Womze - Cross Cultural Parenting

After a more-than-six-month hiatus from Karate, I’m trying to get Darling Angel back on track.  Unfortunately, the school she used to go to is no longer as logistically convenient as it used to be.  When it was across the street from the daycare I used to pick Darling Angel up from after work, going there was a no-brainer.  Now, it would require some commitment.

Fortunately, there’s another school that lies somewhere along the path between Darling Angel’s school and home.  That’s convenient, I thought.  I love convenient.  And after several months of thinking that thought, I eventually stopped over last week.  (It’s been extremely cold for most of those several months)

We got a tour of the facility.  Fine.  Then we got to the fees.  Ouch!

It wasn’t terribly more expensive, but they don’t let you pay for one day per week.  You have to pay for the full 3 days per week and come as often as you wish.  We used to pay for one day per week at the previous school.

“You can’t get good at anything you only practice one day a week”, said the owner.  I know that, but I am kind of okay with just being ’so so’ at karate.  My main goal is to get the side benefits (confidence etc) with proficiency in the art as an add-on.  I know…I’ve got it in reverse, but I’m fine with that.

I also started to think of the other activities we need to fit in somewhere.  We need to get on top of swimming.  Room for homework must not be compromised.  “Three days a week?” I asked the instructor.  “I’m not sure we’re ready for that level of commitment.” 

“Then perhaps this is not for you”,  he responded.

Perhaps he’s right.

But I put in a little bit of effort.  And suggested my daughter try out a class.  Then I learned one more thing that makes me hesitate.  Parents are not allowed to watch!

I left with my doubts.  So I talked to a colleague who’s son is a black-belter and she’s had experience with a number of karate schools.  She told me it wasn’t uncommon for parents not to be allowed in the room, but should be allowed to watch through a window.  She told me she always watched when her son was that young.  Darling Angel is six years old.  I can’t depend 100% on her judgement of the class.  I need to be able to make an independent judgement.

When we turn up for the trial class, I tell the owner that I intend to watch.  “No!”  “That’s my rule.  No!”  Then, “What part of NO don’t you understand?”  I wonder if being a former national champion explains the arrogance.

Darling Angel has taken the trial class.  But I am none the wiser.  Of course, she didn’t think the class was great as she was probably the least competent in class.  I tell her that it takes time to come up to speed and we should try it for a month to see if she likes it more.  She agrees, but I still wonder if this is the right school for her.  I don’t think so.

Darling Angel is not a karate person.  It’s something her dad and I are foistering on her to roughen her soft edges just a little.  So I don’t think she needs it multiple times a week.  I doubt if martial art competence is something she would desire.  When she does, commiting to a serious class schedule makes sense.  And I remain completely uncomfortable with the idea of not being able to watch her in class.  The fact that it is absolutely ruled out just makes me uncomfortable.

I think it’s time to reconsider the less logistically convenient option.

Last weekend, I took the kids to watch Nick Jr Storytime show.  There were four shows, Ni Hao Kailan, Backyardigans, Wonder Pets and Dora the Explorer - all moderated by Moose A. Moose.

I could barely wait for the show because I couldn’t wait to see Baby Brother’s excitement when the Backyardigans came on stage.  Whenever the show comes on the TV, he never fails to jump up and stump around in a frenzy along with their music.  I had prepared myself to spend some energy restraining him when he sees his favorite characters.

Reality was a little bit different.  He watched the characters with studious concentration.  Every now and then, he would point out to me who they were (in case I didn’t get it).  “That’s Tasha.”  “That’s Uniqua.”  He was pretty calm.  But obviously enjoying himself.

On our way home, he told me, “Dora and Boots, awetsome!”  It was cute how he said.  And made me feel that every penny spent watching the show was worth it.

What I did not anticipate was the continuing effects of the show.  Since the show, Baby Brother has been initiating a lot of role playing with his big sister.  And not just with characters that were in the show.  He would tell her, “I’ll be Boots, you be Dora”, “I’ll be Tigger, you be Pooh”, “I’ll be Hoho, you be Ni hao”.

