Do your child have any difficult trying to remember certain chinese words? Actually, a lot of chinese characters are derived from shapes and appearances of objects. It is easlier to associating them with actual form of these objects, making the learning fun and interesting.

I bought these series of books called 字形画 from popular (King of the chinese series published by Arts publishing of singapore pte ltd.) . It helps my child to recognized most commonly used words in her kindergarten age. In this book series (total 3 books), it has about 120 modern pictographic characters- character pictures that are fun to look at the easy to remember.

As parents, this is probably a taboo topic which not many would like to discuss. I am sure that each and every parent would want the “BEST” for their child. Unfortunately, some parents do face problems and require assistance from external parties to resolve their issues with their children. There are many avenues, ie. counselling & psychological services offered in schools, churches, family service centres and etc. where parents can turn to when seeking help for their juvenile delinquents; depending on the severity of their individual problems. However, if all these avenues fail and in the worst case scenarios... What should we as parents do? Let me share with you a personal encounter...

The annual Singapore Primary School Registration Exercise is meant for 6 year old children who are Singaporean Citizens or Permanent Residents to register for Primary One in the following year.  The age of the child eligible for registration is dependent on the calendar year - as long as the child will turn 7 before 2nd Jan of the following year, he/she must be registered in the Registration Exercise of the current year. 

This means that the age difference between the youngest and oldest child in the cohort can be as much as an entire year.

Phases

In the past, DD1 used to take 1hr to finish her food. It was rather exasperating. I decided to implement a "Reward System". Whenever she finishes her food within 30min or less, I will give her a sticker on her chart(which comprises of good attitude towards doing homework, practising piano, taking care of her baby sister, clearing up her room, behaving herself). If she doesnt, she will be given a sad face. Upon getting 60 stickers, she will get a treat like extended TV/game time for a day. 100 stickers will earn her a movie or an excursion.

Just to share my experience so that parents can take note also.

I currently have a few P6 students whom I'm giving private tuition to and this incident is about another tutor whom the parents of one student hired as additional help to the child.

From what the parents and student tell me, this tutor is a young tutor who is doing her diploma currently. She claims that she is very good in Maths and can teach the student 'shortcuts' to answering questions. She goes to their place on weekends to help the child with work that he does not understand.

My wonderful, creative and active 21-month-old son absolutely adores books. Every night when we reach home, he will quickly walk into my room to take his books. We will sit together – he flips the pages while I read to him. This makes me extremely happy. It’s a good bonding time for us. 

It seems to me that the most common reason given by most parents for not exercising is that they are too busy with their children and cannot afford the time. This makes regular exercise a challenge for everyone especially parents. I understand that it can be difficult to find the time to juggle work, parenting, housework and regular exercise especially during the school holidays when the children spends more time at home.