faizis

enrichment,transformers and revenge of a kid that got denied

when i first became a mother, i was initially unsure and not confident of myself and my parenting style. if you read my earlier entries, i grappled with a few issues such as SAHM versus working mom..and fret on my decisions such as putting him in childcare at such an early age. what is more confusing are the differing sometimes conflicting opinions and advice on what i should or should not do most times from well meaning family members and friends or from articles and books by the experts.

three years later, i cant say i have it all figured out..but i have learnt that there is no one prescribed ‘method’ or ‘way’ to raise our kids. they dont come with manuals and the aren’t models for us to experiment on. what i am feeling now, and yes…i think parenting involve alot of the head and the heart…a lot of it can be based on intuition and responding to the cues given by our child. and it is just not that alone. i prescribe to sensible parenting. sensible parenting involves the head. this arise from the desire to raise a kid who will become a sensible and well-functioning adult. so my parenting style is a mix of trying to be sensible and trying to respond to my son’s cues.

and boy, was i tested of this today.

as i had blogged earlier, we had signed arshad up for speech and drama enrichment. i decided that we shall go for this together as i want him to develop better communication skills and gain more confidence interacting in groups. today was the fourth lesson. for the past three lessons, arshad normally would require a few minutes to warm up but with some encouragement, it would go on pretty smoothly thereafter with him interacting actively and responding well to the teacher..

today, we had a bad run. we went in and he gave me nasty glare and eyed the door when the lesson began. when i pull him towards me to join the activity, he ran behind the curtain to hide..shouted out “So Noisy” when the teacher read out loud and asked the class to repeat. we tried to get him to participate and to encourage him. i carried him forward for an activity.which he did reluctantly. the teacher taking it as a positive sign and wanting to encourage him, took a sticker out for him..but my cranky boy still had other things on his mind and in his foul mood, took the sticker reluctantly..he still wanted to vent his bottled up frustration and his hands in some sort of reflex action to address his unhappiness, swung and landed with smack on my face.

yes, i got smacked by my own kid infront of other mommies and their kids. it was like a stinging rebuke..my face turned red instantly. revenge of the fallen? how could that happen? it was like a moment of shame? a petulant ill behaved child resulting from bad parenting?

i could say he is normally not like that (he isnt)..
we could walk out and appease him. we could stay and risk having other parents to believe that i am forcing my child to be there against his will.

was i? yes, perhaps i was. right before and during the most part of class all he had on his mind was “TRANSFORMER CAR.” teacher asked the kids to act out an animal. he went to tell the teacher he wanted to be a “TRansformer”. he kept asking when he could go to toysr’us to get a transformer. he kept saying he wanted a toy. so i WAS forcing him to stay in the class.

i had made the mistake of wandering around the mall and walking pass toys r’us before the lesson.

it was embarrasing but i take it as a ‘teachable moment’ for me. i could have done a lot of things after that. i could have read his cues and demands, and bought him a transformer car to shut him up. or we could go out of the class since he wasnt going to enjoy the class. make me look like a better parent if he could just shut whining. but i see another need for him to learn…and live with being denied. seriously, his behaviour isnt much different from the boys i see sometimes who have bad days in schools, who get moody…but hey, they still have to go through what they need to go through as we see the benefits of him going for this. we know he enjoys it but it just so happens that this is one of those bad days. because he had something else on his mind which was much more appealing than speech and drama.

different kids have different personalities and temperaments. some parents can just wait for the cues and respond by guiding their kids, and they will blossom. my son needs me to be a guide as well as a cheerleader. of course all kids need parents to be their cheerleaders, at varying degree. i know he is only a lil kid, but i do know he sometimes gives himself excuses and self-defeating thoughts..he doesnt need me to force him do things but he needs me to cheer him on, nudge him in the right direction. some parts of this had been really tough for me. i get my dosage of mommy guilt trips. i am made to feel like a bad parent. exasperated one at that.

but i think, i am pretty sure what i want to achieve and i have faith in my kid. we all should. it’s not easy, it’s tougher at some parts for some of us (in getting them to school, in getting them to live less with tv or video games, or sit down to some bookwork when it’s time to), but it’s something which we should stick with it if we are clear of what is needed to be done. alot of that for me depends on my understanding of our child, our faith in them and our beliefs. with a dose of sensible parenting. yes, a lot of head work and heart there.

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

and we never got to toys r’ us or got him a transformer car today. he whined about it after class. i went straight to the carpark, we drove off and few kilometres later..distracted by the traffic, transformers was soon forgotten by the boy.