I started to wonder what about the show sparked this new-found interest in role-playing.  He has been to watch Stellaluna and he’s also watched Disney-on-ice Let’s celebrate.  Neither of the previous shows encouraged him to role play the way he’s doing now.

After giving it some thought, my theory is as follows:

• Stellaluna was not a familiar character at the time he watched it.  He just accepted what he saw on stage.
• Disney-on-ice characters were extremely realistic.  Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse looked the same as they do on TV.  Baby Brother was extremely excited at the time to see beloved TV characters.
• Nick Jr Storytime characters were less realistic.  They were obviously people in costumes.  In the case of Wonder Pets, they were people operating puppets.  Darling Angel complained to me at length when we got home that all the characters sounded different than they do on TV, and they were just wearing costumes, and some character had a girls voice instead of a boy’s voice etc etc.  (She insisted she enjoyed the show despite these observations).

Before buying tickets for the show, I had read a few reviews online.  The majority were positive but a few people complained about some of the costumes not being realistic enough.  Apparently, this is not a negative, but an opportunity to teach the kids what ‘role-playing’ means.  It helps them break the assumption that these characters climbed out of the TV screen to spend an evening on stage entertaining them.  And that is a great thing.

 According to this paper by Doris Bergen, high quality role play or pretend play in children is linked cognitive development, social and linguistic competence and academic skill development.  The paper concluded,

In sum, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the many connections between cognitive competence and high-quality pretend play. If children lack opportunities to experience such play, their long-term capacities related to metacognition, problem solving, and social cognition, as well as to academic areas such as literacy, mathematics, and science, may be diminished. These complex and multidimensional skills involving many areas of the brain are most likely to thrive in an atmosphere rich in high-quality pretend play.

If you need one more justification to take your kids to watch live theater, think about that.

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know, it’s already March and I’m just writing my first post of 2010.  There’s been a hundred and one things I’ve wanted to write about, but I just didn’t get around to writing.  Nor did I get around to doing a lot of other things I should have been doing.  Which caused me to tell myself that I should not even think about posting to the blog while my closet remained disorganized, outgrown clothes needed to be cleaned out from my children’s wardrobes and donated to charity, some art work on canvas I had bought (I’m shamed to confess, 4 years ago) remained unframed…and the list goes on.  Other moms who regularly post to their blogs have a better handle on their lives, I’ve concluded.  And until I get that handle on mine, don’t even try to be like them.

So I slept instead.  And the more I slept, the more tired I felt.  Absolutely no motivation to do anything.  “Swim classes, no way”,  I told my daughter.  “I’m not punishing myself this year.  Rushing out early on a frigid Saturday morning to get to swim class.  We’ll wait till Spring.”  Somehow, I’ve cut out all activities.  But yet, I can’t find the time to complete the tasks those activities took me away from.  Sleep has taken over my free time.  So what’s the point?

But now I think I realize my error.  Denying myself the outlet to blog is also draining my energy.  It’s totally counter-intuitive, but it’s what my experience speaks.  If I wasn’t writing this post at this minute, I would have sucumbed to tiredness instead.  But as I write, I feel no tiredness.  I feel awake.  I feel ready to take on an activity as soon as I’m done with this post.  Perhaps I’ll start with my bathroom closet.

I know Thanksgiving was last week and Cyber Monday is almost over.  But everyday is Thanksgiving, so Happy Thanksgiving to you.  I have so many things to be thankful for, but here is a very limited list - based on what I’ve got in my head at the moment, as opposed to deep, thoughtful introspection.

1. Two healthy and smart kids
2. Hubby and I in good health
3. And good jobs in a bad economy
4. Economy getting better
5. Improving finances and credit card elimination
6. My older daughter accepted into first grade, skipping kindergarten
7. Plus an excellent teacher and adjusting well to her new school (dispelling any concerns about being ‘pushed ahead’)
8. Our neighbor’s home daycare and her enthusiam for kids
9. Neighborly neighbors (it’s impressive when your neighbor rings your doorbell to give you a bag of his home-grown tomatoes)
10. Sitting for an exam that had intimated me and that I’ve found excuses to postpone for the past 2 years (and passing on my first try)

Now it’s time to prepare for Christmas…and a 6 year old birthday before then.

