The Power of Words!

After becoming a parent, I have been reading and attending relevant talks on parenting from time to time. One very important tip that I want to share here is about the words we use to communicate to our children.

For Asians especially, we tend to be overly modest and reserved in expressing our feelings. It is not our tradition / culture to receive and give compliments. But in order to be good parents, we need to "evolve" to prevent becoming a dinosaur or an antique!

A few key points I want to highlight here:

• Be generous in praising your children. This will build up their confidence and self esteem. Praise their good behavior instead of criticizing their bad behavior in front of your friends! The former is constructing while the latter is devastating! If you keep saying and telling them that they are stupid, they will believe it and will become stupid! It works the same way for the compliments! If you keep telling them that they are very well-behaved (of course by focusing on the good behavior that they exhibit), it will reinforce their good behavior.

• Focus on the positive, not the negative. You can see a glass filled with 50% water as "half full" instead of "half empty". Recall the time when your child was learning to walk, did you scold him when he fell down, or did you encourage him to try again, and praise him on every single step he managed to make? Use the same approach even after they grow up. When they come home with their less-than-perfect test results from school, first, focus on the effort they have made to gain the marks they have obtained, then only discuss what can be done to improve further. Focus on the solution, not the problem. Certainly, it is not easy to control our temper and "disappointment" in this situation, but it is not impossible.

• Use positive words to reinforce. Do you often say the word "Don't" to your child? "Don't run!" "Don't touch!" "Don't climb!" "Don't make noise!" Do these sound familiar? A better way of communicating this is to avoid using negation words especially to young children. This is because the moment you say "Don't think of a pink elephant", a pink elephant will first come into our mind! Instead, use phrases like "Stop there." "Wait. " "Stand still." "Keep quiet." "Keep your voice low." or suggest other activities they can do other than climbing/running.

• When you have to say "No" to the child, explain further under what condition you will say "Yes", or explain why it is a No. For example, "Can I have an ice cream?", "Yes, after we finish our dinner." "Can I watch TV?", "Yes, after you finish your homework." "Can I smoke?" "No, it is bad for health and cause cancer." "Can I steal?" "No, it is wrong because..."

• Express your love, verbally and through body language. This is probably the biggest barrier for Asians as again, it is not in "our blood". Start doing it at infant stage and just keep on doing it. With our young children, we hug and kiss them, but somehow we stop doing it as they grow up. We just need to continue some physical contact as they grow up. 

I hope that the above can help me to maintain a close relationship with my children even after they grow up. Ultimately, success in life is not measured by test results, profession, status nor wealth, is it?

SAHM (stay-at-home-mum) vs. Working Mum

As a graduate, I had never thought about quitting my job for my family before I had kids. However, like many other mothers, I went through the stage of a dilemma considering whether I should quit my job and be a full time stay-at-home-mother(SAHM). Due to some circumstances, I stopped working for about a year each for both my kids and eventually returned to work. In that sense, I was lucky to have the opportunity to experience both roles.

From my experience, as a working mother, juggling between family and career is always challenging. The most difficult part is to find a good and reliable caretaker to look after the kids while at work. Next comes the problem of housework - the main being meal preparation, laundry and cleaning the house. A lot of women choose to quit their job due to the former - they believe that they are the best caretaker of their kids - which is true but only to a certain extend. I believe that every individual is different and not everyone is "suitable" to be a homemaker. Some women are very efficient in their job but not so efficient when they stay at home. For them, it may be better to leave their children to an experienced caretaker while they go to work. The housework portion can be solved by either hiring manpower or using more automated machines.

To me, SAHM equals to supermom! It is a job without pay that one cannot leave behind "after working hours"! It is both physically and mentally draining, especially when one takes care of very young chlidren. It is not easy to feel "job satisfaction" and "sense of achievement" as the results are intangible and there is no instant reward. Besides, the financial pressure is there as one is not generating income and thus needs to be more careful with the expenditure. A capable SAHM is "expected" to be able to prepare meals and do most of the housework while taking care of the children, which is not easy if the young children cling on to you and you lack experience on how to handle them. The most irritating part is that people think it is a very easy job and you have a lot of free time! Salute to all the SAHMs!

