Life in Carpe Diem Kidz@Royal Road

When we first signed up for our son, we were really worried that he may not adapt to the environment. After hearing those stories that kids will cry, cry for many months, some will have nightmare, and etc... Sometimes, I really wonder whether my son will be the same. As for today, this will be his second week in school. The outcome was directly opposite. Check out these pictures.

Son, I'm proud of you. kekeke....

5 Important Books in a Child's Life

Here are the five books, translated into English:

1. Book of Filial Piety
2. The Analects of Confucius
3. Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing or The Book of Ethics
4. Sun Tzu Art of War
5. I-Ching

5 Important Books in a Child's Life

和谐社会从和谐家庭开始，从培养和谐的孩子，从每一个孩子一生一定要读的五本书开始。 如果中国的孩子要有创新意识，诵读是最好的教育方法之一，现在的教育过分强调答案，我们知道有答案就有标准，有标准就有模式，有模式就有教条，有教条的话思维就受到约束，不会创新。 
每一个孩子就应该象天上的恒星一样，家长应该让孩子找到自己的运动轨迹，而不是盲目的被吸引. 
每一个孩子一生一定要读的五本书”是属于课题研究中的素质教育部分，一个孩子是不是教育成功我们不是看他分数或者考上大学，而是看孩子是不是和谐，和谐是孩子最成功的教育，一个和谐的孩子表现在与家庭、社会、自然、金钱以及人生哲学思想的和谐。 如果这五大方面和谐了，这个孩子的人生应该是幸福的，事实上我们的整个社会也和谐了。 
人和家庭最好的书是《孝经》，因为家庭的和谐最重要是孝顺父母，西方教育孩子童年象天堂一样，中年在忙碌中进行，而到了晚年则进了养老院。西方人强调的是“爱”，而东方人在爱的基础上更有孝这个字。 
人和社会最好的书是《论语》，相信和韩国、日本的朋友打过交道的都知道，他们大多数都非常注重礼节，因为他们从小读就诵读《论语》。 论语》是孔子与其弟子的语录结集，儒家重要经典之一。 结集工作是由孔子门人及再传弟子完成的。 
现在我们人类太要强了，但最后伤害的只是我们自己，因此我们要教育孩子学会和自然的和谐，那么这本最好的书就是我们中国老子留下来的《道德经》。 老子的《道德经》，其精炼的九九八十一章，仅以简洁优美的五千文字，洋洋洒洒深邃博大地，构造出了一个朴素、自然、豁达、飘逸的宇宙观、人生观、方法论的宏大框架。 
现在人类的城市化肯定会影响地球磁场运动的平衡，读《道德经》让我们了解自然之道，可以让我们人类更好的和自然和谐存在。 
其实和商业的和谐也是很重要的，因此也应该给孩子读商业方面的书籍。《孙子兵法》是中国古代的兵书，作者为春秋末年的齐国人孙武。 全书为十三篇，是孙武初次见面赠送给吴王的见面礼，事见司马迁《史记》：“孙子武者，齐人也，以兵法见吴王阖闾。 
商场如战场，世界首富比尔盖茨，亚洲首富孙正毅都在看《孙子兵法》，事实上，商业如果处理和谐并不会如你说的出现这样的事情。 
最好的哲学书籍不是黑格尔的，也不是马克思的，而是来自七千年前人类智慧结晶《易经》。 舒云涛早期教育研究的“生命教育科学教育”就是来自《易经》为哲学基础，知识经济就是变化快，因此学校教育一直在“变易”，而我研究的新经济家庭教育体系则是强调家长抓住“不易”的教育，同时考虑到家长工作比较忙，我们还尽量能帮家长找到一种“简易”的教育方法在家庭中教育孩子，这就应用了《易经》中“不易、变易、简易”的概念。 
古人说：不读易者不能为将相，无论在预测、风水、中医、军事、科学、宇宙等领域都离不开《易经》这一本书，因此我真的是拜托家长一定要让孩子去读这一本书，别说这么多涉及，就当哲学书来读就好。 

Supporting a method

There are so many enrichment programs and so many pre-schools with different kind of programs. However, before we enroll a child into any of such programs, have we ever ask ourselves, can we support the program or the methods being taught?