“I think Baby Brother will be a clown when he grows up.”  “No no no…I think he will be a jester.  A jester is funnier than a clown.”  Darling Angel is trying to predict what her brother will be.

Hubby and I quickly counter.  “No no no.  My son will be an engineer”, his dad said.

“But I think he will be a jester”, the girl insisted.  This argument goes on for days, repeated itself ocassionally over the weeks and eventually petered out.  Darling Angel finally accepts that it is unacceptable for her brother to be a jester (or a clown) when grows up.

I did understand her motivation behind the claim.  Baby Brother is a funny dude.  He likes to make people laugh.  As soon as he learned to walk, he would practice several types of funny walks, on bended knees, with stiff legs, just to get a giggle out of someone.  He likes to make faces.  And I’m sure that when we are able to understand what he’s saying, he will say a lot of funny things.  Right now, he laughs hysterically while he lets out his stream of babbles and points to the (I’m assuming) funny thing he just saw on TV.  But I explained to Darling Angel.  Baby Brother can still be funny, but he will have a nice job…like an Engineer (we’re kind of stuck on that for now).

Now, months later, Darling Angel suddenly declared, “I think Baby Brother will be a fire fighter.”

“No”, I quickly responded.  “He will be an engineer.”

Again, she insisted.  I asked her, “Why don’t you be the fire fighter?”.  To which she responded that she wants to be a doctor, besides, she doesn’t like fire.

“Aha, so what makes you think your brother likes fire?”.  “I think he will be an engineer.  Maybe an aerospace engineer.”

“But mom!  He never said he wants to be a space engineer.  He can’t even say that!”

“Exactly!  Neither did he say he wants to be a fire fighter.  But I think he will like being an engineer.  Or the CEO of a large corporation.” I used the mom prerogative.

I made it a point not to ask him yet, because if I ask him, “What do you want to be?”, I wouldn’t be surprised if he says “Arrgh, pirate!”, his most recent funny phrase, said with a squint in one eye.

Note: I do not have anything against clowns, jesters or fire fighters.  I just want my son to be something else.  I do have something against being a pirate.

While Hubby and I grapple with the news of our daughter’s friend, a six year old girl, suddenly taken by a brain aneurysm, we also dread having to relay the news to our daughter.  Hubby is all for not telling her at all.  We tell her that her friend traveled.  But how long will that hold up when she hears other kids talking about her passing away?  Right now, we have agreed on breaking the news and I’m counting on childhood ignorance to dull the reality when we tell her that her friend has gone to be with Jesus.  However, I plan to delay this as long as possible - until next Saturday, the day before we go to church.

Last night, I picked up one of the books from my “waiting to be read” pile.  The book is Chasing Daylight - How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life by Eugene O’Kelly, former CEO of KPMG.  He wrote the book after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer which claimed his life three and a half months later.  During this time, he shifted his priorities, quit his high-powered job and constant travels and focused on living in the moment and connecting with the people who mattered most to him.  He seemed to embrace his reality and chose not to waste his limited energy on questioning his circumstances.  He decided to live the best 100 days of his life.  His wife finished writing the book when he became too weak and after he passed away, and there, the book transitioned from the joy of living to the strangeness of death.  However, there were some important lessons that I took away (from the joy of living part):

Live in the moment
Enjoy what is happening now and stop obsessing about opportunities you missed yesterday or your hopes for tomorrow.  Definitely plan for tomorrow, but don’t let it compromise your enjoyment of today.   Or your focus for today.  It is amazing how much he was able to achieve in his 100 days and I’m considering setting goals for 3 month increments instead of the usual annual goals.  Also, happiness doesn’t have to wait till something happens tomorrow/someday.  You can find it every single day.