I do believe that SAHM is good for the kid if the mum enjoys this job and is able to manage the stress. If you are the type who cannot "let go" of your children to another caregiver, it is better off for you to stay at home (provided that you can afford it) as you will be thinking about your children while at work and cannot do your job well. However, if you cannot let go of your career, there is no point for you to stay at home, have a miserable life and in the future regret giving up your career. There is no right or wrong. In either case, you may feel guilty - when I was an SAHM, at times, I felt guilty for not fully utilizing my capability to contribute to the society.

Consider all the pros and cons. Once you make up your mind, execute your plan and look forward. If you choose to work, try to leave behind your children while you are at work, and leave behind your work when you are at home. Make an effort to spend "quality" time with your kids. If you are an SAHM, make an effort to have some time for yourself, a short break away from the children/family to recharge yourself. Remember, parenting is a long journey. At any time, you can still change your mind. :)

Recommended Reading: Personality Plus

I read this book Personality Plus for Parents by Florence Littauer in a confinement center after I delivered my first baby. I found it so interesting that I bought myself a copy and read it from time to time.

This book explains 4 major types of personality: Sunny Sanguine, Controlling Choleric, Meticulous Melancholy, and Pleasant Phlegmatic. Each personality represents a unique character, and each pair of personality (whether similar or different) when being put together creates a different type of relationship. The book touches on the possible scenarios and challenges, focusing specifically on parenting (right from the infancy stage) and cites many good examples.

As the name suggests, Sunny Sanguine is popular; s/he is the extrovert, the talker, the optimist. People who belong to this group long for attention and approvals, look for fun, excitement and hate dull tasks and routines. They are good in charming their parents and negotiating.

Controlling Choleric is the "commander" who is always strong-willed and wants his/her way followed. Decisive and stubborn, they tend to focus on getting things done, and may offend others. They are self-confident, aggressive and responsible.

Meticulous Melancholy is the perfectionist with high standards. They are generally the deep thinkers and good students. Dutiful and responsible, they are sensitive to others and may get depressed more easily.

Pleasant Phlegmatic is the least demanding of all. They are very compromising and mediate problems to avoid trouble. They have a casual attitude and tend to procrastinate.

By reading this book, I was able to identify the personality of my family members and understand better why they act in a certain way in some situations. As parents, it is good to
- understand our children's weaknesses and help them manage those weaknesses,
- know what to watch out as the children grow up,
- master the skills to effectively communicate with them,
- learn how to "tick" with them, and
- find out how to manage the similarity and differences between us.
As a result, we can better guide our children to the "correct" path.

We should accept our children as who they are and not forcing them to become like us. I believe that a healthy relationship between a parent and a child is a loving one with mutual understanding, trust and respect. I hope my children will always share with me their thoughts and problems they face. I am not trying to help them solve all their problems (sometimes they need to learn by themselves) but in the least I can be their listener and share their joy and pain together. I would want to be a friend my children can always turn to.

I highly recommend this book to parents who want to understand their children more and maintain a close relationship with them.

Love and respect are the most important prospects in any relationships (Jodie Foster).

My Toddler's Crying Problem

My 2-year-old little girl had been a little difficult to handle lately. She cried easily, day and night. It was disturbing especially during midnight, whereby she just burst into loud cries shouting "papa" or "mama" once she realized that neither of us were sleeping beside her, and it was difficult to calm her down and put her back into sleep without one of us being fully awake. Certainly, this had disturbed our sleep. Our tiredness due to lack of sleep had led to some other problems like lower tolerance level of her wrong actions - when she did something wrong and we punished her she started crying again... The cycle repeated and we could not break it...