As an IT trained guy, I always treat it like buying a software. Here are the processes:

1) Explore/Research: You go out to find various softwares to suit the business. You go out to find  various programs for your child.

2) Pre-sales: You invite vendors to present their solution. You attend trial programs to understand the classes or the methods further.

3) Proposal: You invite selected vendor to submit proposals. You want to understand their pricing, maintenance and support. As a parent, you will start collecting information such as school/programs fees, their schedules and what a parent should do to support the program.

4) Sales: You purchase the solution. You sign up for the class.

5) Maintenance & support: The solution provider starts to provide software maintenance and support based on contract signed. As a parent, we will have to do our part to start providing support for the child  after each class.

Now here's my point. A lot of parents are not ready for point no.5. To them, after attending the class is the end of it. If that is the case, I think you are not doing justice for your child and to you.

Here are some examples:

1) If your child is attending Shichida, you are supposed to do homework with your child. I have known friends who find it too tough and dropout from the class. This is a good example of point no.5. I have also heard of friends who told me Shichida is like GUG or JG. In my heart, are you sure? Did you do your research? 


2) Glenn Doman flash cards. you are supposed to follow a time table to do flash cards with your child. You are supposed to do it in a fun way, twice a day. It won't take up more than 5 mins of your time. However, I have friends telling me it is too tedious. Some of them told me that their child is not getting it. To me, the problem is they have not followed the basic principle. Accept the child is smarter than us. Once we accept this fact, the GD methods will work beautifully.


3) Montessori. I have friends who always ask me. What is this huh? They asked me because my son is attending a Mandarin-based Montessori class every Saturday although he had stopped now. I find a lot of parents are not ready to support it. I have seen parents in the class raising their voice to their kids to achieve their wants. This is totally absurd. I have also seen parents want their children to do the activities that they think is best for them, not what the kids want. This is totally against the principle behind it. Have the teachers explained to them? The answer is yes. Do the parents get it? No idea. To me, every Saturday they acted the same way.


There are many more but I shall not describe further. Basically this is my message. If you would like to sign up for a class or a program for your child, do some research. Understand what it is all about. Ensure you have the time and resources to support it. If not, that is probably not the one for you even it is the best in town.   

From now till 3, they are egocentric.

Last Saturday, teacher Ng, or I fondly called her 黄老师, told one of the mum that boys at these age are egocentric. What does that mean?

1. They live in their own World
2. They won't listen to your instructions
3. They may or may not interact with other kids

Hence, at times, there is no point getting kids to do what we want them to do. In fact, now is the stage to encourage them to do simple stuffs like putting things back, saying hi and etc...

And this reminds me of this book called "Scream free parenting." There is no point screaming at our kids to get them to do what we want them to do. Here's another simple example. One of the mummies kept on raising her voice to ask her child to do this, to do that. Does it work? Of course it doesn't. So the next question is, why do we a lot of parents kept on using the same formula that doesn't work? Is it because they don't have other formulas to work with? Maybe???

However, one thing I do know is this. There is no point shouting or raising voice. Instead, stay calm. Provide the child with a positive environment. Always say yes. Focus on the activities that we want them to do, rather than saying no, which is meaningless to them.

Here's another example.

If a child is climbing, instead of saying "no climbing", says "come down please." Isn't this more meaningful?

Get your kid ready for Primary 1 from Asiaone.

http://edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/news/schoolnews/521896/Get_your_kid_ready_for_Primary_1.html

Sending to pre-school

Last Saturday was my son's last class at CS. So, I took the chance to ask the teacher about sending him to pre-school.

Her advices are as follows:

1) Kids between 2 to 3 language sensitivity is at peak. She mentioned this to me before. So, he will learn the good and bad quickly.

2) Kids going to preschool will learn good and bad behaviour. There is always two sides of a coin. However, the challenge is kids between 2 to 3 will be more difficult to correct them as they have not learnt what is right or wrong.

3) Her advice is better to send kids to pre-school after 3 rather than before 3.

4) Parents accompanied are fine.

5) Kids will tend to have bad dreams and etc... when they go to preschool. This is true as one of his classmates, who is 3 years, is currently having nightmare every other night. This is the feedback from his father.

My son is currently with his nanny and I just don't want him to be there not learning anything. Not kiasu, but at least give him a more learning environment.