Live at full consciousness
Stop and smell the flowers.  Often we’re rushing from place to place that we fail to appreciate the beauty around us.  Sometimes we’re not rushing but we’re just dulled by routine.  A few weeks ago, I had to pick up theater tickets that I had bought over Craigslist and I was going to meet this lady at a halfway point.  The rendevous location requires me to drive from work along my normal route home, but instead of getting off my usual exit from the highway, I continue for another 6 miles.  As soon as I pass my exit, I notice the beautiful fall foliage of the trees.  It is so beautiful that I feel overwhelmed.  I was also puzzled.  Why the drastic change on this stretch of the highway?  The following day on my usual drive to work, I notice that it is equally breathtakingly beautiful along my normal route - I just hadn’t noticed!

It’s not all about speed
He had an funny story about running in a race with his daughter when she was 9 years old.  When his daughter later boasted to her classmates about how she and her dad had finished the race in 1hr 45mins, another boy boasted that he and his dad had run longer for 2 hrs.  It is a light hearted illustration that carries a significant message.

Channel anger into love
His advice to his brother who was angry at the blow he had been dealt was to channel the anger into love…love for his kids, love for what he has.  This has no logical basis.  His brother did have reason to be angry, but I believe he just meant that it was futile to be angry.  He did say he would willingly take a miracle cure if it presented itself but didn’t see much sense in spending his limited time angry, upset, questioning his situation.  Similarly, those who still have life should use it wisely.  Don’t squander away time being angry, wondering “why?”.  Spend that time loving those you love.

How do you tell your child, not yet 6 years old, that her friend is gone?  How do you tell her that the summer play dates which we could never make time for last summer will now never happen?  That the friend she looks forward to seeing every Sunday in church will no longer be there?  That the tea party they have been planned for months is just that…a plan? 

I can’t remember any other time since I lost my mom that the news of a death has hit me as badly as it did.  A 6 year old girl, healthy, cheerful, full of life.  I’m not particularly close to her parents but admire them from a distance.  But our kids look forward to playing together on Sundays.  “When it’s summer, when school’s out”, we told the kids when they wanted to visit each other’s homes.  Summer came but we were too busy.  Every Sunday, we would mutter a “One of these Saturdays.”  The kids, meanwhile made their plans.  My daughter had a bag packed, ready to go.  It contained doll hairbrushes, some hair accessories, teaspoons and other tea party supplies.  Then summer was over.  “Next summer we’ll do something”, we consoled the kids.  But now, there is no next summer.

A healthy six year old girl.  Bade goodnite to her parents and gone by morning.  Scary…because it reminds you that nobody is immune.  Life is fleeting.  Don’t wait till next summer.

My heart is heavy.  This hurts so much.  But worst of all, I cannot imagine what the parents are going through at this moment.  I pray God gives them the strength to get through it.

Sometime between now and Christmas, there is Thanksgiving, my son turns two and my daughter turns 6.  My daughter has been planning her dream birthday for almost a year.  She didn’t have one last year since we were still recovering from Baby Brother’s first birthday, so we think she we should execute some of her plan this year.  Some.  But my point is, I’m ways off from planning Christmas.  But what better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to enter giveaways. 

5minutesformom is hosting a Christmas Giveaway and I’m salivating for the Veggie Tales collection.  Imagine all the hours of healthy TV I can impose on the kids without them getting bored (the older one is now needing a steady stream of new content to prevent boredom).  And Darling Angel will love love love the Strawberry Shortcake doll and i-dog.

Okay….I’m off to enter into the giveaways rather than just talk about them.

As parents, we need to beware of the danger of too much negative feedback.  It’s so easy to provide immediate feedback when your child does something wrong while staying silent when they do things right.  It is so important to provide positive feedback to your child and enough of it so that when the time comes for the negative feedback, that won’t be the only feedback they’re receiving from you.

Personalities of our children vary and some children may be more susceptible than others.  You know your child best and should pay attention to what they are hearing from you.  Is it helping the child build self confidence or destroying it?  Is it making them better at what they’re doing or is it making them afraid to try?

I thought I was doing okay in this department but I just realized how very easy it is to fail.  “Remind me to get that CD out of the trunk”, I told my 6 year old daughter as we drove to church.  I had cleaned out a lot of junk (CDs included) from the car and dumped them in the trunk for later sorting.  And Baby Brother seemed to be whining for the Backyardigans CD. 