I have been wondering if this can be due to the fact that I have recently returned to work after being a homemaker for 1 year plus. At first we did not think it was a big change to her because she has been attending a full day childcare for 9 months and all along she has been doing well. However, after the 3-day long weekend (with a public holiday), I noticed that she has been behaving well and I realized that what she wanted was more attention from the parents! She probably has felt the changes after I started working. Naturally, I feel tired at night after returning from work and have less energy and time to spend with her. Furthermore, I still need to do a little housework, and give some attention to the elder brother who is entering primary school next year, monitoring his progress in school related work. Sometimes I also need a break to watch TV / surf Internet, which doesn't make her feel very happy. Another big change for her is probably that I no longer take her to school every morning. Usually I leave home before she even got up. Although she is very attached to the father, she probably needs me around as well.

My girl had actually been very well behaved since birth, especially compared to the brother, who was a very difficult infant. (Nevertheless he has turned out to be one of the best behaved kids among his friends and makes us really proud of him.) She made little noises when she was hungry, seldom gave problems at night, slept early at night and slept through the nights from an early age. Sometimes when she woke up at 7am, she did not even cry to wake us up; she just stayed quiet by herself unless she was very hungry. As she grew into a toddler, her words always made us laugh, and she knows what to say at the right timing to melt our heart. :) So there must be a reason for her to cry - which I thought could be feeling insecure. Her cries during midnight may be due to nightmares as we punish or spank her during the day. (Well, some older people believe that this phenomena is caused by the disturb of some ghosts/spirits, but I prefer to look at it logically.)

Now the challenge is how I can keep up her good behavior during weekdays. I may need to boost my physical stamina by exercising more and taking supplements, or get someone to help with housework so that I can give her more attention at nights. Although sometimes I feel so sleepy and can't attend to her, I believe that my love to her will give me power to stay stronger... and help her go through this stage of hurdle. Pray for us!

Recommended Reading: The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

I was reading this book again - The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, and I decided to share out with you here. Although this book primarily focuses on reviving spouse relationship, the underlying theory can be applied to any relationships, including parent-child relationship. Besides, I believe that good, loving relationship between the parents lays the foundation of a happy family, which is important for the children.

To summarize, all of us express love in many different ways, and this can be categorized into the following "five love languages" - Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. Out of five, we have one (or two) "primary" language in which we express our love primarily using that language. We also perceive love from others more easily when it is expressed with our primary language. When two parties speak different languages, they cannot feel the love from each other no matter how hard they try. Understanding and learning the primary language of the other party (be it our spouse or child) enables us to express our love much more effectively and enhance the relationship. It also reduces the feeling and misunderstanding that the other party doesn't love us.

A person whose primary love language is Words of Affirmation loves to hear positive words of encouragement, appreciation and praising in order to feel loved.

A person whose primary love language is Quality Time needs undivided attention. It means setting some specific time for activities together like talking(no TV in between!), going for a walk, picnic, playing games etc.

A person whose primary love language is Receiving Gifts enjoys the excitement of receiving gifts and values the gifts. It does not have to be something expensive as long as it comes with a thought. It can be handmade, it can also be intangible like your presence at some occasions.

Acts of Service includes doing house chores, running errands and helping with anything that the other party values.

Physical Touch could be hugs, kisses, holding hands, a pat on the shoulder etc.

Sometimes we may do everything to express our love but miss out the primary language of the other party, and just because of that the other party will perceive that we don't love him/her! Thus it is important to understand and speak the love language of the person you love so that you can communicate your love effectively and build a loving relationship.

Obviously from a short passage I can only tell you a little about this book's content. I strongly recommend this book as it surely is a very good resource to improve relationships. It's very easy to read and you will not be able to take your hands off the book once you started. :) You can also check out other variations of this book including "The Five Love Languages of Children" and "The Five Love Languages of Teenagers", which are more specific and related to the topic parenting. Happy reading!