BRINGING UP OUR CHILD - OUR SHARING

By Cynthia & Eric

Many parents use to say the first child is always the "guinea pig". It was indeed a challenging journey for us especially we often question ourselves if we are doing the right thing, doing enough, not enough, too much etc. for our children.

When we realize our eldest daughter Danielle has some learning issues and as any parent, the reaction is panic and acted on that feeling - that is to find a tutor, buy assessment books, sign up for enrichment classes, etc. Deep down we are also hoping that she will somehow overcome the difficulty herself and 'want to study'. We are always hoping for a miracle. When her result didn't get any better, our anxiety increases.

Yes, our key was 'doing'. We never gave her and ourselves the chance of 'being'. We never see her as Danielle but just someone who needs to excel in some way to meet the society standard and approval. Our expectations were to make her meet her school's expectations. We judged that if the school's expectation is met we will be happy. We judged if our daughter is in the top 10 girls in class we will be satisfied and proud instead of being disappointed. We didn't like the feelings of disappointment and ashamed. So we push her to meet our expectations.

Often we blamed ourselves as parents for not doing enough when she was younger. The guilt increases more when both of us are working hence no time for her. This guilt manifests itself in the form of scolding, blaming and even caning at home. Of course it didn't help at all. In fact it decreases her self-esteem day by day. It comes to a point when simply do not respond to our scolding and caning and would just kept quiet. There was even a time when we wonder if our child is an ADHD dreamer which resulted in her disability to study. We brought her for tests and counselling in hoping that it will 'change' her. There was even a time when we wanted to give it all up and ready to throw in the towel. Everybody at home felt very miserable.

It was at a talk "Why my child don't want to study?" that we came to know Morning Star and decided to seek counselling. Through counselling we discover we can never change her because we never accepted her the way she is. Instead of seeing the goodness in her we concentrated too much on her flaws and shortcomings. Although deep in us we know she is a good and caring child who is well-behaved, we never make a point to affirm her. We are too result oriented and were caught in the rat race. We allowed ourselves to be programmed that if our children do not excel academically in school there is no place for them in our society especially in Singapore. We are constantly trying to meet up to the school's standards, country's standards, neighbour's standards, relatives' standards that in the end left us totally disillusioned, disorientated and frustrated. We never really live our lives and never really discover who we are and in the end never see our child as she really is.

Yet God has proven us wrong and with His wisdom He guides us to see the goodness in our child. We learnt to see the uniqueness in her and finally the acceptance. Each day we try to remember to affirm her for everything she did. Even if she improves by one mark we affirmed her. We learn to constantly see her creativity rather than her meeting our expectations. In other words, we learn to change ourselves instead of trying to change her. When she realizes she was no longer being judged, she is more relax and more open instead of living in fear. When she relaxes she began to enjoy learning. Her confidence makes her gradually believe that she can do it.

When Danielle was P5 and had wanted to join the handbells ensemble in school, we were a little concern as to whether she has time for her studies because attending practices will take 2 afternoons or more a week. As parents, we dialogue about it and since we decided that no matter what her results would be she is still our daughter and love her, we decided to let her go ahead. We gave our support by attending her all handbells performance. It was her participation that we really saw how happy she was especially when her school won the gold medal in the competition. She felt a sense of achievement to be part of the winning team which helped her try her best in academics as well.

Gradually Danielle began to do self-study without our prompting. She would even stayed up late to do extra work. We can see she was trying though it was still a struggle for her. Before her P5 exam results were out, we already prepared ourselves for the worst and decided that those no matter what her results were we will not show any disappointment and would just give our affirmation the best we can. True enough she barely pass her subjects and in fact failed two of her subjects and one of them was Maths. She was expecting a big scolding from us but instead we told her we are proud that she tried and struggled and that's all that matters. She broke down and cried.

Danielle continue to struggle and though there are times we as parents are worried and still hoping that she will do well enough to qualify for her affiliated school, we didn't voice out but instead we just keep encouraging her to do her best. We didn't want to put pressure on her about the school we were hoping she will go to. We often communicate with her form teacher and tutor via email to keep apprised of her well-being in school and whether she was happy and getting along well with her peers. Her teachers were surprised as most parents were more interested in knowing the marks of their girls. We were encouraged when her form teacher says she is happier now and really tried very hard in class and continue to keep the communication line open. We will also make a point to tell Danielle of what her teacher had said.

After the PSLE exams, the waiting for the results were a torment. But we kept reminding ourselves that no matter happens we will tell Danielle she is still our daughter and it did not matter if she goes to the school of her first choice. What is more important is she had tried her level best and that's what matters. Danielle didn't get into her affiliated school but instead the neighbouring school of her second choice doing Normal Tech. She was disappointed and cried as she was ashamed she didn't go to her affiliated school and that she ended up in Normal Tech. She felt this is where hopeless kids with bad behaviour will go to that class. I told her perhaps it's a blessing in disguise and it is not the class or the studies that makes a person good or bad. She has a choice to be good or bad if she chooses her friends wisely. Normal Tech might be better for her in coping with her studies. I told her both her daddy and I believe in her and confident that she will make the right choice in choosing the right friends.

Now, Danielle not only tops her class 3 years in a row, she was also a monitor in her class. During the parent teacher meeting her teachers would speak highly of her as being a responsible and mature person. It was also her caring and compassionate nature that she got along very well with her hearing impaired peers and even learnt sign language to communicate with them.

Being top in her class also means every year she would receive her scholarship award from MOE. Every year for the last three years whenever we see her walking up the stage to receive her award from the Minister, we were so overwhelmed with joy that bring tears to our eyes.

Our decision to change ourselves as parents and not to focus on results has resulted in her success. Yes, to change was painful because of our pride. But I will always remember Albert Einstein's quote "Definition of insanity is the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." He also says "Imagination is more important than knowledge." We need to change to see different results and imagination is what makes us recognise that a 90 upon 100 does not makes a person whole.

We also learnt that in order for our children to survive in this society, they have to carry their own baggage and sometimes they have to fight they own battles. They have to learn make their own decisions whether it is right or wrong and it comes with consequences. James Stenson once said: we have to teach our children to be independent, not just to learn to look after themselves only but also those around them and that they wanted to."

It was indeed a revelation for us and instead of focusing too much on school results, we began to teach them about attitudes, morals and how to live a fruitful and fulfilling lives and that everything they do will have consequences. We focused on learning as a whole person.

We are thankful for Morning Star who journeyed with our family during our most challenging times. Our journey will not end here. Our children are still growing, life evolves or dissolves nothing stays the same. Every moment is a discovery and a constant learning experience and our perseverance is a love that bonds us as a family.

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