On our way back home, I remembered.  “You didn’t remind me to get that CD out”.  Silence.  Then I glance back and see tears streaming down her eyes.  Alarmed, I ask, “What’s the matter?”

“I’m always forgetting things”, she lamented.  She’s blaming herself for something that is so obviously my fault.  But then, I transferred that blame to her without thinking.  I felt so awful.  What kind of mother am I?  While this incident was completely trivial, I couldn’t help recalling all the times I had just casually dinged her for forgetting something.  “Didn’t I ask you to change into your nightie?”, “You forgot your sweater in class again?”, “I thought I asked you to get a book for your brother?”, “What did I tell you about leaving your shoes in the living room?” etc.  And when she tries to blame me for forgetting something e.g. “Mommy, you forgot to give me a snack today”, I throw it right back, “Well, you should have remembered to ask me.”  Terrible.

Some of the feedback she had received was clearly warranted.  She needs to remember to put her shoes away and not leave them lying anywhere.  And when it’s bedtime, she needs to change to her nightie instead of staying glued to the TV.  But she also needs a praise for the times she’s doing great.  And she does get some but I have to admit that the negative feedback overwhelms it.  Which is unfair because she’s a really great kid and 95% of the time, she is doing just great.  And I take it for granted.  I shouldn’t.

In the car, I tried to play catch up on the praise side.  I reminded her of all the times she’s remembered to tell me what she needs to take to school, she’s hardly ever forgets to pass on her teacher’s instructions, she remembers to put on her seat belt, she remembers rules, she remembers her spellings and how to do her math.  She remembers stuff from years ago, she amazes when she narrates incidents that happened when she was three or four years old.  She’s got an amazing memory and I reminded her of that.  I also reminded her of all the times that I forgot things and she had to remind me.  I reminded her that I also forgot about the CD.  Everybody forgets somethings sometimes, I explained.  By now, she no longer appears upset.

And I’ve learned a valuable lesson in the process.

I’ve been rather impatient for my almost two year old toddler son to talk.  My impatient is partially attributed to expectations set by his older sister who was speaking rather well (as far as memory serves me) at the same age.  Everyone keeps telling me that boys speak later, boys potty train later, but I don’t wish to get into these stereotypes at this time.  However, since we are experiencing a prolonged period of babble-talk with my son, I can’t help marvelling at the sophistication of his ‘language’.

He clearly knows what he wants to say.  And I’m starting to understand a lot of what he says.  But it baffles me that I cannot repeat words the same way he pronounces them.  His consonants are soft, it’s as if they were not even uttered.  Yet they were there.  When he says “Stop it mom”, it’s not quite STOP.  The ST combination is there but different.  It’s uttered so delicately I cannot reproduce the sound.  And that’s what gets me thinking - the fact that I cannot reproduce the sounds he makes.  If my vocal cord is more developed, more advanced, should I not be able to make my advanced sounds as well as the less advanced?  Does advancement make us lose the ability to create delicate sounds that are similar and yet distinct?  Or have we simply lost our ability to listen for these differences, hence lost our ability to generate the sounds?

I don’t know.  But I feel we are born with the ability to generate a much broader array of sounds than we end up with as we grow.  The language spoken around us as kids help us select the sounds we keep and the ones we discard.  These are just idle thoughts that pop in my mind every now and then.  But this morning as I listened to NPR on my drive to work, I heard about a research conducted on new born baby cries in France and Germany.  It was found that the language spoken influenced the way the baby cried.  So at birth, babies were already discriminating in the sounds they made.  Which means the vocal cords at birth are more sophisticated than previously thought.  The research, it appears, was carried out in mono-language environments - French and German.  Where a child is exposed to multiple languages, does this automatically set the child up for a greater degree of variability in sounds he can make?  Kinda makes sense.

As for my son, perhaps I should stop harping on about how he should be talking like the rest of us by now.  And let him enjoy what appears to us as babbles for a little time longer.  Perhaps, when he emerges from his babble phase, he will be emerging with two languages - English and Yoruba - despite my lack of attempt at making sure I propagate Yoruba to my kids.