she suddenly asked me, "Mama, can I draw a tree on your bag?"  I gave her the green light and told her to draw whatever she wants as long as it is not childish.

When I came out of the bathroom, to my surprise, she drew a beautiful tree on my black bag.  Then I gave some suggestions to fill in the blanks and suddenly I see the light on top of her head and she started at work and my bag turned out so pretty and colorful.  I was so proud of it and showed it to few art teachers and they praised her.

I have never sent her for any art classes.  But she learned it herself.  Sometimes she would put on the YouTube on our Smart TV and started exploring on how to make some things.  I mean for a 7 year old, it's very surprising.

I have been lamenting about how our Malaysian education is destroying our generation of children.  And so many parents has opted for private or international school with the hope that they teach something extra that Malaysian school can't, like leadership and financial literacy.

But I am told, that at Standard 1 now in her school, they have been grouped in the class.  Each group are to discuss and present their homework to the whole class.  Sometimes they are to sing together in a group.  They have to work together as a group.  I was surprise with this and I can see it has helped to build leadership in her.  

We were initially struggling with her Mandarin.  Because her Mandarin was very poor, it affected all other subjects (since English and Malay are also taught in Mandarin).  I disagreed with this teaching method, but what can I do.  So instead of complaining, I signed my daughter up to a mandarin enhancement class, which helped her to expand her language vocabulary and now she is not shy to speak to teacher.  

The school also found out that my daughter is taking dance classes and asked her to perform at one of the function, on stage, in front of the whole school.  I am very pleased and grateful that the teacher recognised her potential and gave her the chance to shine.

So, I am not complaining about the Malaysian education system anymore.  I feel there is room for improvement, but they are doing what they can.  Some parents complained no more exams, so cannot determine whether the child is growing academically.  I was also like that.  But now, I feel it's also good they are building characters of the children in school, teaching them academically and also leadership and responsibility.  And I heard that SJKC and SJKT are giving their own students competitions and projects to explore their capabilities.  I am not sure about SK though.  

Disclaimer:  I am commenting on SJKC only and have no knowledge in the current SK style and pattern.

One thing that I do and always keep control is her screen time.  I got her a tablet since pandemic when she needed one for online classes and I gave her my old Huawei phone for communication purposes only.  I put controls via Family Link on screen time.  I do not allow YouTube or Facebook or TikTok in those gadgets.  She is allowed to download only games suitable for her age.  Because she doesn't has the addiction to the gadgets, she doesn't throw tantrum when screen time is up.  

Lately, I myself got hooked and addicted to shorts (short videos) on Facebook especially.  I kept scrolling those videos until I didn't realised that hours has passed.  In the end, I wasted so much time and didn't do anything productive or learn anything from those videos.  Instead I was so exhausted and I found that I cannot tolerate movies that are 1.5 hours long.  I cannot tolerate long videos.  My attention span are short and need constant stimulation that I cannot focus to finish 1 thing at a time.  I kept jumping doing this and that and just like my scrolling habits, just little bit here and there.  Some of the videos are stupid and yet I watched them before scrolling.  I find it is not educational at all and I am now trying to break that addiction.  

Can you imagine this happening to children?  I have seen babies with phones in front of them.  Watching videos non-stop.  

IMHO, playing games on phone is healthier than just scrolling short videos.  At least games helps to stimulate the brain to think.  Scrolling doesn't.  I also feel I am stupider nowadays, cannot write properly, cannot think properly.  Very short tempered too.  

So, please if possible, don't let your children get addicted to gadgets.  Yes they are very good babysitters, but think of long term effect and poor posture.  We saw a boy and he has his head at 90 degree while playing a game on his phone.  Such bad posture and I don't know what will happen to him in the future.

In fact, if you use the gadgets properly, children can learned very quickly.  Like for my Huawei phone, I downloaded WhatsApp for her to get some homework information when I am at work.  So I can send to her when I receive from the parents group.  In the same phone, I have downloaded a dictionary and translator for her.  Every time she doesn't know a Chinese character, she will write it on the translator and she will get a meaning in English.  This has helped her to learn and complete her homework efficiently.  I bought the cheaper Samsung Tablet that comes with a S-pen for her.  The memory of the tablet is very small, hence it's cheap.  Because it comes with S-pen, she learned how to draw and color with it.  Perhaps this is the one that has helped her with her art talent.  Now, she is trying digital art on her own.

For her mandarin enhancement class, she is required to record herself reading sentences in Mandarin (without pinyin) in order to see if she recognises the characters and to check her intonation and pronunciation.  So the phone helped her to record and she will send it to me via WhatsApp and I will then forward to her teacher for checking.  

So, here's a tip.  Gadgets are fine, just control screen time.  Games are fine, but no violent games.  Find games that are educational, like word games, strategy games, even simple children games like Tom and Angela is fun for them to keep an online pet.  Don't allow YouTube videos (especially adult YouTube) as the censorship is very poor.  Some content creators created cutesy and animated videos but the content is violent and sexual.  YouTube kids are ok, but some are not educational, example toy reviews.  Some YouTube Kids videos are on handicraft and learning songs, nursery rhymes, those are good.  But some cartoons are not educational instead can cause more harm.  Facebook are also not child-friendly and TikTok as well.  I have chanced upon lewd videos many times while scrolling.

Always be very active and involved to what your children are doing.  Don't let them reach the point of addiction because breaking an addition is super hard.  I am trying it for myself now.  Need very strong discipline and self-determination.

Happy New Year to all!  Hope my tips helped you too.  Not sure when I will write again, till then!